Tonie Walsh casts a beady eye over selected press cuttings from the last month.

August being the silly season I was not surprised to open U Magazine and find on the Letters Page a Co. Longford person called "Commonsense" (a rather defensive touch I thought) exhorting readers to say "No" as the only "safe and sure way to avoid catching this dreadful disease". The writer was of course talking about AIDS and felt there was something "pathetic about the naivete or childishness of those people who believe that the use of condoms will guard a person from catching AIDS" stressing the unscientific basis of "propaganda" about condom use. Commonsense reaches the part most condoms don't, it seems!

The Irish Times on August 9th had a chilling item for any of us seeking life assurance; the message from the Irish Insurance Federation is that under new guidelines anyone but especially men i the 25-50 age group seeking life assurance for large sums will have to undergo a HIV test. Individuals testing positive will be refused cover. The article also informs us that all life assurance forms now include questions "to identify applications who may be HIV positive, suffering from AIDS or in the so-called high-risk groups of drug users, homosexuals and bisexuals. The industry insists these safeguards are needed to protect its solvency..."

It seems to me about time that the Oireachtas introduced some guidelines of its own outlawing discrimination of this outstanding variety.

The same issue of the Times carried photos and reviews of the new Aodhan Madden play Sea Urchins which was inspired by the Declan Flynn murder at Fairview Park in 1984. Reviews of the play also appeared in the other dailies.

Emily O'Reilly, whom I've met on umpteen occasions and have the greatest respect for personally and as a journalist, did a feature for Hot Press (August 11th: "The Mark of Sorrow") on the "human aspect" of AIDS in Provincetown, USA, which once had, she told us, a thriving gay population. An interesting and indeed very human article but the accompanying graphic of silhouetted diners being served by a death-like waiter - the gay AIDS sufferer - was appalling and insensitive. I would have thought that Hot Press had gone beyond this sort of sensationalism. Furthermore, Emily should know better than to use phrases like "pre-plague" and "AIDS victims".

Uncontrolled hysteria in the guise of liberal, sympathetic reporting?

"Birr folks no to 'Dublin gays'" screamed the Evening Press on August 16th in response to Senator Norris being snubbed by Birr's Cllr. Fred Ryan ('He's gay and that's out for me') and Miss Violet Doolin, Birr Librarian. The local parish priest had also turned down an invitation to the opening of the town's Vintage Week by Senator Norris. His excuse? "It was the Feast of the Assumption... and we should be more interested in that than anything else".

The Press story was a major item .in all the dailies and was highlighted by Justin Keating in his column (Evening Herald, August 19th). "The rule of 'obey or die' was imposed on heretics, Jews, homosexuals, women who did not conform and believers in old religions. That is the real background of our Christian morality on sex" (my emphasis) Well done, Mr. Keating.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ben Briscoe, speaking to the Irish Times (August 25th) regarding an aborted interview in Hot Press (August 25th) was very clearly unaware of Justin Keating's comments and indeed showed a remarkable gap in his knowledge of World War 2 and the Nazi extermination policies. "He criticised Mr. Norris for equating Jews and homosexuals in his comments about Hitler's Germany and said he was not being friendly towards the Jewish community by doing so. 'Catholics, Protestants and negroes would be offended if they were equated with homosexuals in this way' he said."

Should one even respond to such rubbish, I thought to myself afterwards? After all, Briscoe is the Lord Mayor of Dublin, supposedly representing all its citizens, including the approx, gay ten per cent and should show better understanding. Yet apart from offensive language to blacks, Ben Briscoe fails to appreciate:

1. Homosexuality transcends race and religion;

2. It is a documented fact that some 500,000 homosexuals were used as medical experiments, turned into lampshades, gassed, electrocuted, buried alive and otherwise fatally tortured in Nazi concentration camps.

But Dublin's Lord Mayor continued in his inexcusable show of ignorance and prejudice when questioned about the possibility of the Hirschfeld Centre approaching Dublin Corporation for funding to help rebuild our community resource. "I felt it would not qualify anyway as it was not a group that did anything for anyone else, unlike handicapped groups, for example" (Irish Times, 25 August).

Beat that, I ask you.

The last weekend of August was dominated by reports of the Irish AIDS Initiative Conference which attracted over 100 people. Padraig O'Morain, Social Services Correspondent, Irish Times (August 29th) wrote an excellent report on the Conference, quoting extensively from Brian Murray's keynote address as well as the other main speakers. Mr. Murray is Chairman of AIDS Action Alliance, one of the Conference co-organisers: "In its schools education programme on AIDS, the Department of Health should cover the full range of sexual experience and experimentation", Mr. Murray was quoted as saying. Bravo, but will the Department take note?

More next issue. Incidentally please do remember to send me any newscuttings you may come across, be they national or provincial.

A bound, indexed volume of each month's news cuttings is available by post from the National Gay Federation Archives cost £5 per volume (inclusive of post and packaging). Send cheque or postal order to: NGF (Archives), PO Box 931, Dublin 4. Allow two weeks for a reply.