Washington Blade - December 17, 2004
Joe Crea, jcrea@washblade.com.

Joseph Grogan, executive director of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, confirmed that Don Sneed, co-founder of the Dallas-based Abe Lincoln Black Republican Caucus, is no longer a member of the panel.

Sneed, whose term was scheduled to expire in 2006, said he was asked to leave because the Bush administration was interested in recruiting new PACHA members following the departure of Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of Health & Human Services.

In a letter sent to Brent Minor, the gay chair of the treatment and care committee of PACHA, Sneed wrote that he and other "family-oriented, God-loving, Black, conservative grassroots Republicans are presently organizing to end the stranglehold that the 'Homosexual Power Elite,' via AIDS Action, HRC and other homosexual organizations presently maintain on the domestic AIDS relief budget."

HRC is the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay rights group; AIDS Action is a national HIV/AIDS advocacy group.

'Scourge' on black family

This "stranglehold," he asserts, "has led to unnecessary deaths and suffering of black Americans from the AIDS virus," something that his "continued service on PACHA" would "never fix."

In his farewell letter to Minor, Sneed described marriage rights for gays as a "scourge" that "would have a most detrimental effect on the black family."

He also thanked Minor and other PACHA members, as well as the Bush administration, which he said "has certainly lived up to the creed 'that all men are created equal' as evidenced by the President's Global AIDS Initiative."

With Sneed's departure from PACHA, only four openly gay members remain on the AIDS panel: David Greer, Abner Mason, Minor and David Reznik.

Greer said he is "worried" that gay representation on the AIDS panel is decreasing at time when CDC reports show HIV and AIDS rates increasing among gay and bisexual men.

"I wouldn't go as far as saying there's a conspiracy at work; I'm just worried that gay representation is decreasing," Greer said.

Ethical questions

Despite Sneed's assertions that he left because of a change in structure at HHS, gay Republican activist James Driscoll - who was removed from the 35-member AIDS panel in September - suggested that Sneed was likely removed from the board due to ethical issues, chief among them financial problems associated with his AIDS service agency, Renaissance III.

According to an August report in the Dallas Morning News, Dallas auditors questioned some expenses and staff bonuses at Renaissance III and asked Sneed's group to repay the federal government $112,867.

Dallas County officials also questioned Sneed as to why he and 14 employees received bonuses in 2002 totaling $22,255. The Dallas Morning News reported that Sneed received a salary of $86,368 in 2002, while his contract stipulates he should have received $65,000.

Sneed defended the bonuses to the paper, noting that his staff "put in a horrific number of hours."

Sneed told the Blade this week that no money was misappropriated, adding that the matter revolved around "bookkeeping errors."

"It disturbs me how such a picture can be painted if you throw enough mud at somebody," Sneed said.

Sneed claims the county and state actually owe him money and said

he plans to sue the Dallas County Health Department and the Texas Department of Health for invoices the state has not paid to Renaissance III. He alleges that the county owes approximately $40,000, while the state owes more than $60,000.

He called the auditors' charges against him an act of "political terrorism."

"These are terrorist tactics being perpetuated by my opponents," Sneed said. "We are filing suit against the state of Texas for the money they owe us. We are not backing down."

Renaissance III - founded by Sneed - had a $1.1 million budget in 2002 with the bulk of the funds coming from AIDS-related federal grants, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Sneed was also accused of racial discrimination in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint brought by five of his employees last year.

The EEOC did not respond to Blade inquiries by press time.

Sneed was also arrested last November and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He allegedly chased a former employee with a three-foot sword, according to a news report in the Dallas Voice, a gay newspaper.

Sneed dismissed the EEOC complaint of racism, noting that his organization is comprised primarily of African Americans.

Regarding the assault charges, Sneed said, "anyone in this country can make such accusations but must go to court to prove them."

A hearing for the assault charges has been set for Jan. 6.

"These folks who make these accusations will have to go to court and prove them," Sneed said. "You cannot just besmirch a person's hard-earned reputation."

Sneed made national headlines in October when he publicly chastised the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay partisan group, for not endorsing President Bush's reelection. While Sneed's group opposes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, it does not support marriage rights for gay couples.

In October, Sneed was kicked out of JR's, a popular gay Dallas nightclub, after he complained that the men's restroom needed cleaning, according to an ALBRC press release.

But Rick Espaillat, media director for JR's parent company Cavern Enterprises, said Sneed has a confrontational history with the club and was known to organize Sunday evening protests outside the bar, a night when the club is patronized by a large number of black customers. The basis of his protests was that black customers should be going into a club owned and operated by other blacks, Espaillat said.

"We have had an antagonistic history with him and don't welcome him inside the club," Espaillat said. "He came into that club looking for confrontation and sought out a manager who was coincidentally in the process of seeking him out."

Sneed claimed his critics do not like the issues he raises, notably "the great racial divide in America."

"There is no wonderful happy rainbow of inclusion in this country," he said. "When you have a man like me who is not afraid to speak up and speak out, people will want to silence you. I challenge people who don't want to be challenged."

Fight against gay marriage

Sneed also garnered media attention in late October when his group distributed a DVD entitled the "Emancipation of the Homosexual - The End of the Gay & Lesbian Rights Movement," which claims that gays are "misguided" and argues against marriage rights for same-sex couples.

He said his group will continue to oppose marriage rights for same-sex couples and claimed that prominent gay groups never sat down with black leaders to discuss the impact same-sex marriage would have on that community.

"Same-gender loving black folks are being left out in the cold when it comes to gay marriage," he said. "In the final analysis, no one ever asked any black folk what they think of this gay marriage thing. The powers that be refuse to admit they were wrong about this."

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