Soul Survivors

Should a gay man whose long-time lover has died of AIDS be listed among the survivors in a newspaper obituary? For that matter, what about long-time lovers of either sex--are they, too, survivors?

No, according to a policy statement from Daily Variety.

The stand was prompted by an angry half-page ad (cost: $890) taken out by grieving TV movie producer Christopher Sands after Daily Variety deleted his name and the designation “lover” from an obituary that he had submitted for Robert Francis Sullivan. Sands and Sullivan had lived together 11 years. “The grieving gay spouse left behind should not have the ugly boot of bigoted homophobia, unintentionally or not, pressed down hard against their throats,” Sands declared in his ad, which appeared in Daily Variety the same day that the paper printed its policy statement.

In explaining Daily Variety’s position, associate publisher Mike Silverman told us, “We don’t differentiate between sexes.” It “applies in all cases, whether someone is living with a man, a woman, a Martian or a cat.”

Silverman, who claimed that Variety was the first trade paper to list AIDS as a cause of death in obituaries, insisted, “This is not an AIDS policy. Believe me, we know what AIDS is doing to this community.”

The Hollywood Reporter ran the obit intact, mentioning Sands, but later rejected a two-page version of Sands’ ad (cost: $1,800), according to Lynne Segall, director of marketing, because Sands “wanted to use the Reporter as a voice to attack Variety.” Managing Editor Therese Wells said the Reporter has no “hard and fast” rule about limiting survivors to blood relatives: “We will run lifetime companions (in obituary notices).”

(The Times’ policy generally is to list survivors according to their wishes.)

Sands, who met with Silverman for 45 minutes on the issue, said, “I don’t actually believe in my heart of hearts that Mike Silverman is a homophobe. I think he was embarrassed by the policy.”

But, Sands added, “These kinds of societal policies . . . constitute homophobia.”