Newark Weeps
By MICK MEENAN
By late afternoon on Tuesday, it is already dark under the scaffolded roofing on the corner of sidewalk where Sakia Gunn and four friends waited in the early morning hours Sunday for the bus that the 15-year-old expected would bring her home to her grandmother. Sakia never made it. Now, two days later, a large, makeshift shrine, constructed between two upright girders, stretches from the sidewalk clear up to the planks of wood above. The shrine is festooned with balloons, and emblazoned with ribbons of the rainbow colors, the insignia of gay and lesbian freedom, and scores of Sakia’s friends, classmates, and even passing strangers, most of them adolescent African American lesbians, have etched their names and their good-byes in the cramped spaces on the oak tag paper taped to the wall.

Hundreds Protest AIDS Budget Cuts
By BENJAMIN RYAN
Vitriolic, no-holds-barred AIDS activism has returned to New York City. Following a passionate rally against the Bloomberg administration’s proposed AIDS budget cuts and changes to the HIV/AIDS Services Administration that drew 200 demonstrators to City Hall May 14, a group of several dozen AIDS advocates committed civil disobedience by blocking the building’s front doors and were willingly arrested on charges of disorderly conduct.

Demand for City AIDS Czar’s Resignation
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
Charging that Frank Oldham has "lost all credibility in the community," a leading AIDS service organization has demanded that Oldham, the citywide coordinator for AIDS policy, resign just four months after he joined the Bloomberg administration. "Either Frank Oldham has been lying to the New York City AIDS community from the day of his appointment as the head of the Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy Coordination, or he has been disrespected by the Bloomberg Administration in an unbelievable manner," read an editorial by Housing Works, a leading AIDS services group, that was distributed to AIDS activists and reporters on May 13.

New Leader at Audre Lorde’s Helm
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
Standing in his office at the Audre Lorde Project, Kris Hayashi, the group’s new executive director, eyed the stacks of manila folders, storage boxes, and other documents left by Joo-Hyun Kang, his predecessor. "I think that most of them will have to be put in storage," he said with a laugh after being asked if he would have to review all the records piled in his office. In New York for just three weeks and on the job for only three days, Hayashi spent an hour with Gay City News talking about his new job at the helm of the nine-year-old community center for queers of color located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Log Cabins Celebrate a Quarter Century
By PAUL SCHINDLER
The Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s leading G.O.P. organization for gay men and lesbians, held its annual convention in Washington May 8 through 10, marking the group’s 25th anniversary and drawing a record crowd of 200. The Log Cabin gathering came a time when George W. Bush, the Republican president who garnered an estimated quarter of the gay and lesbian vote in 2000, maintains impressive popularity.

Advocates Warn Prevention Under Attack
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
A panel on "The Politics of Prevention" painted a dire portrait of right wing promotion of abstinence-only education and attacks against HIV prevention efforts across the nation. "The HIV prevention community is under attack," said Mark McLaurin, associate director of prevention policy at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, during the May 15 panel held at the AIDS service agency’s Chelsea offices. McLaurin described a three-pronged assault––or ABC––which includes "audits," "biblical science," and "censorship."

Shifting Gears
By MICK MEENAN
By the end of June, the United States Supreme Court will hand down its decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark challenge to Texas’ ban on same-sex sodomy, a case with potentially profound constitutional implications for the LGBT community on the issues of privacy and equal protection. The end of June will also conclude the tenure of a lesbian attorney who has been at the center of the struggle for equal rights for more than a decade.

Key Player Departs the Scene
By ARTHUR S. LEONARD
With Ruth Harlow’s retirement as legal director at Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, the lesbian and gay legal movement will lose one of its most important leaders. Harlow has been a full-time public interest lawyer for the rights of sexual minorities and persons affected by HIV for more than a decade.

An Historic Meeting of Asian LGBTs
By MICK MEENAN
A panel of nationally recognized LGBT Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and South Asian activists convened a meeting May 8 in Manhattan’s LGBT Community Center that drew an unprecedented number of Asian American community members––nearly 100––to a forum entitled "Boiling Rice." The forum, sponsored by Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York, was an effort to summon input from the LGBT Asian and Pacific Islander community with a view to building a national advocacy group.

New HIV Clinic For LGBT Asians
By MICK MEENAN
A new HIV primary care clinic serving the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community opened its doors in Chinatown on April 2. The facility, the APICHA Primary Care HIV Clinic, established by the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA), is the first testing and primary care service provider designed specifically to serve the city’s API LGBT community, and is a response to the cultural barriers that community faces not only as LGBT people, but also as APIs.

Marriage Setback in Indiana
By ARTHUR S. LEONARD
The Indiana Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit seeking marriage licenses for three same-sex couples suffered a setback on May 7 when Marion County Superior Court Judge S. K. Reid granted the state’s motion to dismiss the case, ruling that the Indiana Constitution provides no basis for granting relief to the plaintiffs.

Lambda Volleys Back on Jersey Marriage
By PAUL SCHINDLER
Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, representing seven lesbian and gay couples in their effort to win same-sex marriage rights in New Jersey, filed a response May 8 to the state Attorney General’s February 24 motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

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