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<text id=89TT3365>
<link 90TT0770>
<link 90TT0343>
<title>
Dec. 25, 1989: In A Rage Over AIDS
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
Dec. 25, 1989 Cruise Control:Tom Cruise
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
NATION, Page 33
In a Rage over AIDS
</hdr><body>
<p>A militant protest group targets the Catholic Church
</p>
<p> 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.
</p>
<p> 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.
</p>
<p> 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."
</p>
<p> 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.
</p>
<p> 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."
</p>
<p> 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.
</p>
</body></article>
</text>