Since most of you haven't had the displeasure of knowing that Lori's friends and she once had such a good time fucking with people that they actually use to say, "Let's go over to Lori's house and fuck with people's lives," I thought I would make a few observations about this technology and the type of person Lori is, given my experience with her.
The first thing that I want to remind everyone is that Lori LaFond has ties to the military. Her family is from a major Marine Corp area in 29 Palms, California. That's where I am from too. Although most of the kids that I grew up with were military officer's kids, Lori was much different. She was way too grown up for 12 or 13 years old when it came to stuff like sex and grown ups. You could tell the first time my friends and I encountered her. She was not a very nice person as she was the teacher's aide in a seventh grade science class. I don't recall what it was specifically that the whole class didn't like about her, but one thing was obvious, she had a thing for the science teacher. It wasn't more than a week before she was removed from that class for an inappropriate way that she clung to the teacher. Yes, I know his name but that isn't the important thing. It was the manipulation that was already beginning to show itself.
I never met her father and still don't know her mother or any of her siblings. She was already lying to everyone and telling them that she was from "Dallas, Texas" and that she was an only child. That isn't the truth at all. She's got lots of brothers and sisters but she is the baby. "Baby" is the truest sense of the word.
I've read about and have seen this kind of behavior in other people too. I once volunteered for the Polinsky Children's Center as a mentor for kids in foster care. I learned about the kids and what kinds of problems they have. Sometimes these kids see male role models differently and Lori falls into that category. If only Lori could know what these adults were thinking about her. Enter the problem.
I have no proof that this is the case, but I am thinking that somewhere along the line, her dad became familiar with the "brain linking system" and someone gave a rudimentary explanation of what it does. I can only imagine what Lori thought when someone explained to her that "you can see what these pilots think." Fascination set in and then came the sociopath...if Lori knew what people were thinking she could manipulate them into doing whatever she told them to do. (It doesn't really work that way, but Lori is still trying to convince everyone that she can make me do what she wants...after thirty plus years).
Did she or did she and her brother manage to break into a military office and steal this equipment when the military wasn't using it any longer? Somehow Lori got this technology and the equipment to "implant and infect an entire city of gay people". The crime and urban legend grew from there.
Tonight I wanted to do some foreshadowing of the kind of things that this experience has taught me about being a gay man.
The first is this. I have a lot of people that I look up to in the gay community. I use to joke that celebrities in our community are limited to bar tenders and porn stars. In San Diego, I met more than my share of both. I would have to say that I actually was really impressed by some of the men that I met. Handsome, smart, comfortable with themselves and usually, quite friendly. I always thought that we needed more people in more places to protect us. I still do.
My personal heroes range from Colton Haynes, Wentworth Miller and Matt Bomer to industry giant David Geffen. All powerful gay men that show a side of gay masculinity that I admire. They are outspoken and have huge fan bases that give them a voice that many other people don't have when they come out. It's a shame, I think, that there aren't more "celebrity role models" that are in other fields. Attorneys, judges, firemen, police officers, advocates. Not people that act or sing, necessarily, but have a voice in the community of suburbanites. Where is our Johnny Cochrane? Where is our Rev. Jesse Jackson? Who do we turn to when things in our community get out of hand and we need to bring attention to this subject. Not everyone can solve their problems by calling RuPaul and asking for her help. We're friends and Lord knows that Mama Ru does everything she can to help our community. We need more.
That's where my friends and I want to step in. This story about human experimentation and surviving the AIDS crisis has all kinds of heroes in it. We have some of the brightest minds that I could assemble in our area. There are so many good people that Lori and her friends implanted for outsourcing information that there just had to be some really excellent guys and girls out there that want to be different than an actor or actress. We love our celebrities, especially the ones mentioned above, but even they need to have legal advocates and socially conscious gay people there to help them and the people that seek them out.
Though every member of my team has strengths that far outreach Lori LaFond, what I bring to the table is years of experience working for the U.S. Justice Department and the federal bench in San Diego. I know prosecutors and I know defense attorneys. I know judges and I know how the law works. Though I am not a lawyer, I am a paralegal and took a lot of time honing my craft like you do when you first come out of college and you are looking for your career.
