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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1995)
national news Nora ísacson Portlandf A foes-«a. t/w, Peatftor I have chosen to take a more human approach as a Realtor. I build my business on a referral basis and firmly believe that the satisfaction of my client is far more important than my financial gain. | communicate clearly and openly, and I’m always honest with my clients. I’ll gladly climb a nearby tree to check on a roof or get a bit dirty investigating a crawl space or an attic. I work mainly in Portland’s popular inner Southeast and Northeast neighborhoods and specialize in older homes with character, Whether you’re thinking of buying or selling, please do give me a call. Hopeful horde , , Poll results a staunch gay Republican politician and an HIV-positive Republican housewife-turned-AIDS-advocate set the tone at an HRCF conference v Nora Isacson by Bob Roehr The Prudential ( Performance Group One, Inc. REALTORS« (503)256-1234 VM/pgr 948-5610 ÎS YOUR PET PART OF THE FAMILY? 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Surviving without settling for less, Call today survive with AIDS 1 - 800 - 572-4346 “Thefinal months or yean o f a penons life are lived with the dignity o f not going broke . . . ” Phil Donahue, The Donahue Show, December, 1992 PAGE OV'Sfine !>o?e & associatesene in November 1994 ” he tone was decidedly more Republi “We literally spend 100 times each year in can and surprisingly upbeat as 300 interest on the national debt” what we spend on members of the Human Rights Cam AIDS programs, Gunderson said. “You don’t have paign Fund came to Washington, D.C., to like the fact that we are on a seven-year track to the first weekend in March for the balanced budget, but you have to understand it. second annual Randy Klose Gay and a Lesbian “It is essential that you realize and comprehend Leadership Conference. this: Anti-government does not mean anti-gay. The plenary session on Sunday focused on AIDS. Separate break-out sessions dealt with or- I The House Republican leadership, to their credit, went to great pains in writing the ‘Contract with ganizational nuts and bolts, briefings on specific America’ and they did not include any of the social issues, and lobbying, most in preparation for Mon issues.” day when attendees spread out across Capitol Hill The representative played “a very prominent for meetings with their members of Congress. role” in persuading colleagues to support AIDS First up on Sunday were the consultants. Newly funding in recent Appropriations Committee votes, hired Republicans Wilma Goldstein and David noted HRCF board member Ritch Colbert in his Sackett joined Democratic veteran Celinda Lake introduction of Gunderson. It was “an unusual role to discuss the joint survey of 800 voters they took for somebody off the committee to play.” Feb. 25 and 26. “I can assure you that the Ryan White Act will It showed 77 percent of those surveyed favor be reauthorized,” Gunderson said, citing conver maintaining or increasing AIDS funding, while sations with all of the key players in that process. only 15 percent support a reduction. A majority, 56 He warned there will be a Fight over the formula percent, said they would be less likely to support a for distributing money, saying it can’t be avoided. member of Congress who voted for cuts. He compared Wisconsin and Colorado, which “There is very little credibility for almost any have similar AIDS caseloads. “But, under the federal program, with one exception,” Sackett existing formula, Colorado receives $6 million reported. “I am glad to say—and I was frankly a more a year than the state of little surprised and a little Wisconsin,” he said. pleased to see—that one ex Regarding civil rights, ception was AIDS research. Gunderson said he thought it “It is an issue that goes likely that amendments dis beyond the gay and lesbian criminatory to gay men and issue. It goes beyond pure lesbians would be proposed health care. It is a national on the floor of the House of crisis. And it is one of the few Representatives under the issues in the country where people think that the delivery open rules of that body. He anticipated that some might of services is actually effec tive and is doing something pass. But he guaranteed that for the problem. “there will never be a hostile “This is now a crisis which amendment that is offered as exists in every demographic party policy.” group and every region in the The plenary session country. It is as real and as ended with a moral force. concerning to a fundamental Mary Fisher spoke with the ist Christian mother of three same clarity, the same inten children in Boise, Idaho, as it sity, that she brought for one is to a young gay male in New shining moment to the vitri Steve Gunderson York City,” Sackett said. olic 1992 Republican Na T The polling data became a crucial element in successfully lobbying the House Appropriations Committee not to cut funding for AIDS. Two conservatives who had voted for cuts in the sub committee, Jim Istook of Oklahoma and Jay Dickey of Arkansas, reversed themselves and joined with a majority o f Republicans to support the appro priation in the full committee. ‘Talk about a good investment,” said HRCF’s chief lobbyist Daniel Zingale. “Over $30 million in AIDS funding off o f this one poll.” Next up was Steve Gunderson, the gay repre sentative from Wisconsin. "I’m a Republican,” he said. “I don’t want any criticism from those o f you who belong to the party of Sam Nunn about that.” The crowd warmed to the self-described “ver tically challenged” Gunderson as he recounted some o f the turmoil his sexuality has brought to his public life over the last few years: his being the target o f “a vicious right-wing primary,” being “personally attacked on the floor o f the House,” and being “the target of physical and verbal as saults, even death threats, from the radical gay community.” He went on to explain the new political envi ronment— the “anti-Washington Congress elected tional Convention. Fisher is a Republican house wife from Michigan who became an advocate for people with AIDS after having tested HIV positive herself. The audience sat transfixed, in awed si lence, as she spoke o f “an AIDS community hun gry for leadership. On the Hill we are like the Jewish children o f Auschwitz stealing each other’s bread.” She noted organizations campaigning “for their membership’s share o f the pie and the good of their careers.” “We need those who are willing to argue for what is just, what is true, what is compassionate, what is right. We need leaders willing to lead from a platform built on planks because they are right— not merely because they will work in the short run.... And we need the leadership to come, in large measure, from the uninfected community.” “Compassion appears to be fading as the epi demic is growing,” Fisher said, adding that she came to the gay and lesbian community “to ask that you not slip away. D on’t leave now just because you are weary. Wc need you desperately. “If those o f us who are well are not responsible for caring for those who are sick, who is?”