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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2002)
Î U * ï K’iu ¡i i ; ivi ^iinew s gay Portlander was among 26 people appointed to the 35- member Presidential Advisory Council on H1V/A1DS in Ja n uary. The only problem: N o President Bush appoints gay Portlander to embattled HIV/AIDS panel body knows who be is. by Jim R ad o sta The Log Cabin Republicans described James P. Driscoll as a “longtime A ID S had just disappeared,” he says. “It was like activist.” But Thomas Bruner, Cascade driving around a cemetery.” A ID S Project executive director, told Just Out he never has met, done business with Driscoll got involved in A C T UP and began writing newspaper opinion pieces or heard of him during his three years in attacking the FixxJ and Drug Administration’s Oregon or his 15 years in HIV work. slow approval process. He also formed coali The mystery comes at a time when tions with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease critics are accusing President Bush of patients who felt the same way. stacking the council with unqualified A big dispute concerning protease in campaign contributors and other peo ple with little or no background in hibitors divided the A ID S community in 1996. Driscoll opposed “extremely consumer H IV /A ID S public policy or science. protectionist” activists who wished to con Most of the attacks are aimed at the duct more thorough testing, and “obviously co-chairman, former U .S . Rep. Tom our side won.” C oburn, R -O kla., who once called “ Protease inhibitors came out faster for the firing o f the Centers for Disease than virtually any drugs have come out C on trol and Prevention director since, I think, penicillin,” he says. “As because the agency promotes condom soon as they came out, the death rate use. began to drop dram atically...about 75 per Bush— whose budget reflects a $33 cent overall.” million increase over 2002 to fund absti nence-only education— also selected In 1997, legislation finally passed to reform the FDA. “I was, I think, one of the leading several people who oppose safe-sex prac people in the AIDS community pushing for tices. Among them were Rashida Jolley, James P. Driscoll says the A ID S epidemic in Africa, if that,” Driscoll says. 2000 Miss District of Columbia, and ignored, will have “ major” geopolitical consequences He spent the next few years lobbying on Dandrick Moton. a 25-year-old whose behalf of Log Cabin to increase funding for background in H IV/AIDS policy consists of o who is Jim Driscoll? After multiple calls traveling with his mother as dual motivation to the White House and Log Cabin Repub the A ID S Drug Assistance Program, which helps patients who don’t have private insur al speakers encouraging kids to save them licans, Just Out finally was able to contact the 5 5-year-old— and it turns out he’s an outspo ance and are not on Medicaid. “This program selves until marriage. is particularly appealing to Republicans ken critic of the abstinence-only approach. Maureen S. O ’Leary, G ay and Lesbian it enables “While I’m an Oregon voter and resident because M edical A ssociation executive director, patients to continue on says this approach further will marginalize at- there, I’ve never really been involved in the risk queer and questioning youth. “The pro Oregon AIDS scene,” he says, explaining his the job, paying taxes, being self-sufficient with low profile. “So in some sense I’m sort of an gram emphasizes abstinence until marriage out having to go on wel when marriage for them is not relevant.” outsider.” fare to get drugs.” Driscoll was horn in Neosho, Mo., and Adding to the controversy was Secretary Driscoll says he left moved to Oregon when he was 3. He gradu of State Colin Powell’s appearance Feb. 14 on ated from Tigard High School; studied philos Log C abin during the M TV in which he expressed support for ophy at Whitman College in Walla Walla, spring of 2000 when a condom use. The anti-gay Family Research Wash.; and earned a Ph.D. in English from “significant split” arose Council immediately slammed his “reckless” with supporters of U .S. Sen. John M cCain, University o f Wisconsin in Madison. remarks and dem anded presidential R-Ariz. “ I sided with the Bush people, and He has worked as a real estate investor and punishment. has written hooks applying Jungian psycholo that sort of led to the agreement that we Meanwhile, Powell found an unlikely ally gy to literary criticism of William Shake would he terminating our relationship at the in C h ad Johnson, N ation al Stonew all speare and John Milton. But how does this end of the year.” Democrats executive director. He made light He now works as federal affairs adviser for make him qualified to serve on a national of the mixed messages coming out of the the National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Proj H IV /A ID S advisory panel? White House. Driscoll didn’t become an activist until ect, which fcKuses on education along the East “ 1 would trade Secretary Powell for most of the late 1980s. He was living in San Francis Coast. He also has been involved during the Bush’s new appointees to the presidential past year with the AIDS Healthcare Founda co, and two of his closest friends had AIDS. A ID S council,” Johnson says. “ It appears that tion, the largest provider of treatment in the “ I remember what the Castro was like at he, unlike the majority of the council, under that time— how dreadful it was to be where so United States. stands that ignorance does not effectively Driscoll especially is interested in efforts to many people were getting sick and dying or protect against HIV transmission.” G ood A dvice ? S 0 M t |11 address the international epidemic. He spent a month in South Africa last Christmas and describes the “utterly horrendous situation” in some areas where the HIV infection rate for people between 18 and 45 is at 40 percent. “It’s like...the Castro district was in the 1980s,” he says. “And they’re faced with something much worse, because they can’t get treatment.” Driscoll says U .S. indifference will hurt race relations and predicts the ultimate geopolitical consequences here will be “major”— even worse than terrorism. “When South Africa implodes— which many people think it will as a result of just tremendous numbers of deaths that are coming in five to 10 years— it’s going to have really negative implications for the whole of Africa, which of course faces the same problem as South Africa.” riscoll says the council did not convene in 2001 because the disputed 2000 elec tion slowed down the appointment process. It will come together three or four times this year, with the first meeting scheduled for March 14 and 15. He admits some o f the appointments were controversial but thinks they potentially have “a lot of clout. It’s not like a milquetoast sort o f council which won’t offend anybody but also won’t be able to do anything.” Driscoll says if they address concerns such as HI V/hepatitis C coinfection— a huge prob lem in the African American and Hispanic communities— “the administration will have to listen.” He also doubts the abstinence-only argument is going to succeed. “The council is not going to come out with a position that abstinence is the only type of preven tion,” he says. “A bsti nence is...if it can be practiced...a highly effec tive prevention strate gy... but that’s not the only approach that we should be using for prevention.” Driscoll, who is single, moved back to Portland three years ago. But because of his busy schedule and the increased difficulty of flying, he now spends most of his time resid ing in Alexandria, Va. As a gay Republican, he sees the party becoming more inclusive of gay appointees but wishes things would speed up. “At this stage, you have to go slowly and carefully so that you don’t deliberately or inadvertently antagonize the right, because that could be counterproductive.” JH "The council is not going to come out with a position that abstinence is the only type of prevention" — James P. Driscoll O P EN 2 4 H O U R S DVD VIDEO M AGAZINES TO YS N O VELTIES LO TIO N S AND MORE... M U LTI-C H A N N EL A R C A P E WITH VO YEU R G L A S S 2330 S .E . 82ND AVE PORTLAND 503-777-6033 237 S.E. MLK BLVD PORTLAND 503-239-1678 3473 SILVERTON RD N.E. SALEM 503-370-7080