I don't say this often enough. This crime and Lori LaFond, shaped me into the person that I am when it comes to work and the career I chose. How so? Well, first of all, I can tell you that when I was in the last half of the sixth grade, my father was arrested. You kind of have to know what my father is like to know how horrible this situation really was.
Like Colton Haynes, I have a really handsome dad. I will post you a picture of him when I get the chance but suffice to say, I've never met a better athlete in my life. He's the ultimate competitor with basketball, tennis racquet, badminton racket and pretty much everything. He was a high school weightlifting coach so you can imagine he was in good shape. For example, he just went to Phoenix, Arizona to play in a golf tournament. He's 77 years old. One of the days of the tournament, he shot a 66. That's on a pro course! Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that golf is his best sport? Yes, he's the ultimate athlete and being around him was something that most kids loved in high school. He was almost always voted the "Teacher of the Year" and every one of my friends thought of him like a dad. He's funny, smart and like I said, I've had so many people ask me, "What's it like having him as your father?" That's a loaded question...because it's terrific, but when Lori got involved my "perfect dad" became imperfect. It cost me a real relationship with him growing up.
You can only imagine. My sister, an excellent athlete herself, was already in her freshman year of high school. Lori was in the seventh grade when she did what she always does, she fell in love with a gay student. At least I think he's gay, he accused my dad of molesting him. It was not only shocking, it rocked my world. Never, and I mean never, did my father ever give any indication that he would touch a student, nevertheless, a boy, in that manner. He NEVER EVER touched me like that. I was deeply confused and it was painful.
I think that in this time frame, I was just becoming a teenager and it was confusing. It wasn't until I was asked to be a witness in the case that I knew that it wasn't true. One of the "allegations" had to do with this accuser being at our home and my father doing something with him. I was with that kid the whole time he was at our home...not one damn thing happened. Then I thought, why would someone make up something so horrible about someone that everyone loves. My dad is heroic around our town. He's the nicest person with a great sense of humor.
It wouldn't be until the summer before my freshmen year of high school that he would be acquitted of all charges and my life was suppose to return to normal. It didn't for one reason, Lori LaFond. Later I would learn that she had obtained a box of transcripts from that trial from the accuser's family when she told them that she "knew more about what happened and she was going to investigate me. (Probably for money)." I was already implanted the year after I graduated from high school, so Lori decided that she was going to re-make the case out of thin air by stalking and harassing me, a child witness to the crime, years later. She swears that more happened...I swore under oath that nothing did. Lori knows it too. As the story goes, according to Jonathan Mendenhall, Lori made up all of these allegations herself and tried to have my father put away for like thirty years. She would soon try it again in my freshman year of college when she contacted a friend of mine to accuse my father again. He is a good friend of mine and refused. It wasn't true.
Lori took it upon herself to contact my parents friends that also were my dad's construction partner. He told my dad's partner's wife that my dad was molesting my friend Danny now. It wasn't true. Lori is just a friend of Danny's family member and she just had to try again. It didn't work. Danny, who is also really close to my high school girlfriend, would have never done what Lori wanted him to do. Even my sister asked Danny about it. He wasn't happy that Lori would try to put him up to this. Once again, Lori left notes places where my mom could find them, she called friends, she tried to ruin my family again.
It caused my mom to move out of our home. It wasn't even true.
This is the theme of Lori's pitiful life. Accuse a teacher of molesting a kid. She did it twice more in the area of 29 Palms that she lived in too. In between accusing my father, she accused two of my friends' fathers of molesting each others kids. Always man with boy...her fascination grew and grew. In all these cases the fathers were acquitted but not without causing damage to every one of their families.
It wasn't just that she would try to force these kids into making accusations, she would literally trot her fat ass to their homes so that she could use these made up stories to hurt these people. Lori, besides being a total bitch, was obsessed with gay sex...especially illegal gay sex, which as it is defined is rape. How odd it would later turn out that it was Lori with these kinds of fantasies about raping a gay man...and I sit here today telling you she is the person I expect raped Christopher, Jonathan, Anthony, Benjamin and Martin...and many others. You see, it is my circle of friends that Lori wants to get into trouble.
