09091988

The Gay community should be outraged not by the D.C City Council's failure to add amendments to two anti-Gay bills, but rather by the introduction of the bills to begin with.

One of the bills repeals the city ban on AIDS antibody testing by insurance companies and another bill grants low-interest revenue bonds to a religious institution whose commitment to our human rights law is questionable at best. No judge should respect a city council that abandons the very laws that it seeks to defend in court.

When our City Council has more respect for the will of Congress than for the will of the people of this city, it is time to replace everyone of its members. Just how responsive is our much acclaimed City Council to Gay men and Lesbians, when in the last two years, not one City Council member has reintroduced a bill to repeal DC sodomy laws. Just how responsive is our City Council to Gay men and Lesbians when it has to study domestic partner benefits for city employees rather than enact them.

The Council assumes that because they are "in bed with" so many D.C. Gay activists, the rest of us won't notice the fire in the kitchen. I, for one, am tired of seeing them at our social gatherings, our political events, and at our dining room table, only for them to let the house burn when they leave.

For years, I have defended our city's financial mismanagement and lack of quality public services, because I believed in our right to self-government and I believed in our Council and Mayor's commitment to Gay men and Lesbians. Now that they have abandoned both principles, the time has come to recognized the cowards for what they are. I no longer believe in them, because they no longer believe in the power District citizens give them.

If the City Council wants to draw blood for the insurance companies, let it be on their hands. I challenge them to prove me wrong on December 13, 1998 when they gather again for the second and final vote on these bills in Council Chambers. As for the Mayor, let his silence be his political death.

Note: DC Council voted to repeal the city's ban on AIDS antibody testing and they did grant low interest bonds to Georgetown University.

Since this letter was published, however, DC has repealed its sodomy law and granted domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian city employees (although Congress overrode the bill). DC now has two gay men on City Council (one Republican and one Democrat).