Diversity in Marriage Fight Coalition seeks Greater Visibility of People of Color in Movement By Bob Roehr Contributing Writer Five LGBT organizations have launched a coalition effort to increase the visibility of people of color as supporters of marriage equality. It was launched in conjunction with Freedom to Marry Week, February 12-18, and will run indefi nitely. The organizations involved are Lambda Legal, National Black Justice Coalition, Asian Equality, National Latina/o Coalition for Justice, and Freedom to Marry. The immediate focus is a $13,000 purchase of banner ads on websites that serve people of color (www.lambdalegal.org/mem) that show the wide range of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and allies who support marriage equality. The photos were taken at pride events last summer. Lambda held organizer Kene hull said the goals are "to provide a forum for people of color to share their images" and to debunk the appearance that marriage equality is only a concern of white gays and that people erf color either oppose the idea or are not involved. A second phase of the program will take place in June with the launch of traveling exhibitions of many of those same photos along with commentaries as to why mar riage is important to them. Public sendee advertising also may be developed. Andy Wong, coalition manager with Asian Equality, said, "Marriage equality Contes impor tant protections for our families, and nothing is more important to our communities than making sure our families are safe. For many Asian/Padfic American same sex couples, the struggle for equality is as much about challenging our sec ond class status as it is about safe guarding our families and chil dren." He enumerated the many Asian/Pacific American groups that support same sex marriage equality. Alexander Robinson, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, outlined die long struggle for justice and equality by die African American community within the United States. He saw marriage equality as "a logical extension" of that struggle. "If we waited for society and majority opinion to come around, African Americans would still be enduring the indignities of separate but equal accommodations and legal and political segregation." Robinson said it is important to change hearts and minds as well as laws. "Family comes above everything else" for me Latino community, said Marta Donsyie, with die National Latina/o Coalition for justice. And those "are not the same family val ues that are being espoused by title fundamentalist right wing. Strong families imply die inclusion of all." Lambda Legal executive director Kevin Cathcart said their plaintiffs in marriage lawsuits around the country "are as diverse as the LGBT community nationwide. It is impor tant to break through the mytholo gy that the LGBT community is a white community and that people of color don't support marriage equality." He said, Tart of the challenge has -s been how small, understaffed, and underfunded many of our commu nity organizations, particularly communities of color, have been." Previous activity has focused on states where there was an active legal or ballot measure on marriage. Robinson echoed that sentiment He saw the effort as the start of an ongoing national education cam paign by the organizations of the i coalition, working together and on i their own. People wishing to learn more about scheduling the traveling exhi bition should contact Rene Hill at rehill@lambda.cng. By Bob Roehr Contributing Writer The development of new drugs to treat HIV continues at a torrid pace, unmatched in any other area of disease. Ten drugs have been approved over the last decade and more are in the pipeline. That was apparent at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), the world's pre HIV saence, in Denver, February 5-8. . Integrase miuouors are mse ly to be the next major advance in therapy. They stop HIV from insert ing itself into the DNA of the cell. HIV cannot repli df.... Openly gay Orlando physician Edwin De Jesus presented a study on one new HIV drug in development at the 2006 CROI in Denver cate by itself and ' v : must hijack die cell's DNA in order to repro . duce. "The programs to discover integrase : inhibitors began over ten years ago. Today we saw the fruition of those efforts- in very impressive results in both naive and experi enced patients," said John Mellors. He is a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and vice diair of the conference. .The drug that is in die most advanced stage of development is compound 0518 by me pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Data in naiVe patients, starting their first regimen of therapy, showed a 1.7 to 22 log reduction in. • HIV viral load in a short 10-day trial. The reduction depended on the amount of drug they received. That was first repented at a corner teenoe in Europe late last year. "iv. , , V Visit us on