Just news
New York Post,
Daily News join
tabloid outing orgy
ainstream American journalism saw an
CT UP/Portland, Oregon turned up the
unanticipated rewrite of the rulebook in
heat several notches April 25 in its year-
early May when The New York Post and The and-a-half campaign to expose U.S. Sen.
New York Daily News identified five
Mark Hatfield (D-Ore.) as a closeted
celebrities who are rumored to have had gay
homosexual who votes against the gay and
sex.
lesbian community in Congress.
The Post initiated the revision with a May
Previously, the group had limited itself to
2 article entitled, “ ‘Outing’ articles pick up
distributing flyers outside Hatfield events,
steam. ’ ”
saying that the senator is gay and charging
“Outing” means dragging closeted
him with “blatant hypocrisy” and
celebrities or closeted anti-gay politicians out
“collaboration in the AIDS genocide.”
of the closet.
But early the morning of April 25, activists
The Post did it to actors John Travolta,
carefully altered a Hatfield re - election
Kristy McNichol and Richard Chamberlain.
billboard on one of Portland’s main
Two days later, the Daily News ran a
thoroughfares so that the sign read: “Hatfield.
front-page story quoting David Bowie’s ex-
Closeted Gay. Living a Lie — Voting to
wife, Angela, as saying that she caught Bowie
Oppress.” The group also affixed a large
and Mick Jagger in bed once, and that it was
“Silence = Death” logo to the display.
only one of Bowie’s many gay affairs.
According to ACT UP, the doctored
Angela broke the news on the May 4
billboard “was viewed by thousands in the
edition of Joan Rivers’ TV talk show.
morning commute and by hundreds of
“Outing” articles have been the rage in the
thousands when KATU-TV ran the story on
US press for weeks, but the media has been
the evening news.” *
uniformly unwilling to reveal who is being
“Hatfield was on notice that ACT UP
outed.
would act if he continued to gay bash with his
Malcolm Forbes has been referred to only
votes in the Senate,” said ACT UP spokesman
as a publishing tycoon who recently died.
Tom Schloeder. “He didn’t listen.”
Chastity Bono only as the daughter of a
According to ACT UP, “it is commonly
famous singer actress. The Geraldo show
believed in Oregon’s gay and lesbian
recently bleeped about 15 references to Kristy
community that the . . . extremely popular
McNichol.
senator is a closeted gay man who married to
The article in the Post explored the fact
provide the necessary cover to survive in
that supermarket tabloid newspapers “are
American politics in the 1950s.”
storming the closets of allegedly gay
“Any doubt of the truth about Hatfield’s
celebrities for the sake of truth, justice and
sexual orientation can be resolved in a court
improved newsstand sales.”
of law, if necessary,” said Portland attorney
“Take this week’s cover story in the
and ACT UP member Wayne Harris.
Enquirer,” the Post reported, “in which a
Hatfield’s Congressional record includes
porno actor named Paul BarTesi claims he had
votes to prohibit the use of federal funds for
an affair with John Travolta.
AIDS materials “that promote or encourage,
“BarTesi alleges that Travolta was so
directly or indirectly, homosexual sexual
smitten with him that he followed Barresi into
activities” or “use words stating that
a shower to arrange a date. He also claims he
homosexuality is normal, natural or healthy.”
and Travolta had sex ‘dozens o f times’ during
“Oregon voters have a right to know that
a two-year span, while the ‘Saturday Night
Mark Hatfield is a hypocrite,” said ACT UP’s
Fever’ star was seeing Debra Winger [and]
Lori Kohler. “He’s a closeted gay public
Olivia Newton-John.”
official who . . . supports enemies of the gay
Such reporting about allegedly closeted
and lesbian community like [Sen. Jesse]
gays or lesbians is unknown in mainstream
Helms [R-NC], [Rep. William] Dannemeyer
American journalism, with the tabloids only
[R-Calif.] and [Rep. William] Armstrong [R-
have made the transition in the past few
Colo.].”
months.