The level of sophistication of her accusations is kind of scary. She would learn the father's handwriting and make up greeting cards with the sickest notes inside. Her fantasies played out on a Hallmark card. She would make up hotel receipts to make it look like my father actually had a motel room with a kid in there with him. It was sick. She is sick. My dad isn't anything like what Lori wanted him to look like, but more important, he wasn't going to be the sexual fantasy that Lori wanted him to be. I should know, she then tried to do the same kinds of things with me and my friends.
Lori's relentless pursuit of me and my family has never died. It has always been her dream to do something horrible to us. She succeeded when she was dealing drugs to my brother in law...he was eventually shot and killed in an unusual situation where, from home, Lori controlled all the actions that would put my brother in law in conflict with her uncle. The entire situation was set up by Lori and orchestrated to cause a death. She was so proud of herself when that happened. She almost got away with it too, except she has a big fucking mouth and loves trophies. She's got stolen things from my sister's wedding, photo albums and I've been told that even her wedding dress was stolen by Lori. There is something very wrong with this immature girl. She stopped growing up at the age of 12 or 13. If you hear her speak in person, you know, she's an immature baby with odd sexual quirks. (Nothing to do with lesbianism by the way.)
I think that it is extremely sad that she ended up carting all of her worst friends here to the desert where I HAVE TO LIVE now. They are literally here to cause more problems for me and my 70 plus year old parents. She's sick. She needs help and she isn't getting any.
Here is the thing. Where are our leaders outside of the entertainment world? Where are the people that I can talk to about this person stalking me and my family because I am gay? Where are the Rev. Jesse Jackson's of this community. I salute the guys that I know are trying. There are lots of women out there now that are doing there best too. Even women have people like Gloria Alred and so many great advocates. Women have done a terrific job of placing importance on careers that would lend themselves to helping women.
One thing that I bring to the table is my willingness to learn about the problems facing our community and the know how to get the kinds of people involved that can make a difference when they happen. I have the right connections. I know attorneys better than celebrities. I think somewhere between celebrities and white/blue collar working class there is a need for people that advocate in a real way for the LGBTQ community.
As I was starting to say above, it was all these legal conflicts in my early childhood that gave me the inspiration to go into the legal field. At first I wanted to become a lawyer, but then I realize that there were more than just lawyers in a courtroom. My organizational skills and planning were stronger than my desire to pick a side and argue for it. I learned how to use what I do to get closer to the people that make the decisions that shape our world. It really is a gift to be able to sit down with a federal judge and feel comfortable enough to speak on a subject. I actually miss that part the most. I got to tell the lawyers what to do and that made me feel special and privileged. When Lori got involved with that career, I shifted my focus to investigation and informant work, knowing that I would become a reluctant spokesperson for the gay community. I say reluctant because I never saw myself in this position. The position to do a great deal of good using my own story.
I have to say that I spend most of my time learning forensics and planning for the moment that is going to come. The time when I get to organize my team into a solid unit of investigations. We are good, there is no doubt about it. What I am thinking can happen with a story like ours is the building of those role models that do more than act or sing. We can actually put together a system of attorneys, investigators and advocates for all of the areas of the LGBTQ community and finally have a place that gay men, gay women and all gendered people of all sexualities to come and tell us what has happened. A place where they will be believed and their cases will get attention.
I know it isn't easy to do this, but after the experiences that we've had, I know that this team has the kind of people on it that can do great things. Individually and as a unit...my teams are phenomenal.
For too long transgendered black women have been killed, without investigation, in the San Francisco Bay area. For too long the unsolved murder of an L.A. man that was baited online to a home where he was killed without anything being written about it. For too long the unsolved killing of my good friend, Rob Johnson, in San Diego, found beaten to death with a socket wrench in the bathtub, has gone unnoticed. Thousands of cases where criminals have gotten away with murder and the concern level has been minimal because we live on the margins of society. There are so many cases that need attention for the grieving families of the people that we have lost. I will remind all of you that when we lose a person in the gay community it hits us the hardest in terms of our population. It takes ten kids from heterosexuals to make one terrific gay man or woman. That means it takes us ten times as long to have a community as strong as we were before the murder. When we lose, we lose for a very long time. You can't just make a gay kid. You have to be special to become one. In some ways, being a member of the LGBTQ community is so special and precious. We need to make sure that when a situation like Palm Springs happens, there are resources and law enforcement willing to do what it takes to find our oppressors.
