Dornan In-Law Assails Sister, Denies He’s Gay

The brother-in-law of Rep. Robert K. Dornan says he is not gay and is not suffering from AIDS, contradicting public statements made last week by the congressman’s wife.

In an interview with The Times, Douglas Richard Hansen, 51, a landscape architect in San Diego, said he is fuming over the comments of his sister, Sallie Dornan, at a political gathering last Sunday in Garden Grove. She said then that she had lost her temper and called a gay demonstrator a “fag” because she was angry and distraught over watching her brother deteriorate as he battled AIDS.

Hansen said in the interview that he is not a homosexual, is healthy and has seen his sister only once since their mother’s funeral in 1983. He said he was worried that other family members would learn of his sister’s remarks and be concerned about his health.

Hansen said he is so angry that he is planning to file a defamation lawsuit against the Dornans next week.

Despite repeated attempts, neither Dornan, a Republican from Garden Grove, nor his wife could be reached for comment.

The Dornans’ daughter, Robin, who was reached late Saturday, said her parents would not respond to inquiries about Hansen. “What you’ve heard from me is as close as you’re going to get to my mother or my father on this,” she said.

Asked how her mother was informed that Hansen was ill, Robin Dornan said: “That’s personal. There’s been communication. That’s all I’m going to say.

“It’s something that’s very, very sensitive and very personal and very sad. We just want to communicate with him and we don’t want him to be sick and alone.”

‘Anger in My Heart’

Last Sunday, Sallie Dornan apologized for shouting at a gay activist who was involved in a heated exchange with her husband during a Town Hall forum by saying she had “anger in my heart” over homosexuality because “my brother is dying.”

“He tells me every day; the thinner he gets, the sores covering his body,” an emotional Sallie Dornan told about 200 people at the forum.

When Dornan expressed surprise at his wife’s comments about her brother, known in the family as “Dougie,” she told her husband she had not informed him of her brother’s illness “because I didn’t want to hurt you.” Dornan said at the time he had believed his brother-in-law to be gay.

Robin Dornan said Saturday that her mother’s comments about Hansen’s weight and condition were misunderstood. When Sallie Dornan described Hansen’s appearance, she said, she was referring to what she feared would happen to him in the future.

“Is this what I’m going to have to see my brother with, getting thin, having sores?” Robin Dornan said her mother was saying. “In the future tense. She was referring to what the natural course of the disease is, not what currently is.”

Hansen, appearing robust and healthy, said in the interview with The Times on Friday that he had been tested for the AIDS virus four or five times in the last two years because he had had many gay friends and feared that even casual contact with them might expose him to the disease. All the tests were negative, he said.

“I’ll take an AIDS test anytime,” he said. “I’m a healthy 51.”

Hansen held out his arms and asked, “Do y ou see any spots?”

‘I’m Getting a Little Porky’

As for his weight, Hansen grinned and said, “I’m getting a little porky.”

Hansen said he had many gay, as well as heterosexual, friends while living in San Francisco in the 1970s. “I got this fear of AIDS . . . so I stopped going to any gay bars with my friends. I stopped going to any gay restaurants with them. I stopped associating with them,” Hansen said.

Hansen said he decided to tell his story “for two reasons: to defend my good name and to blast that guy (Dornan) out of the water, too. He’s a turkey.”

Dornan, who is running for reelection in the 38th Congressional District against Democrat Jerry Yudelson, has served five terms in Congress--first representing a district in West Los Angeles and later Garden Grove.

Sallie Dornan and Hansen have three other brothers. Both of their parents are dead.

Hansen said he has had some contact with his sister since she married Dornan in 1955 but said the Dornans have been aloof from the rest of the family.

A niece of Hansen’s, who asked not to be named, said in a telephone interview Saturday: “It’s been known in the family that Dornan and him (Hansen) don’t get along.” She said that while she and her family have seen Hansen periodically--and as recently as a few months ago--she had not seen her aunt “in a very, very long time, about 10 years.”

The niece, who lives in Northern California, said she learned of the Dornans’ remarks through television news accounts.

“I never heard this in my family, that he (Hansen) was gay,” she said.

Hansen said he learned of Sallie Dornan’s statements at the Town Hall forum from an aunt who had read newspaper accounts.

“Why does she come off the wall and say something like this?” he said of his sister’s remarks about AIDS. “I can’t believe it. She’s been in politics for years, and she’s got to do this to me? I can’t believe it.”