Word: broussard
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...local activism, even solo advocacy, has paid off in the face of adversity. Three years ago, John Broussard, a former Air Force medic, stunned the tiny Louisiana farming town of Welsh when he announced on local TV that he was gay and had AIDS. After the broadcast, his home was pelted with rocks. Local doctors refused to treat him. Baptist neighbors crowed that he was going to hell, and his parents, he says, "went through more rejection by friends in one year than they ever had in their entire lives...
...Then Broussard began dropping into every store in town to socialize -- even when clerks gave him a cold shoulder. He also addressed the local junior high on AIDS. Slowly the town changed. Students started cutting class to hear him speak, and parents appeared in the back of the lecture hall to listen. When Broussard's health deteriorated, a physician in nearby Jennings, John Sabatier, confessed that he knew virtually nothing about AIDS but promised to learn as much as he could as fast as he could. Seventh- and eighth-graders sent letters saying they would never tell a dirty...
...laughing." The neighbors asked the Oregon children's services division to investigate, but to no avail. Last week four adults came to the Clackamas County firehouse with the body of an eight- year-old girl who had died from multiple injuries to the head, chest and limbs. She was Broussard's eight-year-old daughter Dayna...
...Broussard, 35, was in Los Angeles at the time but returned to Oregon last week. After first refusing to comment on the case, he later made a bizarre appearance on the nationally televised Oprah Winfrey Show. Grinning and smiling, smirking and haranguing, Broussard evaded all direct questions while blaming the death of his daughter on "the media." His only display of emotion came when he broke into tears as he complained about the media's treatment of him. His program has been unfairly likened to a cult, he said, and he has been called, in his own phrase...
...only one parent of the Ecclesia children has expressed a lack of confidence in Broussard or made any effort to return them to their homes. Broussard himself has vowed to make an all-out effort to regain custody of his young wards. Oregon officials are expected to oppose his effort with equal adamancy...