Page 3 of 5
As Pasquarelli's "actions" escalated, several Tampa activists say they began to see a pattern emerging.
"He would seize on something, he would fume about it, and he would raise hell completely," says one of ACT UP Tampa's founders, who did not want his name used for fear of retaliation. "He'd never let the facts get in his way."
Nadine Smith says Pasquarelli criticized her for including ACT UP in her resume when she ran for city council in 1991. Later, she says, he accused her of the opposite sin -- trying to hide her association with the group.
"He just wanted confrontation," says Smith. "It didn't matter what the facts were anymore."
The incident at the school board had essentially deep-sixed ACT UP's sex education proposal. Pasquarelli's subsequent actions began to alienate people within the gay and AIDS communities. Gradually, these groups began to disassociate themselves from ACT UP Tampa Bay.
"Every other gay organization was afraid to get near them," says activist Don Bentz, who now heads Greater Tampa Bay Pride. "Thanks to some of the actions that Dave did, it was like, 'They're radical, they're insane. And lord forbid, if you do something they disagree with, they're going to come after you with a machete.'
"There comes a time when you just have to look at what you're doing and ask how effective you're being. There was no real message. It was just, 'I'm David Pasquarelli, and I'm angry.' "
For many in the Tampa activist community, the final straw fell in November 1992. Pasquarelli and several associates held a rally and painted the doors of City Hall red after Tampa voters decided against reinstating a part of the city's human rights ordinance that protected people from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The morning after the election, Pasquarelli and his friends drove at single-digit speeds across the bridge that links Tampa and Hillsborough County with adjoining Pinellas County, blocking two lanes of traffic during the morning commute. Pinellas County residents were furious; they hadn't even voted on the measure.
A gay newspaper, the Suncoast Encounter, ran a commentary that satirized the protests.
And that made Pasquarelli mad, again -- so mad that, according to Suncoast Publisher Mike Sheldon, Pasquarelli and another man collected hundreds of copies of the paper and drove to Sheldon's home at 3 a.m. They placed the papers on a low wall bordering the home's front lawn and doused them with gasoline. Sheldon says he called the police and ran outside just as the two were ready to set the papers on fire.
Two months later, Pasquarelli and Bellefountaine left Florida, bound for San Francisco.
California, Here They Come
Bellefountaine says he and Pasquarelli moved to San Francisco because his friend and cohort was offered a job there. Pasquarelli makes no mention of the job, instead pointing to Tampa's religious right as the reason for the move.
"It came to the point where these organizations were coming to attack me personally. ... They were coming to the place where I worked," says Pasquarelli. "Every aspect of my life was under scrutiny because of these radical right people. In conservative rural America, it was really hard to exist as a queer."
Several people in Tampa remember things differently.
"He was basically ousted," says Bentz. "ACT UP Tampa Bay was really upset that he was shooting his mouth off to the press on issues the group hadn't discussed."
Whatever the reason or reasons for the move, Bellefountaine and Pasquarelli linked with ACT UP S.F. shortly after arriving in the city. It was a group in need of new blood.
At the peak of the ACT UP movement, ACT UP San Francisco was one of 100 chapters nationwide, and the local organization had as many as 70 members. The San Francisco group was regularly involved in well-publicized actions, or "zaps" in ACT UP parlance, that ranged from a protest of drug approval processes at the FDA's headquarters in Rockville, Md., to a week of demonstrations during the sixth International Conference on AIDS in San Francisco in 1990.
Although membership swelled that summer, by year's end, philosophical differences had divided the San Francisco group in two.
Those who preferred to focus on AIDS treatment and access to new drug therapies formed a new chapter, ACT UP Golden Gate. Those who remained as ACT UP S.F. focused on broader political and social issues around AIDS.
"The Boys From Florida" (as Pasquarelli and Bellefountaine would later become known) arrived early in 1993, during a down period for ACT UP S.F. In San Francisco, as in cities across the country, many of the best and brightest AIDS activists had died. Some had moved on to other pursuits. Others were simply burned out. ACT UP S.F. had dwindled to about 10 members.
"We were exhausted. The fewer people there were, the more work each of us had to do," remembers former ACT UP member Rebecca Hensler. "We were 10 tired people."
She and other ACT UP members recall that the group was initially receptive to the newcomers. But that sentiment soon faded. Former members say the Boys From Florida joined forces with a wing of ACT UP S.F., the Alternative Treatments Committee, and began aggressively pushing for the widespread use of DNCB -- a chemical solution commonly used for developing color film -- as a treatment for HIV.
There is no scientific proof that DNCB works. Dr. Steven Miles, a researcher with the National Institutes of Health, says that advocating the exclusive use of DNCB over AIDS treatments with proven clinical value is -- to put it simply -- dangerous.
