of its sexy anger", he wanted to be a part of it. Blotcher attended the first meeting of ACT UP's media committee, convened in the living room of Vito Russo's West Twenty-Fourth Street apartment. The committee's challenge was getting journalists to write about AIDS in spite of the apathy of the unaffected and the stigma of the affected. Blotcher would become the fourth person to chair the committee, following David Corkery and Bob Rafsky, who shared the role, and Michelangelo Signorile, who passed the responsibility on to him. Blotcher said the unwillingness of the media to cover such a consequential public health threat as AIDS led to his revelation that "journalism isn't objective." As the chair of the Media Committee, Blotcher donned a suit and tie for demonstrations, and deliberately presented a calm and clearly spoken professional demeanor to the assembled journalists. He spoke on behalf of ACT UP at numerous demonstrations, including the second anniversary "spring lie-down" at New York City Hall in July 1989, and Stop the Church on December 10, 1989, among others. Blotcher represented the group at the International AIDS Conferences in Montreal (1989), Amsterdam (1992), and Yokohama (1994). Blotcher also participated in other demonstrations, including the protests of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1988, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1990. In 1989, to protest the obstacles unwed partners of people with AIDS faced gaining entrance to emergency rooms and intensive care units, he and other members of ACT UP went to New York City Hall in couples to demand marriage licenses. On one occasion a photo of Blotcher being arrested appeared in USA Today, and his mother, although displeased, clipped out the photograph and mounted it on the refrigerator. Living upstate and fighting for marriage rights In 2001, Blotcher left Manhattan, and moved to High Falls, New York with Brook Garrett, then his domestic partner. The couple had also entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2000. In High Falls, Blotcher expected to "hang up his activist boots." In 2004, years before the state of New York legalized same-sex marriage, Blotcher and Garrett were among twenty-five same-sex couples wed in New Paltz, New York by mayor Jason West. Blotcher said that, while West could not issue them a legal marriage license, the ceremony was still important to "show people who we are." Blotcher and Garrett traveled to California in