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Friday, January 2, 1998 Fighting for 'An Equal Family'by Katie Szymanski
Jon Holden folded laundry with one hand and helped free his son from the bars of a crib with the other. "What's the matter, you got stuck?" Holden said to 2-year-old Adam, who was crying. "Oh, boy, do you need a nap." Staying home with the kids has become a daily routine for Holden. That routine, once tenuous, is now secure. As of last month, Holden and his partner of 15 years, Michael Galluccio, are Adam's legal fathers. On Oct. 22, Bergen County Superior Court Judge Sybil R. Moses ruled that the New Jersey couple could jointly adopt their son, saying the move was "in the child's best interest." The ruling ended a 14-month fight by Holden and Galluccio to be formally recognized by the state as Adam's parents. But their struggle for fatherhood began long before any court petitions were filed. The couple met in 1981 in the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity at New Jersey's Glassboro State University. "Hell Night is our anniversary," said Holden. "After initiation, we spent the night together. Then we spent the week together and blew off classes. Our girlfriends were best friends, and eventually we blew them off, too." The couple "ran away" to Los Angeles a year-and-a-half later and returned to the East Coast in 1986 to live and work in Manhattan. "When we came out to our parents," Holden said, "their reactions were, 'Oh my God, we'll never have grandchildren.' And even though we both loved kids, that was something we believed, something we thought we had to accept." Holden said that, as their relationship grew, so did their resentment that they were treated differently than other couples. "We felt like we were less than other couples," said Holden "Both of us wanted kids, but we didn't acknowledge it. We joked about it, because that was how we dealt with something so painful." But when they had been together for 12 years, the couple finally decided to pursue parenthood. Role models were scarce. Holden and Galluccio knew just one Gay couple with children, so they approached them for advice. "They simply said, 'Well, you guys can do it, too', and we realized it had never occurred to us that we would have those same rights," said Holden, who says he began reading "everything ever written" on the topic of Gay parenting. Ironically, Holden said, skyrocketing rents in Manhattan helped push them along. Instead of staying in the city, they decided to buy a house in Maywood, a small New Jersey town seven miles south of New York City. Within two weeks of moving, they filled out an adoption application. "At the very first meeting, the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services understood we wanted to jointly adopt," Holden said. "They said it wouldn't be a problem." Holden and Galluccio made it clear to the state officials that they would accept any child who had the opportunity to eventually become independent. "We were very flexible," said Holden, "and willing to take a lot of risks." In the fall of 1995, they entered a screening process complete with fingerprints, criminal record checks, and an examination of their home. They got the call on Dec. 22, 1995. "The phone rang. It was a woman from the placement center," said Holden. "I started bawling before she could even say a word." The placement center had a small holiday surprise waiting for Holden and Galluccio: a three-month-old boy who had been born three months premature to a mother who had HIV and was drug-addicted. The baby was suffering through severe drug withdrawal, seizures, cardiac arrhythmia, and fluid build-up in his lungs. He needed a ventilator to help him breathe and would require constant medical treatment throughout the day. "We'll take him," the couple said, and went to meet their son the next day. "You could hear his breathing. It was like bubbles," said Galluccio. "But the hardest part was the drug withdrawal. There's nothing worse than holding a three-month-old baby who is shaking in your arms." They called their son Adam; the letters in the name are the first initials of their parents' names. During the next few weeks they visited Adam every day in a care unit for HIV-positive babies and learned how to administer his medicine. A few months later, after they had taken him home and nursed him back to health, they filed for adoption. It was then that they learned of a New Jersey law that restricted adoptions to married couples or single persons. "They said only one of us could legally adopt Adam," said Holden. "Since I didn't have a job, Michael would be his legal guardian. I could apply to be a second parent, but that whole process would take at least a year and cost thousands of dollars." It was a frightening proposition for the family. If Galluccio were to fall ill or die before the second parent adoption became final, Holden would have no legal rights as Adam's guardian. The son he was raising would be returned to state authorities. "A couple of years ago, we might have settled for the second-parent adoption," Holden said. "But we felt that the climate and time was right to say no. We wanted to fight for our son's right to have an equal family." When he got nowhere with officials at the Division of Youth and Family Services, Holden decided to try another