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Two groups propose
live HIV vaccine trials Page 4
Third annual HRC
Gala Dinner planned Page 14
The Carolinas’ Most Comprehensive Gay & Lesbian Newspaper
Published Every Two Weeks On Recycled Paper > Volume 12, Number 17 • January 24, 1998 • FREE
’96 hate crime
stats released
Officials say stiffer
sentences needed
Kim I. Mills
Special to Q-Notes
WASHINGTON, DC—Reported
hate crimes against gays and lesbians
declined slighdy in 1996, but were
more violent and more public than in 1995,
with significandy more such crimes commit
ted in commercial buildings or in fields and
woods.
“These stadsdcs are fimher evidence of the
need for a federal law enabling the Justice Der
partment to investigate and prosecute such
crimes on the same basis as crimes targedng
people because of race, religion, color or na
tional origin,” said Winnie Stachelberg, politi
cal director of the Human Rights Campaign,
the nations largest gay and lesbian civil rights
organization.
“The federal governments hands are tied
when it comes to investigadng and prosecut
ing crimes aimed at people because of their
sexual orientation. It’s not enough to collect
statistics. People who commit these crimes
against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered
people should fece the same penalties as all other
hate criminals.”
The FBI released a report January 8 that
found 1016 crimes were committed in 1996
targeting people because of their sexual orien-
tadon. This amounted to 11.5 percent of the
total 8759 bias-motivated incidents reported
to the FBI for that period.
In 1995, the FBI reported 1019 hate crimes
based on sexual orientation. This was 12.8 per
cent of the total.
HRC warned, however, that hate crimes tar-
geting gays are virtually always underreported
by law enforcement agencies.
“Even though the rate appears to have de
clined, we know from experience that local law
enforcement agencies are often reluctant to re
port bias crimes based on sexual orientadon,”
said Stachelberg. “One state, Alabama, reported
no hate crimes whatsoever in 1996, which
seems highly unlikely. In addition, crime vic
tims are often afraid to tell police that they were
singled out because of their real or perceived
sexual orientation.”
Kerry Lobel, executive director of the Na
tional Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF),
agreed that the decreasing figures were a result
of under-reporting. “GLBT people often do not
“Even though the rate appears to
have declined, we know from
experience that local law
enforcement agencies are often
reluctant to report bias crimes
based on sexual orientation.
report hate crimes based on their sexual orien
tation because of their fear of discrimination
by police; lack of interest or diligence on the
part of the police; and lack of training in many
police departments in working with members
of the GLBT community.”
A comparison of the 1996 and 1995 reports
found:
• reported arsons targeting gays increased
from 3 incidents to 8;
• anti-gay crimes committed in gas stations
rose from 2 to 8;
• crimes in commercial buildings rose from
18 to 28;
• crimes in wooded areas or fields rose from
6 to 13.
At the same time, the number of bias crimes
against gays in private residences rose 16 per
cent, from 267 to 318.
In response to the troubling data, HRC lead
ers called on Congress to pass the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act of 1998, introduced in Novem
ber by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and
Arlen Speaer (R-PA). President Clinton has
endorsed this bill as part of his initiative, be
gun last year, to combat hate crimes in America.
“We applaud the Clinton administration for
taking on the problem of hate crimes in America
and are optimistic about the package of initia
tives that came out of last [November’s] first
White House Conference on Hate Crimes,”
Stachelberg said.
Those initiatives included assigning 50 more
FBI agents and prosecutors to work on hate
crimes enforcement; establishing hate crimes
working groups in the offices of all 93 US at
torneys; and distributing to the nation’s school
districts a manual encouraging schools to con
front hate-modvated behavior among students.
NGLTF sponsored a nine-city hate crimes
tour through the heardand in 1997. During
conununity forums, Lobel heard dozens of sto
ries of hate violence targeted at GLBT people
and got hundreds of people to sign petitions
urging President Clinton to take additional
steps to address the high number of hate crimes
against GLBT persons. She delivered those pe-
ddons to the Administradon at the Hate Crimes
Conference.
Currendy, only 19 states and the District of
Columbia include sexual orientadon in their
state hate crimes stamtes. Nineteen states have
hate crimes laws that do not include sexual ori
entation and nine states have no hate crimes
statutes whatsoever. Three states have laws that
are unclear.
US Attorney General Janet Reno has re
cently joined President Clinton in pushing for
legislation before Congress that would expand
the definition of federal
hate crimes to include
those based on disabilities,
gender or sexual orienta
tion. Federal hate crimes
now include only incidents
based on race, color, reli
gion and national origin.
Reno said during a press
conference that she had
asked all 93 US attorneys
to appoint coordinators
who will meet in Washing
ton in February to map out
strategy on combating hate crimes. She also said
both the Justice and Educadon departments
would soon distribute hate-crime prevention
manuals to help teachers with anti-bias train
ing among young people.
Only two federal hate crimes laws include
“sexual orientation” as a proteaed group — the
Hate Crimes Statistics Act, under which these
data were collected, and the Hate Crimes Sen
tencing Enhancement Act, which provides for
tougher sentencing when it is proven that the
crime committed was motivated by bias. ▼
Gay community is **in the book
Charlotte yellowpages
coming in July
99
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
CHARLOTTE—Just as puberty brings dis
tinctive signs of maturity for developing young
men and women, similar changes can be ex
pected for the “body” of any growing gay com
munity. In the last month, one of them sprung
up in Charlotte faster than the prom queen’s
bust when it was announced that the publisher
of the Gay Community Yellow Pages would be
producing a volume for the Queen City.
