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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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12258900.017
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1990-09-22
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NATION, Page 33In a Rage over AIDSA militant protest group targets the Catholic Church
The shouting erupted as John Cardinal O'Connor began his
Sunday-morning sermon in St. Patrick's Cathedral on New York City's
Fifth Avenue. "You bigot, O'Connor, you're killing us!" yelled one
protester. Others stretched out in the aisles or chained themselves
to pews. As police tried vainly to restore order, the Cardinal cut
through the din. "Does everybody care to stand and pray?" he asked.
In response the parishioners rose and chanted the Lord's Prayer at
the top of their voices. As the service went on, police arrested
43 demonstrators, and carried many out on stretchers when they
refused to stand. Churchgoers who dodged the chaos in the aisles
and made it to the altar to take Communion saw one protester take
a wafer from a priest and throw it to the ground.
The sacrilegious scene at St. Patrick's was the latest in a
series of increasingly militant demonstrations, many against the
Roman Catholic Church, staged by AIDS activists and supported by
abortion-rights groups. The New York City protest, in which 4,500
people also rallied noisily outside the cathedral, was largely the
work of the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). The group
claims to have 40 chapters in the U.S. as well as others in Paris,
Berlin and London. Another AIDS protest group this month threw red
paint on four Catholic churches in Los Angeles and left posters of
Archbishop Roger Mahony labeled MURDERER. In San Francisco gay
activists smeared handprints in paint and hung posters depicting
sex acts in the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption and the
archdiocese chancery.
New York City's Cardinal O'Connor is a favorite target of AIDS
and abortion-rights protesters. He is among the most outspoken of
Catholic bishops in condemning homosexuality and opposing the use
of condoms to prevent AIDS. He has also supported the
obstructionist tactics of such antiabortion groups as Operation
Rescue that block abortion clinics and harass their clients. "It's
quite ironic that Cardinal O'Connor is so angry over this act of
civil disobedience, when he has espoused a form of it himself,"
said Ellen Carton, executive director of the New York State branch
of the National Abortion Rights Action League. The Cardinal offered
an answer as he gave the benediction for the interrupted Mass at
St. Patrick's. Said O'Connor: "I must preach what the church
preaches, teach what the church teaches."
ACT UP's demonstrations are designed to shock. "We expect
tempers to run high," says Jay Blotcher, an ACT UP spokesman. "We
target Roman Catholicism because no other religion so energetically
tries to influence public policy." Outside four Catholic churches
in Los Angeles last week, ACT UP protesters offered free condoms
and safe-sex pamphlets to parishioners. Members of the group have
occupied drug-company offices to demand lower prices for AIDS
medicines, chained themselves to a banister at the New York Stock
Exchange, and staged same-sex "kiss-ins" at last year's Democratic
and Republican national conventions.
Such tactics, activists contend, are the only way to jolt the
public's fickle attention back to the AIDS epidemic. "A lot of the
AIDS stories are old news, so we have to be enticing to make
reporters cover them," says Pat Christen, executive director of the
mainstream San Francisco AIDS Foundation. As for vandalism, ACT UP
member Mark Kostopoulos declares, "It's easier to scrape off paint
than raise the dead."
But even some ACT UP members felt that breaking up a religious
service was going too far. "What happened inside the church is
unfortunate," concedes ACT UP spokesman Blotcher. "It weakened our
position somewhat." Indeed, the St. Patrick's invasion turned off
New York politicians long sympathetic to gay causes. Governor Mario
Cuomo termed the disruption "shameful" and Mayor-elect David
Dinkins called it "counterproductive." ACT UP's angry protests risk
sparking equally angry reactions.