tactic. He sought the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. The civil rights group agreed to take the couple's case on Feb. 27, 1997, the same day Holden and Galluccio brought home a new foster baby, their daughter Madison. "While we understood this was a public case that would get a lot of media attention, we wanted the ACLU's promise that Adam would be the focus of this fight," said Holden. "They lived up to their word impeccably." Although the couple was granted the adoption, the ACLU had to negotiate with New Jersey through a class action lawsuit to secure the rights of other Gay couples. That lawsuit was settled just last month, when New Jersey agreed to make it the state's policy not to discriminate against unmarried couples in adoptions. Holden and Galluccio had served as the primary petitioners behind the class-action suit. "We realize we have an obligation to other families," Galluccio said. "I would like to think we've made a difference." Holden said the entire community -- Gay and straight -- supported their efforts to adopt Adam. "We are always very open about our situation," he said. "You know, when you have a child with you, suddenly there's a public right for anyone to ask you about your life. We introduce each other as husbands, and tell everyone that Adam is our son." The only negative response they have ever received, said Holden, was from a Gay couple in Provincetown. "They saw us, snickered, and said, 'Oh, I bet they think they're a real family,'" Holden said. "I wrote it off as the internal homophobia that all Gays can be guilty of." Adam, who has since tested negative for HIV, is now in nursery school. Holden, an actor, stays at home with Adam and Madison, while Galluccio, a sales director for a telecommunications company, commutes to his job Manhattan every day. As traditional of a family as they may seem, Holden insists having children has not turned them into Ward and June Cleaver. "We have not lost our Gayness," he said with a laugh. "We still go to the Village and wear jeans that are probably too tight. We didn't sell out to a straight role." Copyright © 1998 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community. Back to List of Articles
Friday, February 6, 1998 Plans for March Unveiledby Lou Chibbaro Jr.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest Gay political group, and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, the nation’s largest Gay religious organization, announced this week that they will sponsor the country’s fourth national Gay civil rights march on Washington in the spring of the year 2000. In a statement released in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 4, the two groups said the march will be called the "Millennium March on Washington for Equal Rights." The two organizations have retained Lesbian comedian and events promoter Robin Tyler to produce the 2000 march, the statement said. Tyler played a key role in producing and organizing the past three Gay marches on Washington, which were held in 1979, 1987, and 1993. According to the statement announcing the 2000 march, eight of the nation’s most influential national Gay groups have already endorsed the march. They include the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum; the National Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organization; the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; the National Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; the National Center for Lesbian Rights; the National Youth Advocacy Coalition (which assists Gay youth); the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). "This march will set a new tone for a new century," said Elizabeth Birch, HRC’s executive director. "Equality under the law will be our achievement in the new millennium," Birch said. HRC spokesperson David Smith said the idea for the 2000 march came from Tyler, who approached HRC and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Universal Fellowship of MCC churches, which consists of more than 300 predominantly Gay Christian congregations in the U.S. and 14 other countries. "She suggested that HRC and MCC sponsor the march, and we agreed," Smith said. Smith said the two groups will soon put together an organizing committee which will help Tyler carry out the day-to-day planning and organizing for the event Smith said the two groups have yet to develop a budget for the march. Organizers of the 1993 march released a finance report showing that event cost $1.8 million. The fact that the planned 2000 march is being sponsored by two established, mainline Gay organizations and the fact that its title does not include the words "Gay" or "Lesbian" will likely please some and offend others in the Gay movement. Each of the past three national Gay marches were proposed and organized by ad-hoc committees of Gay activists who were independent of the more established, national Gay political groups. Critics in the Gay movement have charged that the committees that organized the past three marches were dominated by left-wing oriented activists who did not represent the majority of Gay people in the United States. Leaders of the three marches disputed this assessment, saying they went to great lengths to elect members of the organizing committees from "grassroots" Gay communities throughout the