"That's a very safe editorial," he explained, " because the dumb judge has already made his decision. Nothing can be done to rectify it except in the higher courts. Does it signal a reform at the Herald? I might be willing to take a second look hoping the Herald has reformed, but only if it decides to put some real muscle behind a reintroduction of the Metro ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from employment, housing and public accommodations discrimination and reverses the divisiveness its caused among gays, Blacks, Cubans , and others.

"The Herald's forte has always been in creating and stirring up community divisions. The divisions in the Cuban community that that newspaper always fans are very dear to Fidel Castro. The more divisions, the happier Fidel. The Herald's crusade against me started when I stood up against Anita (Bryant) and it stood right with her then-- anti-gay to the last drop." (See GayToday Top Story, "The Miami Herald Nurtures Florida's Homophobia," August 14)

Even if Miami's largest newspaper stands against Kunst, many stand with him and he recalls how it also supported the 1986 Supreme Court decision in Hardwick vs. Bowers and says he doesn't care what the Miami newspaper says about him. "It's back in dark ages, trying to put on a modern face. Trying to fool us with that lesbian adoption editorial"

The anti-racist Jewish and gay activist, fed up with what he calls Miami Beach City Hall "incompetence", declared his candidacy August 15, moving forward "one month from the day Versace was murdered." Kunst is no stranger to campaigning and has twice run for public office at the state level, once for governor (1982) and, in 1986, for Senator, in which primary he received a resounding 150,000 votes on a (then radical) CURE AIDS NOW platform calling AIDS "World War Three."

It is clear that Kunst intends to recommend shake ups in the way Miami Beach police handle crime as well as gay issues. On the same day he declared his candidacy, the city's "finest" raided a gay bar, The Boardwalk, arresting 21 men and complaining, according to a Friday Newsplanet story, of "lewd and lascivious behavior, exposure of sexual organs, possession of drugs, and battery." The battery charges, according to the Newsplanet Staff, were because individuals allegedly approached and began groping investigators' bodies." (See GayToday, Top Story, "Miami Area Police: A Scary History of Homophobia", July 21) Lewd behavior, according to police, consisted of customers exposing themselves and allegedly masturbating themselves or other men "in an open area."

Kunst had, in conversations with this reporter, early predicted a nationwide police backlash following his charges of incompetence against them during the Cunanan hunt. Eerily, that backlash seems already underway not only in Miami Beach but in others cities nationwide. A Tampa, Florida bar raid, with approximately 20 arrests, took place last week as well, a city resident told GayToday, claiming drug busts as the police rationale.

In San Diego, arrests of gays have skyrocketed. The San Diego Union Tribune reported (August 6) an undercover operation in Marian Bear Memorial Nature Park in which eight men were arrested for "illicit sexual activity." Newsplanet also reported Friday that 46 more arrests had been made

In New York City there has been, for months, increased anti-gay police actions. (See Gay Today, Top Story "Guiliani's Authority? A Toilet Plunger Up a Man's Rectum?" August 15). Thousands of protesters from many ethnic backgrounds, including some gay protesters, took to the streets of Brooklyn Saturday to protest this latest instance of New York police brutality, with much increased focus being put on police coddling by Mayor Guiliani. The assaulted Haitian immigrant has, much to the Mayor's embarrassment at election time, quoted his attackers as saying, "This isn't Dinkin's town any more, it's Guiliani's." The Republican mayor has been quick to do political damage control, arresting a second suspect policeman and shuffling police precinct workers into other environs.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, questioned (Sunday) Guiliani's sincerity about stopping police brutality. "The question is whether it was a one-shot reaction to a particularly grotesque and highly publicized incident or the beginning of a permanent change in the signals being sent to all police officers by Mr. Guilinai..." wrote Herbert.

Guiliani has refused to turn over a promised $10,000 New York City reward for a tip leading to Cunanan's whereabouts, to the houseboat caretaker, Fernando Carreira, a mayoral refusal Bob Kunst intends forcefully and continuously to critique.

At just this moment in time, OUT columnist Michelangelo Signorile, author of a new book, Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex Drugs, Muscles and the Passages of Life, has added, perhaps unintentionally, to fueling police and conservative political views about "the gay lifestyle".

On Saturday (August 16) a Signorile guest column in The New York Times Op-Ed section harshly critiqued a beach bash that was to be held the next day on Fire Island, one sponsored to raise AIDS funds for the New York-based organization, The Gay Men's Health Crisis. Signorile blithely listed special categories of "chic" drugs reputedly common at such gatherings and wondered publicly why G.M.H.C. hadn't moved previously with greater decisiveness to completely curb such usage.

His column seems to give credence to assertions by conservative members of congress in their 1996 criticisms of drug use at AIDS funding parties on Federal properties. G.M.H.C., he says, " which has made a strong effort to address unsafe sex and substance abuse through educational programs, certainly does not condone drug use. But they are raising money by hosting a social event where drug use has been a problem."

In the midst of what Bob Kunst is calling a "chilling" right wing assault on gay men and lesbians nationwide, Signorile's column is, says Kunst, "ill-timed."

"And not only that," said the Miami Beach mayoral candidate, his voice terse, "but its sick and he should take his Moral Majority crap and go home. Who the hell is he to tell people what to do with their bodies?"