Michael Petrelis

Michael Petrelis
Activist Michael Petrelis
Born (1959-01-26) January 26, 1959 (age 65)
Newark, New Jersey
Occupation(s)AIDS and LGBTQ rights activist, blogger
Websitempetrelis.blogspot.com

Michael Anthony Petrelis (born January 26, 1959) is an American AIDS activist, LGBTQ rights activist, and blogger. He was diagnosed with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1985 in New York City, New York.[1]: 545  As a member of the Lavender Hill Mob, a forerunner to the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP),[2][3] he was among the first AIDS activists to protest responses to the disease.[3][4][5]: 15–18  He was a co-founding member of ACT UP in New York City, New York,[1]: 554 [5]: 21–26  and later helped organize ACT UP chapters in Portland, Oregon,[6][7] Washington, D.C.,[8] and New Hampshire, as well as the ACT UP Presidential Project.[8][9] Petrelis was also a founding member of Queer Nation/National Capital,[8][10] the Washington D.C. chapter of the militant LGBTQ rights organization.

In 1990, he organized a nationwide boycott of products manufactured by Philip Morris Companies, Inc. (now Altria Group, Inc.), including Marlboro cigarettes and Miller beer, to protest the company's support for Jesse Helms, a Republican senator from North Carolina whose rhetoric and policy positions Petrelis said were harmful to LGBTQ communities.[3][11] Petrelis was among several activists who disclosed, in 1989, that Mark Hatfield, a Republican senator from Oregon who supported anti-gay legislation, was secretly gay,[12] the first such political outing of an elected official by American activists.[13][14] Over the next few years, Petrelis became an outspoken proponent of outing and one of its most prominent practitioners; at a 1990 press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, he outed a dozen public figures, although no news outlets published the names,[15][16][17][18][19] and he played a pivotal role in the 1991 outing of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Pete Williams by writer Michelangelo Signorile in The Advocate, an American LGBT-interest magazine.[20][21]

When Terry M. Helvey and an accomplice, Charles E. Vins, murdered Helvey's shipmate, U.S. Navy Seaman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. in October 1992, because Schindler was gay, Petrelis traveled twice to Japan to press the Navy for justice on Schindler's behalf and to monitor the trial, while raising awareness of the hate crime in the U.S.[3][5]: 49–50 [22]

After relocating to San Francisco, California, in 1995, Petrelis successfully lobbied the city's Department of Public Health (SFDPH) to make the female condom available to gay men,[23] and advocated reopening the gay bathhouses there.[24][25] He also founded the AIDS Accountability Project, a watchdog organization that obtained IRS tax forms 990 from nonprofit AIDS service organizations, then published the financial information disclosed therein online.[26] He currently lives with his partner of eighteen years, Mike Merrigan, and writes a blog called The Petrelis Files. On April 5, 2014, Petrelis announced his candidacy for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, running against incumbent Scott Wiener for the District 8 seat, representing the Castro, Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, and Glen Park neighborhoods of San Francisco.[27]

In January 1999, Out magazine included Petrelis in the Out 100, recognizing him, for creating the AIDS Accountability Project, as one of the "people who defined 1998".[28] The Advocate has published a variety of articles about him, one in August 1999, named Petrelis among its "Best and Brightest Activists" citing the AIDS Accountability Project and other controversial causes[29] while another from 2002 spoke less glowingly about him.[30]