When you have 650 plus gay men implanted with RFID devices and intentionally infected with HIV, you know the kind of damage that makes for our community. To simply get back to those number will take many generations...and then, of course, there are the lives that are lost and what they could have achieved for this community without someone like Lori LaFond decreasing our numbers. One person killed in a gay hate crime is too many for us to bear. 650 is by far a holocaust number...if you consider how long it will take to return those numbers to normal, pre Lori LaFond days. You can never replace a person either. It is my sincere hope that we can grow these numbers again with the memories of those we lost as a platform for good things in this community.
When you look at this situation in Palm Springs, we don't have a generation of 20 or 30 year olds any longer. The 40 year olds are diminishing too. You would think in an era of HIV meds that prevent the spread of the disease and keep us healthy that we'd be recovering, but that recovery takes so long. When we lose a life it's like the heterosexual community losing ten. When you consider those kinds of numbers, it is so important to stop what has happened as soon as it can possibly happen.
Palm Springs' gay youth has diminished, but it isn't just the HIV problem. Remember, most of these men that were implanted were infected without any kind of knowledge that this could have been a possibility. So they have a period of health that could allow them to infect people without even thinking they could. It's an epidemic of ignorance. The police did the rest of the damage to those of us that survived. We ended up with arrest records and felonies of made up proportions. Most of these guys had charges that didn't fit the crimes they were accused of. For example: Christopher, my boyfriend, was charged with "strong armed robbery" for allegedly stealing a bicycle and hitting a guy to do it. I don't care who you are, that charge isn't the crime, if it was true, and it wasn't. Christopher rented the bike and rode off leaving his wallet behind as collateral. There was no theft, no assault, nothing. Yet this kind of "violent felony" keeps him from having a job, voting, carrying a firearm and all kinds of things. How many of these gay men were charged with felonies that were misdemeanors? I was arrested six or seven times without a single conviction.
This problem is two fold. A police department that doesn't understand that the information they got from Lori was illegally obtained and embellished and Lori who thinks of gay men and women like a host to her parasite.
If this many women had been raped, implanted and infected over thirty years, most communities would know there was a rapist of women out there and that they infected people with HIV, but our police department has no clue. They think all gay men are promiscuous and have HIV. That's not what the statistics tell us in Palm Springs. We have HIV, syphilis, Hep C and other STD's from these rapes that we didn't think we could have...and the Desert AIDS Project knows that we are very high in the epidemic scale of what is normal for a city our size. Heck, the fact that we have an AIDS project of the caliber that we have shows that the need grew out of this crime.
So while I am proud of Matt, Wentworth, Colton and David, we have to do our jobs as well as they to theirs. We have to be able to stand up when someone is killed because they are gay and say, "We are here and we won't let this go unpunished." It is with these kinds of relationships with celebrities and professionals that our community is strongest, but we aren't there yet. I know, I've tried a lot of avenues since I was nearly beaten to death and no doors opened. I have a boyfriend raped by the same rapists. My friends all raped by the same rapists. We need to stand tall and together against the likes of Lori LaFond and others that think that our sexuality makes us a legal target for their violence and hate. It is our time to take the lead in this country for our community. The most beautiful and colorful community of love out there.
Lastly, we have some of the most incredible parents and friends outside of our community too. These people have supported us with love and charity during this AIDS crisis in measured donations that other diseases have never seen. This shows how much we are loved. We need to show our thankfulness for the efforts they made to save our lives so that we could fight this fight. The time for a victory from our community that makes this country better, is now. An American is an an American no matter gay, black, Muslim, female or any kind of minority...how can we be the minority when there are more of us then there are of them?
