The best president on AIDS? It’s W.
CommentsA piece I wrote for the LGBT press but couldn’t publish in any gay newspaper because of the “activism” of my opponents is in Wednesday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune. That’s the 12th-largest metropolitan daily in the country, and the third-largest in the Midwest. As of midnight, my piece was both the most-viewed and most-E-mailed opinion piece on the Star-Tribune Web site.
I’ve excerpted the parts that relate to marriage below:
Now that the gay white men in American cities who are the main funders of the LGBT movement are no longer dying quite so often from AIDS, the lesbian and gay community has moved on to other issues, such as marriage, while millions of people, many of them men of color who have sex with men, are still suffering from HIV-related illness.
In my eyes, “marriage equality” is a far less important gay and lesbian issue than the fight against HIV/AIDS. Virtually the entire gay community felt that way when I first became a gay activist. After all, what lesbian ever died a horrible, painful death because the government called her relationship a domestic partnership instead of a marriage?
UPDATE: I just found out that my W piece will appear in a daily newspaper in a major East Coast city next Tuesday. That means the total circulation of the papers running this piece will be close to a half a million - instead of at most 20,000 had I run the same piece in the gay press. Good going, guys!
David: ‘The best president on AIDS? It’s W.’
Arguably, but only in the same uninteresting sense that American workers are earning more today than they ever have before - in US dollars uncorrected for inflation. (A more honest picture is that real wages after inflation have been decreasing under Bush.) AIDS has been an exponentially increasing problem - exponentially more should have been spent on it. Whoever was president should have been the “best” to date.
From the article: ‘The United States spends more than $3 billion a year, with more to come, on the president’s initiative to treat, prevent and care for millions of suffering people worldwide.’
This is genuinely good. On the other hand, there’s no particular reason to think say Gore or Kerry wouldn’t have pushed just as hard or more, or that a more Democratic congress wouldn’t have smoothed the way as well.
‘And instead of trying to help people get the medicine they needed, Clinton’s Justice Department actually sued people and governments worldwide for trying to produce generic antiretrovirals.’
And the Bush administration continued.
‘The White House is trying to repeal the heinous restriction on foreign visitors and immigrants with HIV, a policy the supposedly progay Clinton administration actually signed into law. ‘
Not seriously. If it was serious, it would tell Tom Coburn, senator and co-chairman of the President’s Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS to remove the hold he put on the bill in the senate because the Democrats increased the funding allocated.
‘The president has not hesitated to appoint openly gay experts on the disease to top administration positions, including physician Mark R. Dybul to an ambassador-level HIV post and both National AIDS Policy Coordinator Scott Evertz and his successor, Joseph O’Neill.’
Again, this is thank heavens for small mercies territory.
‘When challenged with this inconsistency, most lesbian and gay activists will point to Bush’s championing of abstinence education, as if it were a bad idea.’
But it is. Abstinence is as foolproof as you suggest, but it isn’t a public health strategy. Abstinence _education_, i.e., _preaching_ abstinence is a public health strategy, and it doesn’t work very well because people take little notice. Moreover, abstinence is simply not possible for a very significant fraction of the population of say Africa because they’re wives and they’re _expected_ to have sex. So if the husband comes home with HIV and the wife can’t get him to use a condom because the US government has made them hard to get or won’t support education programs on the importance of them, then the wife gets HIV too. (I’m particularly vehement on this subject because my partner has done humanitarian work in Uganda and has seen personally how the US’s meddling is unravelling a program that was having some success.)
Of course none of this matters to Christian conservatives, because they’re not actually all that interested in reducing HIV/AIDS, they’re mainly interested in reducing sex they don’t approve of.
Wow. What complete crap. But what would one expect from a so-called “gay” who is too weak to stand up for what his community needs.
Traitor. People like YOU really should stay in the closet. Garbage.
B.U.S.H. BUCK UP S%*T HEAD. . . abstinence education< for street youth, hustlers, young prostitutes with ugly johns and controlling pimps !
abstinence education < for early offenders in lock-up facilities!
abstinence education < for folk on the down-low in african, hispanic, and even asian communities!
abstinence education < lonely closeted gay and bisexual men just coming to terms later in life!
Oh and the female partners, who are unaware of their male partners stepping out. Very high numbers of women infected with HIV in America, primarily women of color.
Where does abstinece come in?
I give more credit to the Laura, Jenna and Barbara. . .than I would to George W.
early folk who died due to an HIV infection and an compromised immune system, often left friends going to a series of funerals. . .
today, those infected do have more support, caseworkers, the ADA, and the cocktails, drug cocktails. But an HIV status can be hidden or worn proudly, but for the most part, it is becoming a manageable long-term illness. Those with an HIV infection are often not surviving due to the toxicity of the drug cocktails, non-compliance with the treatment (passive or not), or just lose the will to continue.
HIV is an issue for MSM, men who have sex with men. . .and since mr benkof waivers from being a gay activst to celebate bisexual to someone attempting to reclaim his heterosexuality maybe, just maybe he can come up with effective outreach strategies to reach those folk.
Yes Prez W. has increased funding for HIV prevention, care and research, but I believe that Gates Foundation rivals the entire US in their simple attempts, and the Foundation doesn’t place expectations, pass judgements or dictates lifestyles.
Your article is phenomenal! My jaw was dropping! You are “not far from the kingdom of God!” Read my blog, if you will - “Go Free Now.” (right there next to I’m Free Now) i have written things for homosexuals designed to set them free (because I believe FREE is what they want to be), and I also wrote an essay for Jews entitled “why do I extol the Jew?” I don’t expect you to receive these things with open arms. I know that being Jewish, you have an aversion to belief in Jesus as the Messiah, but i hope and pray that my writing will impact you in some way. You have a soul. You are really amazing.
Todd-
What isn’t gay about me? I have same-sex attractions and have had tons of gay sex. Is there an ideological test to count as gay? And as for my being weak, is it really weak to stand up to the community of people with your same sexuality and say “No! Your priorities are wrong! Marriage is between a man and a woman, and we should be taking care of LGBT people in need.” I think more people would call that strong than weak.
Gabrielle Eden-
Thanks for your comments. To be clear, you have had your one chance to propose my conversion, and I have rejected it. If you bring it up again, even in a joking way or a hint, you’ll never hear from me again.