  1. ^ a b Clendinen, Dudley; Nagourney, Adam (2013). Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86743-4.
  2. ^ Kahn, Arthur D. (1993). AIDS, the Winter War: A Testing of America. Temple University Press. pp. 5–7. ISBN 1-566-39018-4.
  3. ^ a b c d Nichols, Jack (October 6, 2000). "Michael Petrelis: A Pioneer of AIDS Activism". Greenwich Village Gazette. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  4. ^ Long, Thomas L. (2012). AIDS and American Apocalypticism: The Cultural Semiotics of an Epidemic. SUNY Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-0-791-46168-6.
  5. ^ a b c Schulman, Sarah (2004). "Michael Petrelis Interview" (PDF). ACT UP Oral History Project. The New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film Festival. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 27, 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  6. ^ O'Neill, Patrick (February 27, 1989). "AIDS Activists Gather for Group's Planned Demonstration". The (Portland) Oregonian.
  7. ^ Morgan, Thomas J. (January 10, 2014). "Gay-rights Activist Carl Goodman, 58, of Bristol, Dies". The Providence Journal. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  8. ^ a b c Taylor, M. Jane (November 20, 1998). "Stephen J. Smith Dies: AIDS Activist Helped Start ACT UP". Washington Blade.
  9. ^ Roehr, Bob (September 1998). "Presidential Nemesis". Poz. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  10. ^ Wilson, Craig (July 16, 1991). "Queer Nation at War: Militant Group Fights Gay Oppression, Assault on Homophobia Gains Ground". USA Today.
  11. ^ Koenenn, Connie (December 1, 1992). "Practical View/ On Staging Boycotts: The Power of Pulling Purse Strings". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  12. ^ Johansson, Warren A.; Percy, Warren A. (1994). Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press. p. 187. ISBN 1-56023-041-X.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Johansson 1994 188 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Signorile, Michelangelo (1993). Queer in America: Sex, Media, and the Closets of Power. Random House. pp. 86–87. ISBN 0-679-41309-X.
  15. ^ Elvin, John (May 24, 1990). "Inside the Beltway: Out! Out!". The Washington Times.
  16. ^ Elvin, John (May 30, 1990). "Inside the Beltway: Quite an Outing". The Washington Times.
  17. ^ Simpson, Glenn R.; Winneker, Craig (June 4, 1990). "Press Gallery: What to Do When Members Are Cited As Homosexuals". Roll Call.
  18. ^ Gross, Larry (2001). Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America. Columbia University Press. p. 135. ISBN 0-231-11952-6.
  19. ^ Signorile, Michelangelo (1993). Queer in America: Sex, Media, and the Closets of Power. Random House. pp. 86. ISBN 0-679-41309-X.
  20. ^ Signorile, Michelangelo (1993). Queer in America: Sex, Media, and the Closets of Power. Random House. pp. 100–101, 137, 142–144. ISBN 0-679-41309-X.
  21. ^ Gross, Larry (2001). Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America. Columbia University Press. p. 136. ISBN 0-231-11952-6.
  22. ^ Brown, Chip (December 1, 1993). "The Accidental Martyr". Esquire. Archived from the original on February 22, 2024. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  23. ^ Tuller, David (April 1, 1996). "Health Dept. to Distribute Gay Condom; SF Makes Female Device Available to Men". San Francisco Chronicle.
  24. ^ Quinn, Dan (April 1, 1997). "Back to the Baths; Gay Bathhouses in Austin, TX". The Advocate.
  25. ^ Tuller, David (November 14, 1996). "S.F. Mayor Said to Oppose Licensing of Sex Clubs". San Francisco Chronicle.
  26. ^ McCormick, Erin (April 26, 1998). "Tracking the Funds for AIDS". The San Francisco Examiner.
  27. ^ Bajko, Matthew S. "LGBT Activist Michael Petrelis to Kick Off SF Supervisor Bid April 5". Ebar.com. The Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved April 28, 2014.[permanent dead link]
  28. ^ "Welcome to the Out 100, Our Annual Look at the People Who Defined the Year". Out. January 1999.
  29. ^ Rochman, Sue (August 17, 1999). "Our Best and Brightest Activists: Health, Individual Contributions to the Gay Movement". The Advocate.
  30. ^ Bull, Chris (January 22, 2002). "Not-so-civil war". The Advocate. Pride Media. Retrieved November 20, 2021. "Petrelis and Pasquarelli are the loudest proponents of denialism about the reality of AIDS" ... says longtime AIDS activist Gabriel Rotello