country. All of the established national Gay groups eventually signed on to endorse the past three Gay marches, even though members of these groups said they did not agree with all aspects of the events, especially the march platforms or lists of political "demands." In the 1993 march, for example, a 90-member steering committee adopted a 55-point platform which included planks calling for bilingual education and an end to "English only" laws in school districts, "equal economic opportunity and an end to poverty," "free substance abuse treatment on demand," and an "end to genocide of the various indigenous peoples and their cultures." Organizers called the 1993 march the National March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation." Transgender activists and their supporters criticized the title for not including the word "transgender" and threatened to boycott the march. Talk of a boycott subsided after organizers agreed to add language calling for equal rights for transgendered persons in march literature. The decision by HRC and MCC to leave the names of Gays and other minorities out of the title of the 2000 march comes on the heels of a decision last year by organizers of D.C.’s Gay Pride festival to remove the words "Gay" and "Lesbian" from that event. The Whitman-Walker Clinic, which sponsored the event, called, "Capital Pride Festival," said it chose that name to avoid a heated controversy over calls for adding an ever-expanding litany of categories of groups in the title. Smith, the HRC spokesperson, said HRC and MCC have decided on the name "Millennium March on Washington for Equal Rights" because "keeping it simple adds to its strength." Smith said the two groups also decided there will be no litany of demands or detailed platforms associated with the 2000 march, although he said a planning committee will work out specific details for the event’s objectives and goals. "The vision behind this march will be to keep it focused on equal rights," Smith said. Smith said the event will also push themes of Gay families and faith. "The idea is to be inclusive," said Smith. "But it’s also focused. The main theme will be equal rights. The simplicity of that one theme should allow us to communicate more effectively with the rest of the country." Tyler, in a telephone interview from her home in Los Angeles, said she strongly agrees with HRC and MCC’s vision for the 2000 march. She said that as a life-long "progressive," she has reassessed the workings of the past three national Gay marches and has come to the conclusion that organizers tended to have a bias against "mainstream" Gay people and their institutions, especially the Gay religious groups. "I’m very proud to be doing this with HRC and MCC," Tyler said. She said she believes HRC’s positions and tactics on Gay and AIDS issues enjoys the support of the "overwhelming majority of Gay people in this country." Added Tyler, "If there’s anything we’ve learned from the ’90s it’s that the majority of this movement is mainstream. You can’t deny this and there’s nothing wrong with this." Smith said organizers of the 2000 march will not predict the number of people they expect to turn out for the event except to say they expect it to be the largest Gay civil rights event ever held. The 1993 march drew between 750,000 to 1 million people to the nation’s capital, according to estimates from various sources. Some critics have said national marches on Washington, for Gay civil rights or for other causes, have had little tangible results in changing the political climate in Congress or the states. Smith said HRC and MCC believe such events do yield important results. He said the 1993 Gay march drew massive media attention to the concerns of Gay people. According to Smith, the 1993 march, as well as the previous two Gay marches, brought "enormous" numbers of Gay people into the political process. Copyright © 1998 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community.Back to List of Articles
Friday, February 13, 1998 An Ever-shifting Landscapeby M. Jane Taylor
The battle over Gay civil rights in the state legislatures is as busy this year as it has been in the past few years, but a Blade survey of bills introduced during the first month of 1998 shows that the battle lines are now more clearly drawn: Gays are on the defense in matters of marriage and family issues, and on the offense in trying to secure basic protections against discrimination and violence. So far this year, 11 state legislatures are considering bills to ban legal recognition of same-sex marriage, and Washington state just last week became the first state this year to enact a law specifically banning marriage licenses for same-sex couples. At this time last year, 21 statehouses were considering same-sex marriage bans. But if marriage seems less of an issue in the legislatures this year, it’s only because 25 states passed similar anti-Gay laws in the previous three years. During the 1997 legislative session, 31 states considered bills to ban recognition of same-sex marriages, and nine states enacted them. Between 1995 and 1996, 37 states considered anti-Gay marriage bills, and 16 enacted them — one in 1995 and 15 in 1996. The success of the Washington law further illustrates the tenacity of anti-Gay forces. After stumbling near the finish line last year, the