Throwing the book at people is nothing new, but in our post 9/11
world, the screws are tightening. Take San Francisco, whose district
attorney, Terence "Kayo" Hallinan, has the reputation of being an unusually
progressive fellow.
Yet this is the same District Attorney Hallinan who's hit two
gay men who are AIDS activists with an escalating barrage of charges,
currently amounting to 36 alleged felonies and misdemeanors, all adding up
to what he has stigmatized in the local press as "terrorism."
Held in San Francisco county jail since Nov. 28 of last year are
Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli. Neither man has been able to make
bail, which Hallinan successfully requested to be set at $500,000 for
Petrelis and $600,000 for Pasquarelli.
Why this astonishing bail? What it boils down to is that the two
accused are dissidents notorious for raising all kinds of inconvenient,
sometimes obscene hell about AIDS issues. They've long been detested by San
Francisco's AIDS establishment, which Petrelis, in particular, has savaged