Roberta on a Rampage

BY 1984 it had become clear that San Francisco’s bathhouses were a deadly venue for spreading AIDS. In October the city’s public-health director, Mervyn Silver man, ordered 14 of the bathhouses closed over the objections of some gay leaders—including the lesbian lawyer and activist Roberta Achtenberg.

The bathhouses “are a sex positive environment where they [closeted gays] feel like human beings instead of being in the bushes,” Miss Achtenberg told the Seattle Times. “They are institutions of tremendous symbolic significance to a sexual minority.” As one of a group called Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom she fought the city’s order in court. “We are primarily interested in the civil-rights issues here,” she explained.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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BY 1984 it had become clear that San Francisco’s bathhouses were a deadly venue for spreading AIDS. In October the city’s public-health director, Mervyn Silver man, ordered 14 of the bathhouses closed over the objections of some gay leaders—including the lesbian lawyer and activist Roberta Achtenberg.

The bathhouses “are a sex positive environment where they [closeted gays] feel like human beings instead of being in the bushes,” Miss Achtenberg told the Seattle Times. “They are institutions of tremendous symbolic significance to a sexual minority.” As one of a group called Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom she fought the city’s order in court. “We are primarily interested in the civil-rights issues here,” she explained.