American, which, in 1996, reportedly booked seats totaling $162 million through gay travel agents, remains the singular U.S. carrier that transports the largest numbers of gay and lesbian clientele.

Circuit parties were first given a black eye by OUT columnist Michelangelo Signorile in a New York Times opinion-editorial. Signorile turned his editorial guns not only on Fire Island's Morning Party, but on New York's oldest AIDS organization, the Gay Men's Heath Crisis, host to the Morning Party which serves as an AIDS fundraiser.

He accused GMHC of hypocrisy for hosting AIDS fundraisers in an atmosphere wherein unsafe sex and drugs were rampant.

The OUT columnist, also the author of a new book, Life Outside, is best known for making bold criticisms of what he considers inappropriate socialization among gay males.

Signorile's "dirty-laundry" criticisms of the AIDS fund raisers, parties where bare-backing (sex without condoms) is reportedly practiced, have occasioned barrages of shock and reprisals in mainstream media.

American has long been a prime target of the religious right which has repeatedly charged the airline with promoting homosexuality because it openly makes its services available to gay groups. Recently, following the onset of author Signorile's critiques, sexual promiscuity and drugs have been added to fundamentalist charges.

Officials of the airline emphasize that their decision to stop sponsoring the gay circuit parties has nothing to do with religious fundamentalist criticisms, but , rather, with the allegations of drug use and promiscuous sex that have made their way into mainstream news.

Were such allegations—drugs and promiscuous sex-- made about any heterosexual group, the airline would also wish to stay clear of such a group, say its spokespersons.

American boasts that it continues to sponsor events held under the auspices of such groups as Parents, Families and Friends of Gays and the Human Rights Campaign.

The airline began, in 1994, an aggressive courtship of the gay and lesbian community, and utilized the talents of an openly-gay sales representative who now heads a gay sales staff.