bill cleared the legislative course this year at lightning speed. Defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman, the law bans legal recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states. On Feb. 4, the House approved the bill by a 56 to 41 vote and, two days later, the Senate passed it by a 34 to 13 vote. That same day, Democratic Gov. Gary Locke vetoed the bill, but the Republican-controlled legislature voted to override the veto. (Locke vetoed a similar bill last year, but its proponents were unable to gather enough votes to override the veto and vowed they would fight the measure’s passage this year.) "It’s disappointing, and we’re outraged that the legislature would enact this hateful piece of legislation," said Richard Kirton, board president of Equality Washington/Hands Off Washington, a group advocating for Gay civil rights. Kirton said his organization plans to launch a court challenge of this legislation In Vermont, Rep. Nancy Sheltra (R) introduced anti-Gay marriage legislation very similar to the Washington law. Sheltra’s bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, where activists say it doesn’t have much of a chance. "They conducted a nonbinding straw poll of the committee members that indicated no one would support it," said Keith Goslant, liaison to the governor from the Vermont Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Goslant said a Vermont court challenge to allow Gay marriages is eclipsing the attention focused on the bill in the legislature. Filed by Gay activists last July in Burlington, the lawsuit charges that clerks in three towns violated state law and the state constitution by refusing to issue marriage licenses to three same-sex couples. A Chittenden Superior Court judge ruled against the plaintiffs in November, and the case is now before the Vermont Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on the case sometime this year. Of the remaining eight states considering anti-Gay marriage bills this year, only one has passed a floor vote in one chamber or the other. In Wisconsin, where the legislature runs in two-year cycles, a Republican-sponsored anti-Gay marriage bill passed the House in May 1997 and has been in the Senate Judiciary Committee since then. Activists are waging battle to keep it from being sent to the Senate floor, but they concede they are worried because the Wisconsin Senate is split 16 to 16 between Republicans and Democrats, with one vacant seat. "Things are very unstable in terms of who’s in control or what will happen with that bill, so we’re being extremely vigilant," said openly Lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D). An anti-Gay marriage bill in New Mexico passed one Senate committee on Feb. 4 and has been sent to another. If the bill passes the full legislature, it will go on the November ballot as an amendment to the state constitution. Since this is a constitutional amendment bill, it does not require the governor’s signature in order to go to the ballot. Nebraska’s anti-Gay marriage bill passed the Judiciary Committee in February 1997. Because the Nebraska Legislature, which is made up of only one chamber instead of a separate House and Senate like other states, runs in two-year cycles, the bill now just needs a full Legislature floor vote. There are also anti-Gay marriage bills awaiting action in Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, Maryland, New Jersey, and Colorado. In each of these states, and anti-Gay marriage bill has been introduced and failed in previous years. Unlike last year, there are no pro-Gay marriage bills in any state legislatures thus far this year. Gay activists seem to be concentrating instead on broader issues where, they hope, the battles may be less controversial and thus more quickly won. Fighting for protections
Gay civil rights protections, for instance, remain a vastly untapped area that can affect most if not all Gay people, and Gay activists are becoming more confident in asking for and more focused on winning such laws. As of this week, only 10 of the 50 states offer any sort of civil rights protections for Gays, and only eight of those offer broad-based protections including the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations. But eight states have statewide Gay civil rights bills before their legislatures. At this time last year, there were 12. In one state, the drive for Gay civil rights protection has already faltered for 1998. Colorado Gay activists were disappointed Feb. 3 when a bill that sought to add sexual orientation to the list of categories of discrimination prohibited by state civil rights statutes died in a House committee by a 9 to 3 vote. Similar bills in New York, Nebraska, Arizona, West Virginia, and Iowa have not yet been voted on. Bills in two other states, however, are sure to be the subject of much attention from Gay activists and those opposing equal rights for Gay people. In Maryland last year, the Gay civil rights bill came the closest it has in six years to being passed out of committee and on to the full House floor. In a surprising turn of events, it failed by one vote after bill cosponsor and Gay supporter Del. Dana Dembrow (D) voted against an amendment critical to its passage out of committee. But this year, the bill has caused a bit of turmoil of a different kind within