MURDER SUSPECT CAUGHT
by Tracy Baim
A nationwide manhunt for a Adam Ezerski, 19, sought in the killing of two gay Florida men and another in San Francisco, ended late last week with his arrest in Reno, reports the Mercury News.
FBI officials credited media reports about the case with leading to the arrest.
Before his arrest, Ezerski's last whereabouts were in San Francisco when he allegedly attacked a 42-year-old man who had taken Ezerski into his apartment, the Mercury News reported.
FBI officials in Florida are seeking Ezerski, featured on TV's America's Most Wanted, in connection with the killings late last month of two gay men...Irving Sicherer, 76, who was found bludgeoned to death in his condominium, and Anthony Martilotto, 40, of Brooklyn, found dead at a Fort Lauderdale hotel.
Authorities believe Ezerski is gay, but his 18-year-old brother described him as "homophobic'' and said he was engaged to a woman, the paper reported.
SILENCE = BIAS IN SOUTH DAKOTA
South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow now says the Adopt-A-Highway Program will continue in his state but by the end of this year all signs along the roads will have the names of the groups removed.
The action was sparked by a federal lawsuit filed against the state by the Sioux Empire Gay and Lesbian Coalition. The group was told they would not be identified on signs because of being an advocacy group. For now though, they will have a sign identifying the stretch of road they will clean litter on.
NLGJA INVITES ANTI-GAYS TO CONFAB
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association has invited Brian Camenker, president of the Parents Rights Coalition, to be on a panel that will explore bias in the news media against critics of homosexuality, reports Boston's Bay Windows. Also appearing on the Sept. 7 panel are Michael Johnston, a leader of the "ex-gay" movement and president of Keruso Ministries, and Peter LaBarbera, director of Keruso's Americans for Truth Project and publisher of The Lambda Report. No pro-gay panelists are scheduled.
PRC has been a critic of any discussion of sexual orientation in Massachusetts public schools, Bay Windows said. PRC members secretly recorded a safe-sex workshop sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network for teens that involved explicit discussions.
NLGJA President Robert Dodge defended the panel: "I know we are being accused of inviting the enemy ... . As journalists, we have to step outside of that. They have opinions about being covered just like other people at the convention. They need to hear us."
NEW AIDS STATS OUT
The Human Rights Campaign called on Congress to comprehensively address the HIV/AIDS crisis by increasing spending on federal HIV/AIDS programs following the release of new statistics showing that these efforts will save lives.
The new statistics were released at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meeting on HIV/AIDS at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta. According to the data, between July 1998 and June 2000, AIDS cases and deaths in the U.S. remained stable. The data demonstrates that a trend that began in 1998, after the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy ( HAART ) , continues. This means more people continue to live with HIV/AIDS. At the end of 2000, 774,467 Americans have been reported with AIDS, and does not account for those who have HIV. It is estimated that as many as 900,000 people may be living with HIV in the U.S.
"With 40,000 new infections each year and more people living with HIV/AIDS, the demand for care and treatment services continues to grow," said HRC's Winnie Stachelberg.
The data also shows an elevated and increasing risk in behavior among gay and bisexual men. In a survey, 30 percent of respondents reported five or more male sex partners in the past six months. The percentage who reported having unprotected anal sex was 46 percent overall...40 percent African Americans, 48 percent Latinos and 48 percent Caucasians.
But conservative gay columnist Andrew Sullivan writes at www.andrewsullivan.com that the CDC's AIDS statistics should be looked at skeptically.
"I think most reporters simply assume that an agency tracking diseases is so obviously laudatory that scrutinizing its press-releases is somehow rude," Sullivan wrote. "But surely an AIDS reporter should be aware of the healthy debate about what we reliably know about HIV transmission in America right now, and aware that many of the studies ... have been thoroughly questioned in the gay and AIDS press. ... The latest CDC report is not that revealing, in fact. Since its only solid data are in those states where reporting cases of HIV transmission is mandatory, and since the states with by far the biggest HIV load aren't among these ( yet ) , most of this is educated guess-work. ... Still, it looks as if AIDS deaths ( a relatively solid number ) have plateaued at around 20,000 a year. The current rate of HIV transmission is still anybody's guess."
PLAY INSPIRES 'PLOT'
The Indianapolis Star reports that two leaders of a militia group planned the execution of a third member who they believed had betrayed them, and they were timing the murder to coincide with a protest of the Indiana production of Terrence McNally's controversial Corpus Christi play. But the plot went awry when the hitman they hired proved to be an undercover state trooper, police said.
Fred Keuthan, 62, and Dallas Fultz, 66, both of Owen County and leaders in the 14th Regiment of the Indiana State Militia, were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, as well as a number of weapons violations, State Police said.
"Police decided to move in after learning that Keuthan and Fultz had dispatched more than a dozen other militia members armed with assault-style weapons to join a protest rally at the controversial play Corpus Christi. The play features a homosexual Christlike figure and 12 other characters, most of whom bear the names of Christ's disciples," the paper reported.
LAWSUIT SEEKS
DAMAGES FOR GAy Victims of Nazis
An international coalition has announced a historic proposal asking a New York federal court to allocate some of a $1.25 billion settlement of the lawsuit against Switzerland's two largest banks for a fund to recognize and address Nazi persecution of gay people.
Such a fund would be the first of its kind. The lawsuit prompting the court's settlement plan is the first to force recognition that gay people were systematically persecuted by the Nazis.
"No amount of money will ever right this historical wrong for any of the individuals and groups victimized by the Nazis. However, the Pink Triangle Coalition seeks to fulfill the responsibility of honoring the memory of the Nazi's gay victims," said Julie Dorf, founding member of the Pink Triangle Coalition.
