ELLEN B. NEIPRIS
Jeff Schmalz, assisant national editor at The Times, whose coming out as a gay man with AIDS affected the way the
paper covered news about the gay community and the AIDS epidemic.
the Big Apple. One Times
headline asked, WAS
ST. PAUL GAY?, while
another queried, IS
SCHUBERT GAY? But the
eyebrow raiser of 1991
had to be MIL!TANTS
BACK “QUEER,”
SHOVING “GAY” THE
WAY OF “NEGRO.”
Throughout 1991 and
into 1992, page 1 of The
Times addressed such
subjects as a battle between Irish-American
gays and the organizers
of New York City’s St.
Patrick’s Day parade, the
outcome of a gay-bashing
murder trial in Queens,
children growing up in
gay households, a controversy over banning
military recruiters from
college campuses in New
York State because of the
Pentagon’s ban on enlistment of gays and lesbians,
the mainstreaming of the
gay press and a Bronx
hospital giving spousal
benefits to gay employees.
The editorial page was
lit up. President George
Bush received a severe
lashing on more than one
occasion for