the Maryland statewide Gay civil rights organization the Free State Justice Campaign. After the bill was drafted and pre-filed with the legislature, Free State leaders decided they wanted it to contain language that would give protection to transgender people as well. As originally drafted, the bill sought to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations, but did not define sexual orientation in such a way so as to include transgender persons. Free State sought the change after the deadline for changing the bill had passed, however, and the group failed to convince the bill’s sponsor, Del. Sheila Hixson (D), to amend it. The failure prompted Free State Legislative Co-chair Jessica Xavier, a nationally known transgender activist, to resign from the group. Although Xavier said she thinks the leadership of Free State is committed to trangender inclusion, she said she thinks they are unwilling to pay the political price of such inclusion in the Gay civil rights bill. "I think everyone wants to go to inclusivity heaven, but nobody wants to politically die," Xavier said. "And I think the road to hell is paved with good intentions and bad bills." Other Free State officers say the group is still committed to having laws protect against discrimination aimed at transgender people. "Free State has a very strong commitment for securing civil rights for all of our community, including transgender people," said Free State Chair Liz Seaton. "But the board’s strategy is one of working for the long term inclusion of Gays, Lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people, to gain protection for all of the members of our community," she said. "Free State is prepared to take significant political risks" for transgender inclusion, Seaton said, "but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re ready to throw caution to the wind." In Illinois, which is in the second year of a two-year legislative session, the Gay civil rights bill currently in the House Rules Committee has already been voted on. It failed on the House floor last April when it came up eight votes shy of the 60 it needed to pass. Gay activists are still fuming over that vote because eight Democrats who were expected to vote for the civil rights bill did not. According to Rick Garcia, director of the Illinois Federation for Human Rights, elections are coming up this fall and the Illinois group has found some Republicans who said they will vote for a Gay civil rights bill and will challenge those eight Democrats for office. "I say being screwed by a Democrat is no different than being screwed by a Republican," Garcia said, explaining what he tells people who warn his group against helping the Republicans capture the House this fall. "We’re going to play footsie with the Republicans. The Democrats have promised us community for too long." Garcia said his group has introduced the civil rights bill every year since 1993 and will continue to do so until it passes. Making bias a crime
In a society where social problems are ever and increasingly dealt with at the level of the penal system, it is perhaps no surprise that the largest number of Gay-related bills have to do with increasing criminal penalties for hate crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation. So far, nine state legislatures are considering at least 23 of these bills — the most of any type of Gay-related bill this year. A bill to add sexual orientation to the hate crimes statute in Colorado has had some early success this year. On Feb. 5, it passed the House Judiciary Committee by a 9 to 3 vote. However, this victory may be short-lived since the bill has now been sent on to the House Appropriations Committee, where it died last year after being postponed indefinitely. In Virginia, both the Senate and the House are considering legislation to add sexual orientation to the advanced penalties for hate crimes law. This is the fourth year this legislation has been introduced in Virginia. All three bills this year (two in the House, one in the Senate) have bipartisan cosponsors, but Gay activists say the Christian right has targeted the bills for defeat. "Which obviously tells us that we’re making much headway on them," said David Perry, a lobbyist for Virginians for Justice. Virginia activists were recently dealt a setback, however. On Feb. 3, the subcommittee on criminal law and procedure tied 3 to 3 on a vote to pass the hate crimes bill onto the full Courts of Justice Committee. Subcommittee Chair Joseph Gartlan (D) then threw in his vote to break the tie and pass the bill on to the full committee, which he also chairs. The following day, the full committee voted 9 to 5 to postpone the bill, meaning that they may or may not decide to pick it up again this session. VJ head Shirley Lesser said she is still hopeful, since the House is also considering similar bills that have certain significant differences from the bill killed in the Senate. She said the biggest difference is that the House version does not include gender (the current law provides for stiffer penalties for crimes motivated by race, religion, and ethnicity). And gender, said Lesser, has turned out to "much more controversial" than sexual orientation. "Which is sort of an interesting take on all of this," Lesser said, "so it’s not a foregone conclusion" that if this bill passes the House it will then be killed by the same Senate committee that killed the Senate bill. The other states considering bills to designate increased penalties for hate crimes motivated by a victim’s sexual orientation are: Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York. Repealing sex as crime
