October 22nd, 1997 to October 28th, 1997

National Roundup

by P.J. Engelbrecht

Pa. Mennonite congregation ousted for accepting gays
The Germantown Mennonite Church, the denomination's oldest congregation in North America, has been expelled from the denomination "for accepting gays and lesbians," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Delegates from 52 other congregations in the Franconia Conference (the Philadelphia region) by "special mail ballot" voted 178-40 to rescind the ministerial credentials of Pastor Richard Lichty, effective Jan. 1. Approximately 10-15% of the congregation's 120 members are openly gay.

Hearing of the rescindance, gay Germantown church member Ken White requested that Donella Clemens, the regional moderator bearing the ill tidings "escort him to the door of the historic 1770 meetinghouse to 'cast [him] out of The Mennonite Church and body of Christ,' " as observers described it. Although Clemens first refused to do so, congregants insisted that church leaders have "a duty to accept the implications of their actions," whereupon Clemens escorted White to the church door "as a representative of the 81% of delegates" approving expulsion of lesbians and gays. Then Lichty, too, was ceremonially 'expelled' by Clemens. Rev. Lichty himself is not gay, but he described the day of the ouster as the worst of his ministry.

Clemens described her ultimate role in the expulsions of White and Lichty as surprising and "very painful." She explained that the ouster vote to "terminate" the Germantown congregation's membership in the Elkhart, Ind.-based denomination was "in no way meant to say [gay members] are not fully Christian," but that presently, the delegates disagreed with the congregation "on the morality of monogamous same-sex relationships." Although the 96,000-member Mennonite Church is socially progressive, pacifist, evangelical, and "traditional" in Scriptural interpretation, "it adopted a position ... explicitly forbidding homosexual relations" in 1987. The second largest General Conference Mennonite denomination, based in Newton, Kan., has a similar policy, but has not yet retracted Lichty's credentials: Germantown belongs to both Mennonite groups, which are planning to merge in 1999.

Penn. court considering whether lesbian sex is adultery
When Bucks County, Penn., resident "Melanie," 27, left her husband and the former couple obtained a "no-fault" divorce, the woman was awarded $500 per month in alimony and spousal support. "Melanie" has custody of the pair's three children, and her ex pays just $664 a month in child support-and her new lesbian lover also has three kids. Her (former) husband appealed the award; because "Melanie" had left him for a woman, he argued she "wasn't entitled to spousal support because she committed adultery," according to the Philadelphia Daily News. The woman's lawyer, Rosalie Davies, hopes to set precedent by arguing that lesbian sex cannot qualify as adultery because "without penile penetration, there can be no adultery."

She cites a variety of dictionaries and legal texts to support her contention that adultery must fall under the heading of "sexual intercourse" and that such sex requires a penis.

Though the implication seems to be that lesbian sex practices are somehow "second-class," Davies argues that "the law can't have it both ways" by preventing lesbians from having legal (marital) relationships "and then require they pay the same price as those who do."

However, Davies' argument does not apply equally well for gay men and their potentially "adulterous" sex practices.

Bucks County Common Please Judge Michael Kane would not hear Davies' argument during a Sept. 4 hearing and "declined to certify the case for appeal." Davies is appealing Kane's ruling. Even the ex-husband's lawyer, Patricia Gordon agrees Davies' case is not frivolous, since the state law does not define adultery in specific terms. Besides, she currently represents four other men whose spouses also left them for 'the other woman.' Gordon believes the situation is an important "emerging issue," and that "this case has all the makings to go to the [state] Supreme Court."

P-FLAG head resigns
Sandra Gillis, executive director of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG), resigned Oct. 16 in the wake of an internal report describing the organization as being in a "state of crisis," the Washington Blade reported Friday. P-FLAG's Regional Directors Council had called for Gillis' resignation in August, when they tendered an official grievance to the board of directors, charging Gillis with financial mismanagement, violation of the bylaws, and failure to support local affiliates. Similar complaints from the membership included charges that under Gillis, P-FLAG "had moved away from the organization's mission of providing direct support to parents and families of Gays ... [and] was pursuing more political advocacy work."

A 60% drop in attendance at the September annual meeting in Orlando underscored the concerns. Gillis admitted that recent months had been "difficult," but explained her departure by saying her work with the group had been accomplished. P-FLAG is among the ten largest gay-rights groups in the US.

Schindler killer hearing held
The Naval Clemency and Parole Board in Washington, D.C., held a scheduled hearing Oct. 8 to consider Terry Helvey's petition for a sentence reduction. Helvey was convicted and sentenced to life for murdering his shipmate Allen Schindler when the men were based in Japan. Charles Vins also participated in the crime.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network reports that "Helvey has admitted ... his sole motive was that he believed Schindler to be gay." Schindler's family was represented at the hearing, which is required by naval law, by Kirk Childress of the SLDN, who said the family urged that Helvey's clemency petition be denied. He presented the review board with 4,000 signatures to a petition that Helvey be required to serve his full life sentence. Schindler's mother, Dorothy Hajdys-Holman, intends to collect a million signatures before the year 2002, when Helvey first comes up for parole.

