Ranks of ACT-UP Members in O.C. Dwindle to Just 1

Three years ago, Orange County ACT-UP member Robert Whyte was dumping sacks of manure on a clergyman’s office steps and handing out thousands of condoms at local high schools. But today, Whyte is the lone representative of the group, which once attracted both widespread anger and praise for its in-your-face tactics.

“What they did got action. When groups like ACT-UP . . . speak up on behalf of the HIV-infected and -affected community, they speak with a voice that has an urgency that no bureaucrat, no administrator, no media can have,” said Jack Herzberg, program director at Orange County’s AIDS Response Program.

In its heyday, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power weathered criticism and grabbed headlines with some of its more brazen antics. Members deposited manure on the doorstep of the Rev. Louis Sheldon, leader of the Traditional Values Coalition, to symbolize what the group thought of the conservative minister’s anti-gay activities. They staged a “die-in” in front of a house where then-Sen. Pete Wilson was speaking, to dramatize how many people were succumbing to AIDS. They distributed condoms at local high schools to warn teen-agers of the dangers of unsafe sex.

This year, however, all but one of the Orange County group’s members have departed--some of them satisfied that their actions made a difference, some frustrated by the experience, still others victims of the very disease ACT-UP focused attention on. Whyte now confines his crusade primarily to the Internet, engaging in conversations with other computer users on an electronic bulletin board. He also handles the occasional telephone call, often directing those who want to get involved to other community groups.

The decline of ACT-UP is not restricted to conservative Orange County. Even in more liberal Los Angeles, chapter membership has sharply dropped.

But some say the 7-year-old Orange County group is only redefining itself, spurred on as thousands more die from AIDS each year and fear of funding cuts grows amid the more conservative political atmosphere.

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For five years, Orange County ACT-UP’s original core of about 40 men and women, ages 20 to 30-something, met weekly. Sometimes the atmosphere was so close-knit that new members arrived feeling like “outsiders at a family reunion,” Whyte said.

Whyte nostalgically recalled the group’s efforts to educate high school students about the dangers of AIDS by passing out condoms at school. Some of the students treated the condoms like toys, but the group’s effort still delivered a message, he said.

“Once they (the condoms) were floating across the athletic field like balloons, (school officials) couldn’t deny their existence. Then the schools had to deal with it,” Whyte said. “The teachers who were responsible for the curriculum were happy for the most part. They wanted to tell kids the things they (the students) wanted to know to protect themselves. We had teachers off the record saying, ‘Good job.’ ”

But there were also quieter times, candlelight vigils when grieving friends and neighbors sat up late into the night as people dropped by to leave obituaries of friends and family to honor those who had died of AIDS.

The group’s headquarters changed each week, moving to different people’s homes. “It had a short shelf-life. Some members were HIV-positive, others were working full time and found it hard to be active at the weekly meetings and at some action every week,” Whyte said of the group.

Members left for widely varying reasons, even as no new members were recruited. Some were frustrated by charges that their rowdy tactics alienated the mainstream population.

But their actions were necessary, former members said, to catch the attention of those in power, who as a result were more receptive to the more moderate gay rights activists.

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To get his point across, former member David Cammack has screamed, yelled, kicked and bitten. He also has been arrested three times. “I don’t mind screaming and yelling if it does any good for the middle-of-the-road people, to get them in and talk,” he said.

“I think that, if it alienated anybody, it was because they were unwilling to look at how crucial it was that we do something at the time. The people who are alienated and still are don’t realize that because it is so radical, it let middle-of-the-road people in. They were able to just waltz in and talk.”

Cammack said that ACT-UP disintegrated under a more liberal administration, which many members assumed would meet their concerns.

“When ACT-UP was on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, all of the things we had been fighting for--nationalized health care, better AIDS funding, a cure for AIDS--all became part of the Democratic platform,” said Cammack, now a member of the Orange County Democratic Central Committee. “At that point, it became time to stop fighting the Republicans who were in office and try to get a president who at that time was going to get things done.”

In the end, Cammack became disillusioned that mainstream politicians were still not listening to ACT-UP. “Sometimes when you’re fighting for your friends and loved one’s lives, you need to do something more. I have lost 15 people to AIDS. A lot of my friends who I was in ACT-UP with are now dead.”

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But ACT-UP also has its share of critics, who said that in Orange County’s conservative atmosphere, the group’s aggressive approach intimidated many and obscured its message.

Dennis Evans was principal at Newport Harbor High School when ACT-UP members distributed about 1,000 colored condoms.

“The whole approach was misplaced. Kids were either offended or thought it was really funny,” Evans said. “I don’t think (ACT-UP) treated a serious subject the way it deserved to be treated.”

Sheldon, who found 170 pounds of manure on his doorstep, said he was annoyed by ACT-UP’s stunt, but that it had no effect in scaring off his group.

“They were intimidation factors,” he said. “I’ve watched that leadership in the last 14 years come and go. Louis Sheldon is still here with traditional values.”

Frank Ricchiazzi, executive director of the Orange County Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, said he and other party members have long warned liberals of the consequences of a primarily conservative administration.

“The (November) election said the American people want rational discussion; no extremism on one side or the other. What we’ll find here in Orange County is more rational discussion, which will come out of the Log Cabin Club, people who I see as strong Republicans, strong fiscal conservatives, but at the same time who know and understand the state of AIDS funding and research,” said Ricchiazzi, who as assistant director of the Department of Motor Vehicles is one of the state’s highest-ranking appointed officials who is openly gay. “We’ll be successful because we’re going to be doing it in an intelligent, unemotional, factual basis.”

It was in front of Ricchiazzi’s house that ACT-UP protested Wilson’s appearance about seven years ago. “They staged a die-in. I live on a very steep cul-de-sac, so they started from down below and they would just lay down and mostly do chalk marks (outlines of bodies, representing the dead) and lay some flowers there,” said Ricchiazzi of the 150 protesters. “The message that we in the Log Cabin Club wanted to send out was diluted because of ACT-UP.”

But with the swell in conservative leadership, which is traditionally cool to funding AIDS programs, and the steadily rising numbers of AIDS cases, many activists said ACT-UP’s maneuvering is more imperative now than ever.

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Herzberg, of the county’s AIDS Response program, said the spirit of ACT-UP is far from fading into history. “I don’t think it’s gone. I think it’s being reformulated. The tactics that worked at the beginning of the epidemic are not necessarily the same tactics that will work now.”

He said that, with the new conservative majority in Washington, ACT-UP’s role is increasingly crucial.

“AIDS funding has traditionally come from Democrats. I think there is cause for concern,” said Herzberg, noting that the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, which provides more than $600 million in funds for dealing with HIV and AIDS, is up for review in Congress this year.

For now, ACT-UP’s former members are still open to the possibility of remobilization.

“During election night, Bob (Whyte) and I talked, and especially with the election results of the last general election, we’re taking a wait-and-see attitude,” Cammack said. “We don’t say we’re dead. The members are still there, and we’re all friends. What we’re going to do is just look and see what happens with the majority being Republican, and if they start cutting funding, making major changes in AIDS education, saying abstinence is the only way, we may mobilize again.”