Though every member of my team has strengths that far outreach Lori LaFond, what I bring to the table is years of experience working for the U.S. Justice Department and the federal bench in San Diego. I know prosecutors and I know defense attorneys. I know judges and I know how the law works. Though I am not a lawyer, I am a paralegal and took a lot of time honing my craft like you do when you first come out of college and you are looking for your career.
I don't say this often enough. This crime and Lori LaFond, shaped me into the person that I am when it comes to work and the career I chose. How so? Well, first of all, I can tell you that when I was in the last half of the sixth grade, my father was arrested. You kind of have to know what my father is like to know how horrible this situation really was.
Like Colton Haynes, I have a really handsome dad. I will post you a picture of him when I get the chance but suffice to say, I've never met a better athlete in my life. He's the ultimate competitor with basketball, tennis racquet, badminton racket and pretty much everything. He was a high school weightlifting coach so you can imagine he was in good shape. For example, he just went to Phoenix, Arizona to play in a golf tournament. He's 77 years old. One of the days of the tournament, he shot a 66. That's on a pro course! Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that golf is his best sport? Yes, he's the ultimate athlete and being around him was something that most kids loved in high school. He was almost always voted the "Teacher of the Year" and every one of my friends thought of him like a dad. He's funny, smart and like I said, I've had so many people ask me, "What's it like having him as your father?" That's a loaded question...because it's terrific, but when Lori got involved my "perfect dad" became imperfect. It cost me a real relationship with him growing up.
You can only imagine. My sister, an excellent athlete herself, was already in her freshman year of high school. Lori was in the seventh grade when she did what she always does, she fell in love with a gay student. At least I think he's gay, he accused my dad of molesting him. It was not only shocking, it rocked my world. Never, and I mean never, did my father ever give any indication that he would touch a student, nevertheless, a boy, in that manner. He NEVER EVER touched me like that. I was deeply confused and it was painful.
I think that in this time frame, I was just becoming a teenager and it was confusing. It wasn't until I was asked to be a witness in the case that I knew that it wasn't true. One of the "allegations" had to do with this accuser being at our home and my father doing something with him. I was with that kid the whole time he was at our home...not one damn thing happened. Then I thought, why would someone make up something so horrible about someone that everyone loves. My dad is heroic around our town. He's the nicest person with a great sense of humor.
It wouldn't be until the summer before my freshmen year of high school that he would be acquitted of all charges and my life was suppose to return to normal. It didn't for one reason, Lori LaFond. Later I would learn that she had obtained a box of transcripts from that trial from the accuser's family when she told them that she "knew more about what happened and she was going to investigate me. (Probably for money)." I was already implanted the year after I graduated from high school, so Lori decided that she was going to re-make the case out of thin air by stalking and harassing me, a child witness to the crime, years later. She swears that more happened...I swore under oath that nothing did. Lori knows it too. As the story goes, according to Jonathan Mendenhall, Lori made up all of these allegations herself and tried to have my father put away for like thirty years. She would soon try it again in my freshman year of college when she contacted a friend of mine to accuse my father again. He is a good friend of mine and refused. It wasn't true.
Lori took it upon herself to contact my parents friends that also were my dad's construction partner. He told my dad's partner's wife that my dad was molesting my friend Danny now. It wasn't true. Lori is just a friend of Danny's family member and she just had to try again. It didn't work. Danny, who is also really close to my high school girlfriend, would have never done what Lori wanted him to do. Even my sister asked Danny about it. He wasn't happy that Lori would try to put him up to this. Once again, Lori left notes places where my mom could find them, she called friends, she tried to ruin my family again.
It caused my mom to move out of our home. It wasn't even true.
This is the theme of Lori's pitiful life. Accuse a teacher of molesting a kid. She did it twice more in the area of 29 Palms that she lived in too. In between accusing my father, she accused two of my friends' fathers of molesting each others kids. Always man with boy...her fascination grew and grew. In all these cases the fathers were acquitted but not without causing damage to every one of their families.
It wasn't just that she would try to force these kids into making accusations, she would literally trot her fat ass to their homes so that she could use these made up stories to hurt these people. Lori, besides being a total bitch, was obsessed with gay sex...especially illegal gay sex, which as it is defined is rape. How odd it would later turn out that it was Lori with these kinds of fantasies about raping a gay man...and I sit here today telling you she is the person I expect raped Christopher, Jonathan, Anthony, Benjamin and Martin...and many others. You see, it is my circle of friends that Lori wants to get into trouble.
