Dannemeyer’s Meeting Disrupted by Gay Activists

Shouting gay activists repeatedly disrupted a Yorba Linda community meeting convened Tuesday by Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), whose views on AIDS treatment have been criticized as anti-homosexual.

“We’re not going to die in silence anymore,” one gay man yelled at Dannemeyer when he refused to allow another activist to ask a question.

About 50 homosexual men and women, members of the Visibility League of Orange County, joined the overflow crowd at Yorba Linda City Hall to protest the congressman’s stands on AIDS treatment and other issues of importance to homosexuals.

Their angry and mostly shouted questions punctuated the meeting, which also was attended by about 200 residents who asked questions about matters such as Social Security, child care, gun control and the budget deficit.

The Visibility League is a gay rights group that uses methods that include demonstrations, marches, vigils and civil disobedience to tell the public about homosexuals in Orange County.

At half-hour intervals during the meeting, a Visibility League member would symbolically “die” and be carried out of the room. League Co-Chairman Craig Martens said this was done to symbolize the rate at which AIDS victims are dying and to “make it clear that what happens here is what’s happening on the outside.”

When the first League member “died,” another member declared: “One dead.”

“Good,” said someone in the audience.

“Get rid of them,” someone else said.

According to the league, as of December, 1988, 923 people in Orange County had been diagnosed as having AIDS; 540 of them have died.

League members also periodically held up small signs bearing the word Lie when Dannemeyer spoke.

“He is a major roadblock to stopping the spread of the disease,” Martens said. “He clouds the issue by talking about promiscuous homosexuality.”

League literature accuses Dannemeyer of causing “prejudice against people with AIDS” by engaging in “scare tactics, demagoguery, inflammatory rhetoric, innuendo and gross misinformation” about the disease.

Dannemeyer frustrated the protesters by refusing to call on Jeff LeTourneau of Anaheim. LeTourneau, a league member, had confronted Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) at a similar forum in Dornan’s district last year.

LeTourneau said after the meeting that he wanted to ask Dannemeyer why he had opposed funding for AZT, the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Dannemeyer sponsored an AIDS initiative, Proposition 102, on the California ballot in November, but it was soundly defeated. The proposition was similar to an initiative, also defeated, sponsored by political extremist Lyndon R. LaRouche Jr. Proposition 102 would have eliminated centers that offer anonymous testing for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which is suspected of causing AIDS. The initiative also would have required physicians to report to health authorities the names of people who test positive for the virus. Further, it would have required that those who had had sexual contact with AIDS carriers be notified, and it would have repealed laws barring insurance companies and employers from using AIDS test results.

Dannemeyer also has proposed legislation, also defeated, that would have required AIDS tests for prisoners, marriage license applicants and all hospital patients. He has opposed legislation that would protect patients and those infected with the virus from discrimination and from violations of confidentiality regarding their test results.

Federal health officials and other members of the public health community are united in their support of confidentiality and anti-discrimination legislation and in their opposition to measures such as Proposition 102 and those sponsored in the House by Dannemeyer.

Asked at one point why he had encouraged other public officials in Orange County to oppose an AIDS fund-raising effort, Dannemeyer said he feared that the money would be used “to promote the homosexual life style.”

That statement brought the meeting to a close, as protesters shouted “Lie! Lie!” and many members of the audience applauded Dannemeyer.

Dannemeyer concluded with: “I’ve enjoyed this very much.” Referring to the protesters, he added, “I hope one day they will have respect for the other person’s point of view.”