ACT UP said it took on the billboard
“It’s a very complex issue,” said Post Page
project afte'r Hatfield voted with Armstrong in
Six editor Richard Johnson. “It’s a thin line
March of this year to change the District of
deciding what’s fair and what isn’t fair.... I
Columbia Human Rights Ordinance to allow
think the [May 2 article] was a legitimate
the local Big Brothers organization to bar gay
story.”
men from participating in any program that
Johnson said Post editors were notfcware
“educates, coaches or trains any minor” or
they were breaking any new ground when
“holds out [a gay man] as a role model,
they decided to the story.
mentor or companion to any minor.”
Jim Willse, editor of the Daily News, said
Human Rights Campaign Fund spokesman
his publication also didn’t see itself as taking
Greg King has called the Armstrong
any bold new steps. “The David Bowie/Mick
amendment “a legislative hate crime.”
Jagger story was just a story to us that
“It’s contemptible for a closeted gay man
presented itself off a TV show and we just
as powerful as Mark Hatfield to perpetuate the
reported what transpired on a TV show and
lie that all gay men are child molesters who
obviously tried to get the principals to talk
prey on innocent youth,” said Schloeder. “We
about it,” he explained.
don’t object to Hatfield being in the closet,
Willse said the Daily News has no policy
but we won’t remain silent and let him gay
on when to mention sexual orientation in a
bash.”
news story. “We would mention sexual
Asked about ACT UP’s charges, Hatfield’s
orientation if it were relevant,” he said.
Washington press spokesman. Bill Calder,
— Rex Wockner
said: "If they have some evidence, let’s see it.
I mean, I want to know. The senator has said
publicly and to others within our office that
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just out ▼ 14 ▼ June 1990
Spokesman invites
smoking gun to
come forward
this is absolutely false. If somebody can
convince me otherwise, bring it on. Let me
see it. I’ll take it to the senator and say, ‘I
think you’re lying.’”
— Rex Wockner
A
FBI nabs Aryan bar
bombers
BI agents May 12 arrested two white
supremacists en route to blow up a
Seattle gay bar.
According to an affidavit filed in United
States District Court by Tacoma-based FBI
special agent Thomas Trier, the Bureau had
tracked the two men, Robert Winslow, 29, and
Stephen Nelson, 35, for three months.
Information was gathered primarily by
phone taps at the Aryan Nations compound in
Hayden Lake, Idaho, where Winslow and
Nelson planned their operations.
The two men first discussed blowing up
Neighbors Disco in Seattle’s Capitol Hill
neighborhood during an April 8 phone
conversation.
FBI agents then trailed Winslow to a
mountainous area outside Hayden Lake where
he detonated a test pipe bomb.
In an April 20 phone conversation,
Winslow detailed the plans against the gay
club.
“He and Nelson were going to place
explosive charges inside the bar,” Trier
testified. ‘They would then telephone the bar,
warn them that a bomb would go off in three
minutes, and then detonate the charges as the
patrons attempted to flee. According to
Winslow, the patrons would enter the 'kill
zone' at the time o f detonation." (Emphasis:
Just Out)
From further phone calls, the FBI
determined that the Aryans planned to blow
up Neighbors May 12. Agents followed
Winslow and Nelson from the Hayden Lake
compound to Seattle, where the supremacists
bought a six-inch section of galvanized steel
pipe with two end caps, and one pound of
smokeless gun powder.
“Because these components were identical
to the [test] bomb that was exploded in Idaho,
Federal Agents moved in and placed Winslow
and Nelson under arrest,” Trier testified.
During the phone tajDS, the FBI also
learned that the supremacists planned to blow
up black bars, a Jewish synagogue and several
Korean businesses.
Winslow and Nelson were charged with
multiple counts of conspiracy, illegal
possession of firearms and the possession of
an explosive device.
The 20 acre Aryan Nations Hayden Lake
compound, 40 miles northeast of Spokane, is
a center for neo-Nazi skinhead and Ku Klux
Klan related conferences, according to the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
The newspaper said a national conference
of neo-Nazi skinheads was held there in April,
in conjunction with Adolph Hitler’s birthday.
The Post-Intelligencer identified 72-year-
old Richard Butler as the founder and pastor
of the Aryan Nations Church in Hayden Lake
and said he has been at the center of an effort
to establish a whites only nation in the
Northwest.
— Rex Wockner
F