Queer Nation "Outs" HIV Prevention Barebackers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 13, 2000

Contact: David Pasquarelli: (415) 637-4666 Todd Swindell: (415) 863-5839

Queer Nation "Outs" HIV Prevention Barebackers

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Militant gay group launches campaign to expose AIDS hypocrites funded by U.S. Centers for Disease Control

SAN FRANCISCO -- Today members of the rejuvenated militant homosexual group Queer Nation (QN) publicly outed two federally funded HIV prevention officials for placing personal sex advertisements on a popular website that advocates condomless anal intercourse. Stating that "HIV does not cause AIDS" and that "gay sex does not lead to disease and death," Queer Nation activists vowed to continue exposing hypocritical HIV careerists that preach condom use by day but engage in bare butt sex by night.

Vince Gaither, also known as HIV Prevention Planning Council (HPPC) member Sister Mary Mae Himm, and Keith Folger of San Francisco's Stop AIDS Project were confronted in public by Queer Nation activist David Pasquarelli who passed out color prints documenting in graphic detail their participation in barebacking.

Gaither was outed at the monthly meeting of the HPPC when Pasquarelli distributed photos from his webpage on www.barebackcentral.net (member: rdhdwolf@jps.net). Folger was outed later in the day at a community forum sponsored by the Stop AIDS Project's Positive Force Program when Pasquarelli handed out prints of his barebackcentral webpage to the audience (member: inkman@pacbell.net).

The bareback outings were prompted by a front-page San Francisco Chronicle article alleging a tripling of The City's HIV rate caused by, according to government funded AIDS industry researchers, condom-free gay male sex. It is important to note that San Francisco Department of Public Health officials have since backpedaled from the alarming statistical assertion after an investigative article in the Bay Area Reporter, a local gay weekly, found no verifiable proof of the increase.

"For decades gay men have been depicted as menacing, sick and diseased by our enemies," noted QN's Pasquarelli. "The homophobic HIV lie is just the latest effort to reinforce this damaging stereotype and equate gay male intimacy with death. That effort -- and those who promote it -- must be challenged."

Queer Nation members demanded the immediate removal of barebackers Gaither and Folger by Mayor Willie Brown's Health Commission should the two fail to voluntarily resign from their HIV prevention positions. They also vowed to continue publicly revealing AIDS industry barebackers until the Centers for Disease and Control removes homosexual males as a "high risk group" whose behavior threatens public health.

"Now that the irrational 80's HIV hysteria is behind us, it's time for Queers across the country to get back on the road to sexual liberation," proclaimed QN activist Todd Swindell. "We need sodomy laws off the books, San Francisco's bathhouses reopened, and affirmative media images of Queer sexual self-determination free from the continuous barrage of anti-gay public health propaganda. We're here, we're Queer, get used to it!"

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The official launch of Queer Nation SF's new website (www.queernationsf.com), complete with pro-gay T-shirts, downloadable sticker templates and a gallery of hypocritical HIV prevention barebackers, will take place on Monday, July 17, 2000.

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