The Board's "decision on whether or not to reduce Helvey's sentence is expected in the next 2-3 weeks." For copies of the petition, e-mail sldn@sldn.org or call SLDN at (202)328-3244, <http://www.sldn.org/schindler_petition2.html>

Medical news in brief...
A fifth of all Americans over age 12 have contracted the virus which causes genital herpes, UPI reports, which represents an over-30% increase "since the last national study in the late 1970s." The sexually transmitted virus is incurable, and it has spread despite anti-AIDS safe-sex messages. A life-long infection by herpes "can cause painful blisters or sores, but is most dangerous to newborns. About 90% of those infected are unaware they have the virus," which can be spread by kissing, touching and any form of sexual activity.

The ACLU released a report Friday arguing that identifying HIV/AIDS patients by name in case reporting "would undermine both public health and civil liberties." ACLU AIDS Project staff attorney Michael Adams, an author of the document, said "Proponents of aggressive HIV surveillance are shooting themselves in the foot by advocating name reporting, because doing so will shrink the pool of people who would get tested for HIV. ... In other words, HIV name reporting sacrifices privacy and jeopardizes public health." An ACLU study showed more than 60% of HIV test-takers would not have been tested if it meant a positive result would be reported to public health officers; HIV+ persons could face discrimination for which little legal remedy exists, as courts have ruled the ADA does not cover asymptomatic HIV+ people. Yet the Centers for Disease Control announced in September that it would help states "in establishing and conducting HIV surveillance programs," and some prestigious medical authors also support such programs. The ACLU favors using "an alternative unique identifier" over reporting individual names.

The co-discoverer of the AIDS virus, French researcher Luc Montagnier told 2,500 colleagues at a European conference that he believes "a proper vaccine [is] still a long way off," Reuters reported Oct. 13. HIV viral mutations are the culprits complicating the vaccine search; also, many pharmaceutical companies have dropped their search for a vaccine.

Drs. David Ho and Catherine Wilfert, chief AIDS advisers on the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine, have resigned in protest after the prestigious journal published "an opinion piece that attacked federally funded AIDS studies in developing countries," reported The New York Times. In the studies, some pregnant women are effectively denied AZT treatment. Ho and Wilfert say they quit because they were not consulted about the editorial comparing the AIDS studies to the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, a comparison the two doctors think is "unfair because participants in the AZT studies are told that some will get dummy pills." Tuskegee study participants were left untreated for decades and were kept unaware that effective treatment existed. Journal editor Jerome Kassirer "said the board is not routinely consulted for editorials."

Chicago lawyer Robert Fogel is leading a protest among members of the Presidential Advisory Council on AIDS, claiming many will resign "to protest the White House's refusal to spend federal money on buying clean needles for drug addicts," the Associated Press reported. Studies show that needle exchanges help to prevent the spread of HIV among IV drug users. Council members are also upset because the Administration has ignored council recommendations. "Somebody up there is thinking more about politics than health," said Fogel, who claims "quite a few" of the 30 advisors may quit.

Doctors at the University of California San Francisco campus have gotten the go-ahead from the National Institutes of Health "to study the effects of marijuana on HIV-infected patients," according to the UPI on Oct. 8. The NIH will give $1 million to sponsor the two-year study, which begins at the end of this year; the marijuana will be government-supplied.

Political briefs...
The Des Moines, Iowa Human Rights Commission members will approach the City Council "in the next month or two to ask that sexual orientation be added to the municipal anti-discrimination law," reported the Des Moines Register of Oct. 11. The City Council has rejected proposed anti-discrimination ordinances twice before, and three of six councilmembers have expressed opposition, two support, and one remained undecided when contacted as recently as June. If the measure were passed, the city would become the third in Iowa to offer legal protection in employment, housing and public accommodations; Ames and Iowa City are the others. Commissioners were motivated in part by the June firings of six Davenport care center employees, based on their manager's perception that "they did not have acceptable 'moral character.' " Some political observers believe the issue may become a significant part of the campaigns preceding the November elections, particularly the mayoral contest.

Queers in Lincoln, Neb., have criticized Mayor Mike Johanns' recent refusal to sign a proclamation declaring Oct. 11 "Lincoln Coming Out Day," reports the Oct. 12 Lincoln Journal Star. In June, Johanns similarly refused to sign a proclamation of the Lincoln Pride Rally and refused an invitation to speak, besides vetoing the Lincoln Lancaster Commission on Women's co-sponsorship of the event as "contrary to 'city policy.' " Johanns seems to be setting a tone: sidewalk messages in which a University of Nebraska-Lincoln gay-rights group promoted Coming Out Week were defaced and replaced with homophobic messages, after campus radio encouraged the dissent and provided the chalk used. Matt LeMeux of ACLU Nebraska said the civil-rights group is "very concerned about the atmosphere for gays and lesbians ... in Lincoln," and student government has condemned the campus verbal attacks.

In Raleigh, NC, Duke University administrators "have apologized for the removal of some catch phrases that gay and lesbian students had painted on a wall to celebrate National Coming Out Day," including a student group's official name, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. Member of Gothic Queers had also painted a bridge pink. Duke's executive vice president, Tallman Trask, said that the housekeeping and grounds personnel censorship (by over-painting) of such messages as "have a gay day" and "dyke power" was "an error in judgement that cannot be condoned." Despite administrative contrition, students planned a demonstration for the following Wednesday.

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