13
Lawyers for the plaintiff said the ruling will
prevent the California National Guard from
hiding behind federal military regulations to jus­
tify discrimination on the basis of sexual orien
tation.
C alifornia C lergy
E ndorse Q ueer L ove
n response to the anti-queer, anti-feminist
stance declared by the Southern Baptist lead­
ership, more than 100 religious leaders in north­
ern California have signed a petition defending
same-sex marriages. By signing, the clerics say
they are willing to conduct same-gender mar
riage ceremonies.
PO
i
O
C ?
CP
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09
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O
OP
The San Francisco Chronicle's June 12 article
on the movement quoted Cheryl Deaner, who
called this new turn the largest interfaith group
of religious leaders in the nation to publicly sup­
port legal marriage for lesbians and gay men.
Deaner, executive director o f the San
Francisco-based All Our Families Coalition,
said the aim of the Southern Baptists’ stance was
to “demean and destroy any family that is not
headed by dominant heterosexual males.”
The clergy’s petition does not explicitly
attack the Southern Baptist position, which
urges believers to “resist any claims of legitima­
cy" for same-sex relationships, rather it is meant
to demonstrate that not all organized religions
oppose same-gender unions.
HIV D iscovery U nveiled
S
cientists working on new ways of attacking
HIV have forced the virus to surrender one
of its long-kept secrets: the shape of its gp l20
protein.
According to a June 17 Associated Press
report, gpl20, which studs the surface of the
virus like dozens of spikes, acts as a key for
unlocking and subsequently infecting healthy
cells.
Having a three-dimensional map of gpl20
gives scientists far more information than they
previously had on finding the protein’s vulnera­
bilities. Understanding the shape of gpl20, for
example, might allow scientists to design drugs
that block the virus’s ability to enter healthy
cells. The discovery will also have an impact on
vaccine research, despite— or because of—the
fact that certain parts of the protein differ from
strain to strain.
“ Before we were blind. Now we’re sighted,”
explains Dr. Joseph Sodorski, a researcher at the
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “We can see
what the defenses of this virus are, and that
allows us to focus on a logical approach to pen­
etrate those defenses.”
H ealth C onferences
on the H orizon
S
an Francisco will host the 20th annual
N ational Lesbian and G ay Health
Conference and the 16th National AIDS/HIV
Forum from July 25 to 29.
“This year’s conference will have many firsts
that will help set the health care agenda for the
coming year for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans
i
communities,” says Beverly Saunders Biddle,
executive director of the National Lesbian and
Gay Health Association, the organizing sponsor
of the conference. “We are a tremendously
diverse community, and so are our health care
needs.”
In addition to providing new AIDS-related
information, the conference aims to educate
physicians, nurses, health educators, activists
and other health care professionals about the
critical health issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisex­
ual and trans people. New workshop tracks
include those addressing bisexual health, trans
health and aging.
Author Michael Scarce will discuss his
recent findings about male-on-male sexual vio­
lence. Similarly, other authors will discuss their
research on lesbian health, gay men’s wellness,
“post-AIDS” identities, A ID S survivor grief and
other topics.
Saunders Biddle expects more than 1,500
participants to attend the event.
N LG H A is a nonprofit organization repre­
senting a network of individual health care pro­
fessionals, community health centers, clinics
and programs that provide health care focusing
on the needs of lesbians, gay men and people
affected by HIV/AIDS.
Additional conference information is avail­
able at N LG H A ’s website, www.nlgha.org, or by
calling Bob Gordon of Lorber Consulting at
(415) 864-8812 or N LG H A at (202) 939-7880.
O berlin C ollege H ires
G ay A thletics D irector
he June 18 issue of Academe Today, The
Chronicle of Higher Education says Oberlin
College has hired a gay man as its athletics
director.
Michael Muska, a former track and field
coach at Auburn and Northwestern universities,
is believed to be the first openly gay athletics
director in college sports.
“There are only a handful of schools at
which I would have felt comfortable applying
for a position like this, and, obviously, Oberlin
was one of them,” says Muska.
Oberlin, which prides itself on the diversity
and tolerance of its student body, has a substan­
tial lesbian and gay population.
Muska, who was an assistant director of ath­
letics and associate director of admissions at
Brown University from 1987 to 1993, says he
had raised the issue of his sexual orientation
with the search committee at Oberlin because
he preferred discussing the matter publicly to
“having a lot of whispering and innuendo.”
Alan Moran, Oberlin’s vice president for col­
lege relations, says Muska was hired because he
has experience coaching and recruiting athletes
who meet Oberlin’s high admissions standards.
“His sexual orientation had nothing to do
with his hiring and never came into play,”
Moran says.
Nor does the college expect the appoint­
ment to be controversial.
Muska says, however, that he expects to
encounter some resistance to his appointment.
He says one coach had questioned whether hir­
ing a gay male athletics director would hurt the
college in recruiting heterosexual male athletes.
But for some coaches, that is not an issue.
“ If the fact that (MuskaJ is gay is the only rea­
son that a young man would not come to
Oberlin to play basketball, then he is probably
not the kind of young man that 1 want to be
with two hours a day, six days a week," says
James Sullinger, head coach of the men’s bas­
ketball team.
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