Dannemeyer Will Represent Bush at Health Meeting

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), who has suggested that AIDS is God’s curse on homosexuals, will represent Vice President George Bush at a San Diego health conference this week, but won’t necessarily reflect his own views, both Bush representatives and the congressman said Saturday.

Mark Gooden, a spokesman at Bush campaign headquarters in Washington, said Dannemeyer is only a “surrogate” chosen because he is from this region, has some expertise in the health field and is a strong Bush supporter.

“We have an entire national network of surrogates who fill in for Mr. Bush at conferences,” Gooden said. “Those surrogates are expressing their own views.”

Dannemeyer agreed that he would not modify his own stance on AIDS to conform with Bush’s.

“I intend to reflect the vice president’s views, because I will be there representing him,” Dannemeyer said Saturday. “If I state any views of my own which go beyond Mr. Bush’s views, I will make it clear to the audience they are my own thoughts and not his.”

Dannemeyer has suggested that homosexuals might be being punished by God because they “live in variance” from God’s rules. He has advocated mandatory AIDS testing and in some cases quarantine. He has also claimed it may be possible to get AIDS from French kissing.

He also has opposed laws to ban discrimination against AIDS victims--legislation Bush supports. Dannemeyer maintains that the American Civil Liberties Union would use the laws to force government agencies to hire or retain homosexual employees.

The Bush campaign asked Dannemeyer to represent the vice president at the American Group Practice Assn. on Friday. He will debate Dr. Jonathan Fielding of Santa Monica, a health adviser to the Michael Dukakis campaign.

Dannemeyer said it was his understanding the debate generally would deal with government policy on health issues. But he did agree AIDS is likely to be brought up.

Fielding said his own prepared remarks will deal with more than just AIDS, but that he intends to tell the group that AIDS would be a priority in a Dukakis Administration.

Fielding said Saturday that he knows very little about Dannemeyer. But told about some of Dannemeyer’s past statements on the subject, Fielding said: “Oh, my goodness. Not one of those!”

Bush spokesman Gooden said he was not aware of Dannemeyer’s AIDS position.

But Donna Lucas, a Bush spokeswoman in Sacramento, admitted that the choice of Dannemeyer was at least “curious,” because of the differences between the two politicians’ views on AIDS legislation. Lucas said the decision to ask Dannemeyer to represent Bush was made at the national campaign headquarters, not by the Bush people in California.

But Robert F. Gentry, a gay councilman from Laguna Beach, said he believes the choice may have been deliberate.

“Politically, Bush has been trying to appease the right wing of the Republican Party,” Gentry said.

Gooden and Lucas said Dannemeyer was a legitimate substitute for Bush because the congressman is the second-ranking Republican on the House health subcommittee.

“He is certainly knowledgeable on health issues,” Lucas said.

Even Gentry agreed with that.

“Mr. Dannemeyer knows a great deal on the subject of AIDS, and he is a very intelligent man,” Gentry said. “The problem is that his biases have gotten in the way of the material he knows.”

Dannemeyer said one topic the group may want to discuss is Proposition 102, an initiative he is sponsoring on the Nov. 8 ballot. The measure would eliminate centers that offer anonymous testing for the human immune deficiency virus (HIV), the suspected AIDS virus. It would also require physicians to report to health authorities the names of people who test positive for the virus.

The measure has been opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Medical Assn., as well as many of the nation’s leading AIDS researchers, who claim it would drive AIDS research underground.

Dannemeyer claims it would help switch the focus on AIDS from “a civil rights approach to a health approach.”

Fielding said Dukakis has not taken a position on any statewide initiatives, so he does not plan to debate the measure with Dannemeyer unless the audience demands it.

Fielding was the Massachusetts Public Health commissioner during Dukakis’ first gubernatorial term, from 1975 to 1979. He is now professor of public health and pediatrics at UCLA.

Fielding said he hopes that if the conference subject turns to AIDS, the answers will concentrate on the differences between the presidential candidates’ views on the subject.

Dukakis, he said, “supports any reasonable research to stop this terrible disease; the Reagan Administration was pretty slow in recognizing how serious the problem is.”

Gooden, from the Bush campaign, said he hopes Bush’s own position would be made clear at the conference.

“Vice President Bush favors an aggressive effort to track and control the spread of AIDS,” Gooden said. “He favors laws against discrimination, but thinks such laws should be coupled with an overall plan to fight the disease.”

Dannemeyer, who was in Oregon on Saturday to give a speech, refused to criticize any Bush statements on AIDS.