The level of sophistication of her accusations is kind of scary. She would learn the father's handwriting and make up greeting cards with the sickest notes inside. Her fantasies played out on a Hallmark card. She would make up hotel receipts to make it look like my father actually had a motel room with a kid in there with him. It was sick. She is sick. My dad isn't anything like what Lori wanted him to look like, but more important, he wasn't going to be the sexual fantasy that Lori wanted him to be. I should know, she then tried to do the same kinds of things with me and my friends.
Lori's relentless pursuit of me and my family has never died. It has always been her dream to do something horrible to us. She succeeded when she was dealing drugs to my brother in law...he was eventually shot and killed in an unusual situation where, from home, Lori controlled all the actions that would put my brother in law in conflict with her uncle. The entire situation was set up by Lori and orchestrated to cause a death. She was so proud of herself when that happened. She almost got away with it too, except she has a big fucking mouth and loves trophies. She's got stolen things from my sister's wedding, photo albums and I've been told that even her wedding dress was stolen by Lori. There is something very wrong with this immature girl. She stopped growing up at the age of 12 or 13. If you hear her speak in person, you know, she's an immature baby with odd sexual quirks. (Nothing to do with lesbianism by the way.)
I think that it is extremely sad that she ended up carting all of her worst friends here to the desert where I HAVE TO LIVE now. They are literally here to cause more problems for me and my 70 plus year old parents. She's sick. She needs help and she isn't getting any.
Here is the thing. Where are our leaders outside of the entertainment world? Where are the people that I can talk to about this person stalking me and my family because I am gay? Where are the Rev. Jesse Jackson's of this community. I salute the guys that I know are trying. There are lots of women out there now that are doing there best too. Even women have people like Gloria Alred and so many great advocates. Women have done a terrific job of placing importance on careers that would lend themselves to helping women.
One thing that I bring to the table is my willingness to learn about the problems facing our community and the know how to get the kinds of people involved that can make a difference when they happen. I have the right connections. I know attorneys better than celebrities. I think somewhere between celebrities and white/blue collar working class there is a need for people that advocate in a real way for the LGBTQ community.
As I was starting to say above, it was all these legal conflicts in my early childhood that gave me the inspiration to go into the legal field. At first I wanted to become a lawyer, but then I realize that there were more than just lawyers in a courtroom. My organizational skills and planning were stronger than my desire to pick a side and argue for it. I learned how to use what I do to get closer to the people that make the decisions that shape our world. It really is a gift to be able to sit down with a federal judge and feel comfortable enough to speak on a subject. I actually miss that part the most. I got to tell the lawyers what to do and that made me feel special and privileged. When Lori got involved with that career, I shifted my focus to investigation and informant work, knowing that I would become a reluctant spokesperson for the gay community. I say reluctant because I never saw myself in this position. The position to do a great deal of good using my own story.
I have to say that I spend most of my time learning forensics and planning for the moment that is going to come. The time when I get to organize my team into a solid unit of investigations. We are good, there is no doubt about it. What I am thinking can happen with a story like ours is the building of those role models that do more than act or sing. We can actually put together a system of attorneys, investigators and advocates for all of the areas of the LGBTQ community and finally have a place that gay men, gay women and all gendered people of all sexualities to come and tell us what has happened. A place where they will be believed and their cases will get attention.
I know it isn't easy to do this, but after the experiences that we've had, I know that this team has the kind of people on it that can do great things. Individually and as a unit...my teams are phenomenal.
