The Washington Blade, February 18, 1983

              February 18, 1983, Vol, 14, No. T 504: Outside of D.C./Baftirnore Areas
THE GAY WEEKLY OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
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Levi picked by NGTF to replace
by Lou Chibbaro Jr.
Gay Activists Alliance President Jeff
Levi has been appointed as the new
director of the National Gay Task
Force's Washington office, NGTF
announced late last-week.
Levi, 28, an editor for an Arlington-based
consulting firm, will assume his
NGTF duties on March 14.
The current head of the NGTF
Washington uffice, Melvin Boozer, last
week announced he was resigning at the
request of NGTF executive director
Virginia Apuzzo.
Levi's appointment follows a series of•
internal disagreements among NGTF's
board of directors and staff that led to
the ouster last fall of the organization's
former executive director, Lucia Valeska,
and a decision by the majority of the
board to change some of the New York-based
group's goals and programs.
NGTF first opened its Washington
office in September of 1981, when
Boozer was hired in the full-time, paid
position. The title of the job, at the time,
was director of civil rights advocacy.
Boozer has used his home as an office for
the post.
Levi, who said the details of his salary
are still being discussed, noted he is
looking for office space and hopes
NGTF will be able to provide some -
logistical support as well as an office.
He said his first major task will be to
conduct a detailed study of how Gays are
affected by every federal government
agency. Levi said he plans to prepare a
written report on the findings of the
study which NGTF may soon publish.
He said he will also continue the duties
begun by Boozer of monitoring executive
branch programs and policies, as well as
the process surrounding the appoint—
ment of federal judges, in. connection
with issues of concern to Gays.
Levi will begfri his new job in the wake
of a stongly worded protest against
Boozer's forced resignation by 10 leaders
of Washington's black Gay community.
The protest, in the form of an open letter
to NGTF, called the departure of
Boozer, who is black, an "extremely
distressing development" that is sym-bolic
of the Insensitivity to the concerns
of black Gays by "the white Gay power
structure."
Apuzzo said she was surprised by the
letter, which she said incorrectly implied
that a racial motivation was involved in
Boozer's resignation.
"I am in accord with much of the
sentiment [of the letter] regarding racism
in the Gay and Lesbian community,"
Apuzzo said. "It is clear that there is
much work to be done in bringing our
movement in alignment with principles
of equality," she added.
"But it is unfortunate that the issue of
Mel's termination with NGTF is being
singled out as underscoring those con-
Continued on page 13
Boozer
APUZZth expresses surprise at
Implication that race was a moti-vation
in her ouster of Boozer.
Rep._ Henry ,Wakrotht.r
AIDS is A health issue, not a political issue
On February 2, Washington Blade
contributor Larry Bush met Ivith Rep.
Henry Waxman to discuss the current
AIDS epidemic and other issues of interest
to Gays. Waxman, a five-term Democrat
from California, chairs a House sub-committee
on Health and the Environment
and, as such, is a key player in public
policy debate about health issues, including
AIDS. In addition, he is a principal
sponsor of the House Gay rights bill.
Bush: According to the budget briefing
books, the acquired immune deficiency
syndrome [AIDS] doesn't become a line
item in the Reagan proposal for fiscal
'84. Do you consider it significant that it
doesn't make it as a line item?
Waxman: I &Ink think so. I'm satisfied
that the appropriations that the Congress
adopted for the Centers for Disease
Control will in fact be used specifically
and exclusively -for AIDS research, and
rm satisfied that at NIH we'll see the
same re•sults.
WAXMAN: it would be "disgrace-ful"
if AIDS were seized upon by •
demagogues;
Bush: Do you think it's because the -
[Reagan administration] is nervous about
being upfront about funding a program _
for AIDS research?
Waxman- Possibly, but I just don't
know that to be the case. They claim that
they, internally in their budget presenta-tion
to us, had that item set aside and in
mind for $2 million. I'm satisfied right
now with the representations that are
being made to us by the administration
that the money will be used for research,
and we will be asking them questions on
the record in hearings to make sure that's
the case, and we'll be monitoring how
they spend it.
Bush: There's a lot of concern among
Gay people that we don't know how
much money is needed to ask for a
realistic amount in the first place. Do
you feel like you're getting a handle on
that now, or do you know how long the
process will take to understand that
• )
Waxman: We have to distinguish
between the Centers for Disease Controls
and the National Institutes of Health.
The Centers for Disease Control has
additional money and they are very
•
much on top of this situation. The
National Institutes of Health will come
before my subcommittee for re-author-ization.
At that time we will go into...
Bush: By -what time is that, in May?
Waxman: By May 15 the committee
has to have reported the bill out. We will
have them on record prior to that time in
hearings as to how much money they
think they're going to need, what time
frame they're talking about, what their
thinking is about the whole problem, and
how much of a financial priority it will
have to be for us to hope that we'll have a
breakthrough.
Bush: How much is this issue caught
up in politics? You seemed to allude to
that in your opening remarks in your
AIDS hearing last April in Los Angeles.
WPVITtalr There is always the possibil-ity
that this issue, which is a health issue,
could get caught up in politics. When I
, first became aware of it, I was shocked
that it seemed hlre it was not getting the
attention that something like toxic shook
Continued on page 24
Proposed conferences to
- by Jim Marks * •
Organizers for a proposed area-wide
Gay conference, tentatively scheduled
for later this year, will hold a second
public meeting to discuss the conference
on Febnny 24. Meeting planners, while
acknowledging that the meeting has been
left largely unstructured in an effort "to
be very inclusive," say persons at the
meeting will be asked to decide whether
or not to go ahead with the proposed
conference and to outline its agerida and
a structurq- for plimning it.
examine racism other issues
The conference, which initially was
envisioned as a forum to discuss a Gay
agenda for the 80s and to air concerns
about racism within the Gay community,
was urged last November in a letter sent
to some 60 Gay community leaders by
Ray Melrose and Gil Gerald. Melrose is
a past president of the D.C. Coalition of
Black Gays; Gerald is the organization's
current president. That letter-led to a
December 6 public meeting at The
-Coffeehouse where the approximately 40
persons present voted to set up two
committees to publicize and organize the
February 24 planning meeting.
In addition, some of those present at
the December '6 meeting decided after-wards
to hold a related, but separate
conference for black Gays. The purpose
of that conference, organizers say, is to
increase the visibility of the black Gay
political community and define its
agenda. A planning meeting for that
conference is scheduled for February 26,
with the conference itself tentatively
slated for September or October. Organ-izers
of the area-wide conference have
urged that it be held after the black
conference.
Two presentations are currently
scheduled for the February 24 meeting.
One, by Gerald, will outline the general
aims in holding the conference. The
other, by Chris Bates, chairman of Black
and White Men Together, will deal with
the availability and cost of facilities in
which to hold the conference. Bates has
said that late August would be the best
Continued on page 12