T A» A Volume IV, Number 10 Out in the M Ountaitttflttttt VERMONT'S NEWSPAPER FOR LESBIANS AND GAY MEN 1990 January 1990 Friends Remember Quake Victim (Reprinted from the Santa Cruz Senti- tel, Oct 30, I989) The life of earthquake victim Robin _ Lynn Ortiz was celebrated at a Lighthouse ' Point memorial attended by friends who had held a vigil outside a collapsed shop- ping mall, waiting in vain for her rescue. Sea lions barked on a craggy rock below as nearly 100 people shared poetry and stories about the 22-year-old woman tnder sunny skies Saturday, said Dawn Atkins, a friend of Ortiz. “It was very private,” Atkins said. “No tews media, no clergy. No officials.” Ortiz was one of three people killed in Santa Cruz’s Pacific Garden Mall when a ll-magnitude earthquake struck on Oct. ‘17. Dozens of her friends held a vigil near lie rubble of the Santa Cruz Coffee Roast- I itg Co. where she worked, pleading for tearchers to work faster. Several friends were arrested when they crossed a police tne. Searchers found her body two days tter. They said she died instantly. Atkins said Ortiz was “outrageous, a real fighter,” a lesbian activist proud of her sexuality and politics. “She died as flarnboyantly as she lived,” Atkins said. “She was a real radi- cal.” At the memorial, friends set up a table with photographs of the fair skinned, dark- haired woman who rode a motorcycle and worked tirelessly as a volunteer for the Santa Cniz AIDS Project. “I love you and I don’t want you to die- Robin,” read a sign on a basket of condoms placed near the photographs. “That’s what she used to say when she passed out condoms at the mall,” Atkins said. “She had a friend who died of AIDS last year and wanted to make sure everyone had safe sex.” The dress was casual and the food was vegetarian at the gathering. The music was a tape of Ortiz’s favorite music, including selections from the Grateful Dead and Elvis Costello. Those who attended shared hugs and tears and a few minutes of prayer or medi- tation, “depending on what each person believed in,” Atkins said. Ortiz’s domestic partner of five years, Ruth Rabinowitz, read a poem Ortiz had written called “Lesbian Rap.” “We’re out of the closet and we’re here to stay,” the poem promised. “City kid. Dead Head. Amazon Biker. Renaissance gamester. Middle class fan- tasy hero,” was the way friend Blayne Gerringer described Ortiz. Along with Rabinowitz, she is sur- vived by her mother, Janette Baldwin-Ortiz of Los Angeles; her father, Eladio Ortiz; and her brother, James Ortiz of Los Ange- les. Her body has been cremated and her ashes will be scattered in a redwood grove in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Atkins said. After the memorial, Ortiz’s friends sang “Singing in the Rain,” joined hands and danced. When the song ended, each friend carried a single red rose to the cliff, kissed it, and tossed it into the foaming surf. (See Related Story on Page 13) Demonstrating in Atlanta Hundreds of AIDS, lesbian and gay tctivists from around the country will con- verge in Atlanta, GA on January 8 and 9 for tvo days of demonstrations demanding epeal of antisodomy laws and an expanded lefinition of AIDS. ‘ Demonstrators will demand repeal of ttdomy laws in 25 states on January 8, the gtpening day of the 1990 Georgia legisla- ture in a mass demonstration at the Georgia State Capitol. ? “Because these laws effectively define gall lesbians and gay men as statutory felons, y promote violence against gay people Itnd frighten everybody away from HIV §}iesting, counseling, health care, and treat- : tnent,” said Chip Rowan, action facilitator. -;“These laws are severely worsening the pxtent and severity of the AIDS epidemic in iifllf the country. ' L l — Georgia achieved intemalional notori- ety in 1986 when the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Hgmwigk v, Bowers and upheld the state’s power to regulate private, adult, consensual sexual behavior. The Georgia law provides for 20 years’ imprisonment for conviction on a sodomy “offense,” more than for armed robbery, rape, and other violent acts. The Hagdwick case originated in Atlanta in 1982 with the arrest of Michael Hardwick who was having sex withaconsenting adult male in the privacy of his bedroom. Re- cently a white male heterosexual was re- leased from a Georgia jail after serving 18 months of a five-year sentence for having consensual oral sex with his wife. Though his conviction was overturned in Septem- ber, Georgia’s gay and lesbian community was outraged at the court ruling which said the sodomy laws would not be applied to heterosexual married persons. Sodomy laws have also been used as justification to prevent AIDS educators from distributing safer sex information and condoms on the grounds that such material condones “illegal” behavior. “The laws condemn to ignorance people whose lives depend on this information, including teen- agers, students, prisoners, and other resi- dents of state or federal institutions. If sodomy is the crime, AIDS is the punish- ment. Sodomy law repeal is a life-saving measure,” said Rowan. On January 9, demonstrators will demand that the Centers for Disease Con- trol (CDC) expand the definition of AIDS beyond its current and largely arbitrary « categories of “AIDS” and “AIDS Related Complex” (Continued on page 3)