For too long transgendered black women have been killed, without investigation, in the San Francisco Bay area. For too long the unsolved murder of an L.A. man that was baited online to a home where he was killed without anything being written about it. For too long the unsolved killing of my good friend, Rob Johnson, in San Diego, found beaten to death with a socket wrench in the bathtub, has gone unnoticed. Thousands of cases where criminals have gotten away with murder and the concern level has been minimal because we live on the margins of society. There are so many cases that need attention for the grieving families of the people that we have lost. I will remind all of you that when we lose a person in the gay community it hits us the hardest in terms of our population. It takes ten kids from heterosexuals to make one terrific gay man or woman. That means it takes us ten times as long to have a community as strong as we were before the murder. When we lose, we lose for a very long time. You can't just make a gay kid. You have to be special to become one. In some ways, being a member of the LGBTQ community is so special and precious. We need to make sure that when a situation like Palm Springs happens, there are resources and law enforcement willing to do what it takes to find our oppressors.
When you have 650 plus gay men implanted with RFID devices and intentionally infected with HIV, you know the kind of damage that makes for our community. To simply get back to those number will take many generations...and then, of course, there are the lives that are lost and what they could have achieved for this community without someone like Lori LaFond decreasing our numbers. One person killed in a gay hate crime is too many for us to bear. 650 is by far a holocaust number...if you consider how long it will take to return those numbers to normal, pre Lori LaFond days. You can never replace a person either. It is my sincere hope that we can grow these numbers again with the memories of those we lost as a platform for good things in this community.
When you look at this situation in Palm Springs, we don't have a generation of 20 or 30 year olds any longer. The 40 year olds are diminishing too. You would think in an era of HIV meds that prevent the spread of the disease and keep us healthy that we'd be recovering, but that recovery takes so long. When we lose a life it's like the heterosexual community losing ten. When you consider those kinds of numbers, it is so important to stop what has happened as soon as it can possibly happen.
Palm Springs' gay youth has diminished, but it isn't just the HIV problem. Remember, most of these men that were implanted were infected without any kind of knowledge that this could have been a possibility. So they have a period of health that could allow them to infect people without even thinking they could. It's an epidemic of ignorance. The police did the rest of the damage to those of us that survived. We ended up with arrest records and felonies of made up proportions. Most of these guys had charges that didn't fit the crimes they were accused of. For example: Christopher, my boyfriend, was charged with "strong armed robbery" for allegedly stealing a bicycle and hitting a guy to do it. I don't care who you are, that charge isn't the crime, if it was true, and it wasn't. Christopher rented the bike and rode off leaving his wallet behind as collateral. There was no theft, no assault, nothing. Yet this kind of "violent felony" keeps him from having a job, voting, carrying a firearm and all kinds of things. How many of these gay men were charged with felonies that were misdemeanors? I was arrested six or seven times without a single conviction.
This problem is two fold. A police department that doesn't understand that the information they got from Lori was illegally obtained and embellished and Lori who thinks of gay men and women like a host to her parasite.
If this many women had been raped, implanted and infected over thirty years, most communities would know there was a rapist of women out there and that they infected people with HIV, but our police department has no clue. They think all gay men are promiscuous and have HIV. That's not what the statistics tell us in Palm Springs. We have HIV, syphilis, Hep C and other STD's from these rapes that we didn't think we could have...and the Desert AIDS Project knows that we are very high in the epidemic scale of what is normal for a city our size. Heck, the fact that we have an AIDS project of the caliber that we have shows that the need grew out of this crime.
So while I am proud of Matt, Wentworth, Colton and David, we have to do our jobs as well as they to theirs. We have to be able to stand up when someone is killed because they are gay and say, "We are here and we won't let this go unpunished." It is with these kinds of relationships with celebrities and professionals that our community is strongest, but we aren't there yet. I know, I've tried a lot of avenues since I was nearly beaten to death and no doors opened. I have a boyfriend raped by the same rapists. My friends all raped by the same rapists. We need to stand tall and together against the likes of Lori LaFond and others that think that our sexuality makes us a legal target for their violence and hate. It is our time to take the lead in this country for our community. The most beautiful and colorful community of love out there.
Lastly, we have some of the most incredible parents and friends outside of our community too. These people have supported us with love and charity during this AIDS crisis in measured donations that other diseases have never seen. This shows how much we are loved. We need to show our thankfulness for the efforts they made to save our lives so that we could fight this fight. The time for a victory from our community that makes this country better, is now. An American is an an American no matter gay, black, Muslim, female or any kind of minority...how can we be the minority when there are more of us then there are of them?