Crime is also an issue for Gay activists in another way. Twenty states still have laws on the books that make it a crime for a person to engage in sex with a person of the same gender and/or to engage in certain forms of sex other than heterosexual intercourse. Six of those states criminalize sex between same-sex couples but not heterosexual couples: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, and Maryland. This year, sodomy reform bills are sitting in four statehouses: Minnesota, Georgia, Virginia, and Massachusetts. None has yet seen any action. The bills are not always introduced out of concern for the equal rights of Gay couples, however. For instance, a bill to repeal the sodomy statute in Georgia is sponsored by State Sen. Steve Langford, who, activists say, is registered as a Democrat but has strong Libertarian leanings. "It’s coming from his desire to have less government legislation in people’s bedrooms, an although it benefits us as Gay people, it’s a different motivation," said Cindy Abel, executive director of the Georgia Equality Project. "It’s not necessarily because this guy is Gay-friendly." Similarly, Minnesota’s sodomy reform bill, introduced in 1997 (the Minnesota legislature has two-year sessions), comes as part of a larger bill from the Senate Crime Prevention Committee to update the state criminal. It was unsolicited by Gay activists. According to Ken Backhus, Senate Counsel to the Crime Prevention Committee, the bill also seeks to strike other statutes that are of "questionable constitutional merit," such as adultery and flag burning laws. The Massachusetts sodomy reform bill has been inactive since September 1997 (Massachusetts also has two-year legislative sessions) and is likely dead. While Gay activists are mobilizing to redraft the bill, they are divided over whether or not the redraft should include language dealing with people arrested for engaging in sex in public places. Some activists said they feel this would be too big of a political risk. "Connecting the issue with public sex would essentially kill our ability to repeal the sodomy laws," said Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. Meanwhile, national pro-Gay organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund have been side-stepping the legislatures and mounting challenges to state sodomy laws on the judiciary front. Court battles for sodomy repeal are currently being waged in Maryland, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico. Focus is on the family In all, the annual Blade survey found 76 Gay-related bills in 27 state legislatures at the top of 1998 -- 42 are pro-Gay in nature; 33 are anti-Gay in nature. (This compares to the first week of February 1997, when 88 Gay-related bills had been introduced in 27 state legislatures; 40 were pro-Gay and 48 were anti-Gay.) In addition to bills concerning hate crimes, sodomy, civil rights, and marriage, there are bills dealing with a wide range of issues, from domestic partner benefits to obscenity to adoption. According to Betsy Gressler, deputy political director of NGLTF, the conservative right has begun to reach its saturation point in terms of having deluged as many states as it can with anti-Gay marriage legislation, and is now redirecting the focus of its attack. The focus now, she said, is on "family issues," including domestic partnership, adoption, foster care, child custody, and schools. While Massachusetts considers legislation to offer health insurance benefits to the domestic partners of state employees, Georgia, Washington, and Michigan are considering bills to ban local and state governments, and in some cases even private companies, from offering such benefits. In California, legislators are considering both pro- and anti-Gay domestic partnership bills. Georgia is also considering an anti-Gay adoption bill that would prohibit unmarried partners from jointly adopting children. Meanwhile, the biennial Tennessee legislature is considering a bill, introduced last year, that would prohibit Gays from serving as foster parents. A Kentucky bill would amend domestic violence laws to exclude protections for Gay men and Lesbians. Gay activists are also watching anti-obscenity bills in Oklahoma and parental rights in education bills in Colorado and in Washington, since these types of laws are often directed against Gays. Twelve states are considering more than 70 HIV/AIDS-related bills, with nearly 50 bills reported in New York alone. At least five bills seek to require medical personnel to report the names of people infected with HIV to state health officials; at least nine seek to criminalize HIV transmission; two bills seek to establish needle exchange programs; and several others deal with funding for AIDS education and services programs. Nicholas Boggs, Rhonda Smith, Kai Wright, and Christine Dinsmore contributed to this report. Copyright © 1998 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community. Back to List of Articles
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