When its edition is issued in July, Charlotte
(whose gay and lesbian community is estimated
to be around 60,000) will join the ranks of just
over a dozen urban meccas including Adanta,
Chicago, Las Vegas, Seatde and Washington,
DC for whom Chapter 2 Publishing has printed
a Community Yellow Pages.
Representatives with Chapter 2, the Phoe
nix-based corporation that has been producing
the books since the beginning of the decade,
arrived in Charlotte in November. In quick
succession, they secured office space, hired sales
and support staff and began setting appoint
ments. Company officials say that the response
has been very positive. “Thus far, things are
going quite well,” said Len Irving, manager of
the Charlotte office. “The gay community sup
port has definitely been there and we appreci
ate it.”
Telemarketing manager Louise Priko, a resi
dent of Charlotte, says that the hardest part of
the venture hasn’t been closing sales, but sim
ply “catching people in.”
The first edition of the Gay Community
Yellow Pages was published in Atlanta in 1991.
Marci and Sharon Alt decided to produce the
book after overhearing a salesman make a de
rogatory comment about them as they shopped
for a car. From then o*n, the couple wanted to
make sure their money only went to support
ive merchants. The problem was that they
couldn’t find a comprehensive guide that listed
them — so they created one. With the success
of the book, the concept expanded into other
regions and the Alts eventually moved their
headquarters to Phoenix.
while the resource guides are tailored to the
GLBT community, they aren’t limited to mar
keting businesses owned by gays and lesbians.
Ads are accepted from any company that wants
gay and lesbian shoppers. Irving estimates that,
depending on the market, anywhere from 40 -
60 percent of Community Yellow Pages ads are
purchased by non-GLBT businesses.
He notes that the company’s advertising
contracts specifically contain a provision that
allows them to prohibit advertisers from par
ticipating in future editions if they are found
to be treating GLBT customers inappropriately.
He encourages shoppers to report any prob
lems with Yellow Pages advertisers.
According to a Chapter 2 promodonal bro
chure, between 30,000 and 60,000 free copies
of the Charlone edirion will be distributed. The
books will reportedly be circulated as follows:
1000 - 10,000 handed out at Gay Pride festivi-
des; 30,000 - 50,000 distributed in bookstores,
professional offices, the Chamber of Com
merce, nightsclubs/bars and restaurants.
The wide circuladon does more than ensure
that the ads are seen. The Community Yellow
Pages helps spread the word about the service
and support organizations in each area through
a directory printed in the back of the book.
Inclusion is free for non-profit organizations.
Irving stresses that the Gay Community
Yellow Pages is as much a tool for building unity
as it is a business guide and says that he knew
Charlotte.was ripe for the project on the day
he arrived. As he hit town, the media was abuzz
with the news that a severed pig’s head had been
placed in County Commissioner Becky
Carney’s front yard along with a derogatory note
about gays. Irving recalls that he got “excited”
about it because he knew “the book was
needed.”
For more information on advertising or to
have your non-profit organization listed in the
community resource guide, call their corporate
headquarters at 1-800-849-0406. ▼
ADAP saved with emergency funds
by David Stout
Q-Notes Staff
RALEIGH—On January 7, a state medical
crisis was averted when the NC Legislative
Commission on Governmental Operations
unanimously voted to approve an emergency
transfer of $ 1.1 million within the Depanment
of Health and Human Services to maintain the
AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP)
through March 31, the end of the current fund
ing cycle. State Health Director Ron
Levine made the proposal and Sen.
Howard Lee (D-Chapel Hill)
made the motion to concur.
For months, there had
been concern in the AIDS
community that ADAP
might suspend services —
buying life-saving medica
tions for qualified clients —
since it was technically out of
money. Because HIV becomes
resistant to drug therapy if doses
are stopped for even a short period,
the loss of ADAP would have been devastating
to those dependent on the program.
Additionally, it would have created the po
tential for the spread of a drug-resistant HIV
strain among the general population. Individu
als exposed to the mutated virus would get no
benefit from the most potent pharmacuetical
weapons available. This would be a public
health disaster.
Although aedvists were pleased that the Leg
islative Commission bailed out ADAP, they
were disappointed that the group only provided
enough money to keep it open to current cli
ents. The appropriation wasn’t enough to al
low for any new ones. This means that the prob
lem of providing adequate care for poor PWAs
will now shift solely to the state’s AIDS service
organizations. The majority of these agencies
do not have the budget to fill this gap in ser
vices. They will likely need to get as many
of these people on Medicaid as pos
sible — at a huge cost to taxpay
ers.
ADAP should resume
regular enrollments on April
1, when NC gets its annual
block grant from the federal
government. The state
government will issue its
annual disbursement on
July 1. AIDS activists arc push
ing for an increase in ADAP fund
ing from both to assure this situation
doesn’t happen again in ’98.
On January 23, the State HIV Medications
Task Force was scheduled to review changing
state policy relative to the number of AIDS
drugs available under ADAP. They were ex
pected to discuss limiting them in an effort to
control skyrocketing costs. Currently, NC has
some of the most lenient ADAP policies in the
nation. That will probably change. T