Out on. the Town Blumenthal launches gay club page 36 Simply gorgeous Gardens of the Carolinas page 29 Appointment Gay man named judge page 9 Noted . Notable . Noteworthy . LGBT News & Views SPECIAL-W/ilDENING & INTERIORS ISSUE Volume 21 . Number 25 www.q-notes.com April 21.2007 Proudly walking the Walk for AIDS Jordan and his whimsical flock have raised about $3,700 for AIDS Walk Charlotte thus far. HIV-positive nine-year-old tops fundraising for upcoming AIDS benefit by David Stout . Q-Notes staff Jordan Mitzel was born in the Spring of 1998. To say that he arrived with the deck stacked against him is sort of like saying Albert Einstein was bright or that Brad Pitt is cute. It’s true, but it doesn’t really convey the pro portion. Jordan’s birth mother was an alcoholic, crack- addicted, HIV- infected prosti tute. She was apparently trav eling the East Coast on a ben der when she went into labor in Charlotte. Jordan was born drug addicted and suffering, from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He needed assistance just to breathe. According to a Johns Hopkins report, HIV infects approximately one in four babies born to HIV-positive women not receiving medical treatment. Jordan was among the misfortu- nate minority. However, a few days after his birth something finally went his way. His mother abandoned him at the hospital. At five days old Jordan was placed in the home of Beverly Mitzel and Sonja Austin. After 11 months together the couple, at the time 37 and 39 years old respectively, were ready to start a family. They had already com pleted the necessary steps for becoming foster parents in Mecklenburg County. All they were waiting for was a phone calf. “I got the call from our foster care agency at work,” remembers Mitzel, then a UNC- Charlotte employee who now works for the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RA.IN). “We had requested an HIV-positive child' and, I think, he was one of only two born in the county that year. With the improved med ications the rates were way down. They told us he was three days old and we could have him at five days, when he could be released from the NieU (newborn intensive care unit).” Caring for Jordan was a formidable task. His viral load was in the millions so he was immediately put on two liquid medications. At six months he was switched to a powerful multi-drug cocktail. “Oh my god, it was awful,” Mitzel says. “The liquid medicines were foul tasting. We had to hold him down to give them to him. The liquid form of Ritonovir tastes like pep permint flavored lighter fluid and the consis tency is almost like Vaseline. It would coat his mouth and nothing cuts it; milk doesn’t cut it. He’d have this foam coming out of his mouth and then he’d vomit. So, we’d have to start over.” Undaunted, Mitzel and Austin accepted a second special needs child when Jordan was three. Two-year- old Joseph was born with a genet ic condition that prevented his intestines from functioning properly. A per manent colostomy was the only option to save his life. in 2003, four-year-old Alexis and her nine- month-old half-sister Malaysia were wel- AIDS W IK corned in. Today, all four children are adopted. The family’s unique circumstances and rich diver sity, including the fact that Mitzel, Austin and Jordan are white while Joseph, Alexis and Malaysia are black, has forged a powerful and intentional bond. At the cusp of nine, Jordan’s life has settled into a routine of elementary school, church services at MCC Charlotte, spring and fall league baseball, pets, video games, skate boarding and a twice-daily dose of seven piUs and ISccs of AZT. His viral load is undetectable and he is healthy. “About she months ago he finally asked me if he had HI\^’ Mitzel says. “It was shortly after he went to the pediatric infectious disease clinicTie visits every four months. They check his T-cell count, viral load,'make sure we’re ' compliant with the meds — that sort of thing. He saw the posters on the clinic walls. He just said, ‘DoIhaveHIVorA-I-D-S?’He doesn’t say‘AIDS,’ he pronounces the letters.” see HIV on Jordan wants everyone to know that “sometimes people are scared of people with HIV and they don’t have to be.’’ Religious right tries to derail hate crimes laws Propaganda campaign based on lies and half-truths by Ralph G. Neas WASHINGTON, D.C. —On March 15, the body of Ryan Keith Skipper, 25, was found bloodied and abandoned on a roadside in Wahneta, Fla. Police have charged nvo men with first-degree murder and announced that witness testi mony makes clear that Skipper was killed because he was gay. The sad reality of brutal crimes motivated by hatred is the impetus for bipar tisan federal hate crimes legislation recently introduced in Congress. Currently federal legislators are considering three bills that would put an end to hate crimes, employ ment discrimination and “Don’t ■ \ Legislation is urgently needed to stamp out hate crimes against LGBT Americans. N.C. introduces non-discrimination legislation page 18 Ask, Don’t Tell.” The American public has shown that it wants Congress to pass hate crimes laws, which are designed to prevent and punish violent acts that target individ uals from a partic ular part of the community for intimidation and physical harm. But Religious Right groups are so eager to prevent any legal recognition or pro tection for gay and lesbian Americans that they are waging an aggressive disinformation campaign against these legal protections. Their strategy? Create a distraction from the reality of violent crimes by claiming that such laws are really designed to criminalize Christianity. The campaign is, of course, dishonest to the core. But it is part of a larger strategy that has been politically and financially useful to Religious Right leaders over the years. They tell millions of Americans, week after week, that gay rights advocates are out to silence conservative Christians, criminalize the read ing of the Bible, and force people to choose between their faith and public service. It’s not true. But it serves the radical right’s political goals: it is easier to convince Americans to support discrimination — even to oppose laws designed to discourage violent hate crimes — if you have first convinced them see american on 6 LGBT Iraqi deaths continue to rise page 20

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