Out in the Mountains, June 1987

Green Mountaineers,

In order to address the immediate and long range needs of the Gay community, we need to build sustainable communities and cooperatives. We would like to start an affinity group (Lavender Circle?) which would engender the kind of bonding necessary to participate in making social change happen.

Are you confused, annoyed, ANGRY by recent allegations of U.S. complicity in creating a genetically engineered virus, so hauntingly familiar to us as HIV, considered by many to trigger AIDS? Whether it be laboratory splicing of two infectious animal viruses, or the U.S. Army's Biological Warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland, these genetic engineering efforts seem to signal a call to action if our brothers and sisters are to survive.

Rumors, theories, and conspiracies abound. Some may provide us with more shop talk, some may be an eerie 1980's vision of a Nazi "Pink Triangle" genocide. In any case, we are "up against the wall."

Some of us here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont are sickened by this unfolding holocaust. The mainstream U.S. media may ignore such bio-warfare theories created by our U.S. Army at Fort Detrick or by the Soviet's cancer research experiments or even some Pentagon officials admitting a role in AIDS research tinkering yet we cannot afford to ignore our misfortunes.

Groups are forming in the country, not only in an effort to pressure our government to take action on AIDS related issues, but also to mobilize in demonstrations and civil disobedience. "Act Up" is one such newly formed group in NYC which spurred on 300 demonstrators at an April 15th protest on Wall Street.

In forming an affinity group, our focus would be a land-based community which could oppose the U.S. war on the Gay community, offering ourselves the security of the land. This support of Brotherbonding will help give us the freedom to stand in the light of the Sun.

David Hylander
Ahd'dik Fostre