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A convicted felon and born-again Christian, Hartline, 47, renounced the life he led for 33 years as a homosexual shortly after he was diagnosed with HIV in 1997. Although he has started taking medication, he believes God will one day cure him of AIDS. Moreover, he has turned against the gay community and has spent the last five years leading an increasingly vocal and effective crusade to close gay bathhouses and shutter adult bookstores in San Diego.
Along the way, he has taken shots at gay-friendly community organizations, individuals and events, as well as anything else that he feels falls short of being truly Christian, creating controversy in a series of high-profile confrontations.
“Honestly, in my 40 years I have not met a [man like] Hartline,” says Nicole Murray-Ramirez, a gay-community activist. “He's a guy that admits that he used to do drugs, he admits he used to go to bathhouses, he admits he used to be gay, he admits that he got HIV.... He knows our community inside and out. He knows how to exploit and exaggerate things, how to take things out of context.
“We have dealt with the religious right, radicals, militants, the American Nazis-we have dealt with all of them. We have never in San Diego-and I have been here 40 years-dealt with a Hartline. He's one of the most dangerous.”
A true enemy from within, Hartline has managed to generate all of this trouble while living in Hillcrest, in the midst of those he despises most and just blocks away from the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center, the hub of San Diego's gay community.
San Diego CityBeat - THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN |
Tell me again why I should listen to this "Hartline" guy? Seems like if it bothered him that much he'd just move, dontcha think?
Nope. Seems he'd rather compare us "sick perverts" to a truly sick pervert, Hitler. The View From (Ab)Normal Heights » Ex-Gay James Hartline |