European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 8, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 a the stars and stripes columns Barbara t. Roessner where does privacy end and openness begin Halston the great american fashion designer died last week. A few years ago the cause of death would have been Given As  but now we a the Media the family of the deceased our society As a whole a have become More Frank. We Are willing to Call it what it is aids. The several obituaries i read made no mention of Halston a sexual orientation however. He lived in san Francisco the newspapers said. We know that the City has a Large population of Gay people just As we know the Gay Community has been disproportionately afflicted by aids and the fashion Industry has been devastated by it. You done to have to squint to read Between these lines. The line Between sexual privacy and the truth about homosexuality has become so thin and circuitous however that no amount of squinting seems to bring it into focus. Even leading Gay rights activists Are arguing Over the propriety of publicly disclosing the homosexuality of prominent people in business politics and the arts especially when those people prefer to remain in the closet. A a tossing or a routing a it is called. Some Gay activists prefer the term a a innings to describe the increasingly common tactic of forcing homosexuals into Public View. Those who advocate the practice including several Gay publications contend that secrecy Only intensifies the social stigma of homosexuality while depriving Gay and lesbian youth of important role models. Others say tossing violates the most Basic Tenet of the Gay rights movement a the right to live and love without the intrusion of government or social prejudice. A a it a a real Paradox a says Robert Bray a spokesman for the National Gay and lesbian task Force. A on the one hand we want to set positive role models. On the other hand we want Gay and lesbian people to function in society regardless of their sexual orientation yet they can to do that largely because we done to have the role models. We do not live in a society where Gays and lesbians can come out without  Brays organization takes the position that privacy is Paramount. But it Ellen Goodman v a a a also emphasizes that Gay people should be encouraged and if possible persuaded to come out of the closet on their own. A the tragedy of Roy Halston is not that the Media did no to say he was a homosexual but that Halston did no to say it himself a Bray says. And then in a delicate dance along that thinnest of lines he adds a assuming that Halston was indeed  Bray Isnit the Only one breaking into a Jig Here. Many of us including those of us in the press have been doing the lambada Ever since Gary Harts presidential debacle raised the larger Issue of whether when and How to scrutinize the private lives of Public people. I was never comfortable with the stories about Harts philandering. The real Issue was that he seemed to flaunt his sexual dalliances despite the political dangers. The Many a judgment was in question. But the Story became a morality tale starring bimbos and Bimini. Who cares a More recent Issue perhaps More an Alagoas to the Issue of tossing is whether the Media should disclose the names of rape victims. Many argue that disclosure subjects innocent people to a lingering blame the victim Bias. Others say secrecy perpetuates the Bias. Some newspapers Are considering asking rape victims to come Forward voluntarily. And in the meantime we continue to tap our feet. �?o1 wish that someday the sexual orientation of a person could be freely reported a Bray says of the Halston obituaries. A but what i really wish is that we could get beyond that to where it does no to matter and therefore does no to even need to be pointed  at least with aids we seem to be moving into that first painful stage of disclosure. More and More victims Are acknowledging they have the disease and More families like Halston a Are coming Forward after the victims have died. The openness reflects some Small movement toward a social acceptance of aids As a deadly disease that must be stopped. Or is it spurring that movement probably both just As the crowd in the closet mirrors affirms and reinforces the stigma against homosexuality. C the Hartford courant policies discriminate and leave men at risk when a the handmaids tales was published in 1986, the Stark parable was written and read against the real life background of the rising religious right. The country of Gilead was created As a Joyless and perverse Paradise of fundamentalism that reduced a woman to the sum of her reproductive parts. But when Maragaret Atwoods novel reappeared in film last month something had changed in the atmosphere. This time this Eye was More conscious of Gilead As a toxic wasteland plagued by infertility. This time it was a land in which children were rare and longed for. And a land in which motherhood was not empowered or enshrined but enforced. The tale looked less like a warning about politics and More like a parable about the Pitfalls of Protection female Protection fetal Protection. In 1990, the very words a fetal Protection have taken on a meaning in real life that is nearly As chilling As a the handmaids tales is on the screen. They Are used now to pit fetus against the woman. Indeed when we talk about protecting the fetus the woman is now designated As its enemy. No Case makes this More evident than the True Story that will be retold before the supreme court. On March 26, the court decided to hear a Case brought by eight women who were forced to choose Between their Fertility and their jobs. A the Lead workers stale began Back in 1982, when a Milwaukee Battery manufacturer banned a women with childbearing capacity from work in jobs that involved High Lead exposure. Eventually a group of workers one a 50-year-old single woman another a 25-year-old who submitted to sterilization charged Johnson controls inc., with sex discrimination. The company countered that they were not discriminating against women but protecting the fetus from the effects of Lead exposure. So this Case entered the Public consciousness As another example of a the rights of women is. The  once again woman against her womb. But it is not As simple not As Stark As that. By any measure Johnson controls inc., is less interested in fetal Protection from Lead than in self Protection from liability suits. If they win this Case any woman a with childbearing capacity could be banned from jobs As diverse As those of flight attendant and Silicon Chip maker. Some 20 million Industrial jobs could be closed to women whether or not they planned to get pregnant. So in Many ways a the Lead workers stale goes to the very heart of the old question is a woman a life from 12 to 50 to be governed by the possibility of pregnancy the appeals court that upheld the Johnson policy said yes and based their reasoning on a profound mistrust. They said in effect that a woman a might somehow rationally discount this Clear risk to Ner fetus. They defended a policy to guard any potential fetus against All Fertile women. In contrast another judge a the Reagan appointed conservative Frank Easterbrook a wrote in a stinging dissent a no Legal or ethical principle compels or allows Johnson to assume that women Are less Able than men to make intelligent decisions about the welfare of the next generation a. F but even if we assume the overriding importance of protecting the fetus we still have to ask whether policies like Johnson a make sense. Banning women trom the workplace is after All no health insurance p0lcy-another dissenting judge compared the relative pro pets of a a pregnant woman unemployed or work. G for minimum wage. Ill housed fed and Doctore to that of her pregnant sister at Johnson and ask. A whose fetus is at greater risk and what of the father a baby s health Juk baby itself is the product of both  sure to Lead research suggests also affects the Spring. The passion to a a protect Fertile women d extend to men but they Are hardly inv lne d t0 reproductive damage. Ask the Vietnam vets exp agent Orange or the British workers in a nuclear p station whose children have leukaemia. A l the parallels of this  a store Are non enough to provide the Stull of a sequel. In the land of Gilead after All men were not tested i be Utility Fertile women were not free and the co by was a  America a fetal Protection policies or women out of their jobs and leave men at r s health. But worst of All the comforting my companies free to do their dirty business