How did your mom respond to your coming out to her?
I think she would love to have a grandchild, and I think that is probably the greatest disappointment to her. But you know, she may still get one. But I want to get a dog first. [Laughs]
It does seem that your coming-out has prompted your mom’s political involvement on behalf of gays and lesbians.
I’m sure I’ve been a positive influence, but she’s a pretty liberal person, and she’s very passionate about human rights. So I wouldn’t take the credit for her support of gay rights, although she certainly got a more inside perspective from me. From this article: This boy’s life
The truth about Reagan is probably that he had many friends and loved ones who were gay and was not at all a persecutor of gays.
But, of course, to not be considered a "homophobe," you must not merely tolerate the gay lifestyle with a "live and live" attitude, you must celebrate it. You must not take any steps to protect public health that might inconvenience any gay people or draw any adverse attention to them. You must not shut down gay bath houses or preach against promiscuity or unsafe sex practices (such as those that involve tearing rectal membranes while bathing those torn membranes with bodily fluids.)
And when the disease spreads, you must divert most of the national budget to finding cutting-edge cures for AIDS so that people can do exactly waht they feel like doing without having to suffer from the inherent risks of what they want to do. Otherwise you don't care, or are a homophobe.
Plus lengthy sections of David Horowitz's memoir, Radical Son. The gay rights crowd sabotaged every early effort to head off the disaster. Makes it difficult for them to condemn others who call homosexuality a nihilistic, self-destructive lifestyle.
That, plus a fierce political and PR campaign to suppress any mention of the linkage of AIDS with homosexuality. That is my primary recollection of the early Reagan period: the gay lobby did not want homosexuals to be stigmatized, so candid discussion of AIDS was verboten. This was the "AIDS is everybody's disease" period.
Anybody got the "Safe Bowling" cartoon?
There were a few gay doctors that found their patients in the same bathhouses. They tried to point this out to the press but were slammed for their efforts.
The libs had an agenda to follow, they don't care for the facts or truth.
| Proposed Bathhouse Reopening Rekindles Gay Community Debate New generation of gay men not affected by damage done by AIDS in the '80s, some say By Curtis Pond The Community United for Gay Sexual Privacy sparked emotional feelings about safe-sex practices when two of its members submitted an initiative to San Francisco City Hall last week that if passed on November's ballot, would reopen San Francisco's gay bathhouses.
The group has said that it wants to create more places for gay men to have safe sex, and rewrite the rules that make bathhouses illegal. San Francisco's gay bathhouses were closed by the City's Department of Public Health in 1984 when it was discovered that the bath house's penchant for multiple-partner sex was helping to spread HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. During that time, the gay community became divided as people argued about the role the bathhouses played in sexual freedom. On one side were those who refused to abandon the gains that were made during the gay liberation movement in the 1970s. The other side of the debate was filled with voices who had simply grown tired of losing loved ones to a silent killer. But now, with the emergence of powerful drugs that stunt the growth of HIV, AIDS related deaths have been on the decline since the early 1990s. According to the Center for Disease Control, HIV infection dropped from 8th to 14th in 1997 among leading causes of death in the U.S. However, the risk of AIDS has not deteriorated. "There is an increase in the number of HIV cases among younger people in the U.S." said Dr. Jay Schlumpberger of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. "I worry that if the bath houses were reopened, it would effect those with no memories of the 1980s. There are adults around today who weren't around 20 years ago when AIDS was first reported," he said. Schlumpberger said that the rate of new HIV infections a year is around 40,000. Michael Ritter, a coordinator for prevention programs at San Francisco State University, said there are young people who may feel invulnerable to HIV, but attitudes of invulnerability have been around since AIDS was first discovered. "There's been this it-can't-happen-to-me feeling all along," he said. "The most you can do is provide adequate education and devices to protect them, whether it's in a bathhouse or a private room." Ritter added that there wasn't much difference in sex clubs and bathhouses, just a door that people can close for privacy. Although the scare factor of AIDS has diminished over the past few years, most gay men are still using condoms regularly, said Albert Angelo, a health educator at SF State. "Most high-risk behavior is still protected safely," he said, "but younger people seem to have less fear. They weren't around when everyone was dying." Angelo said the main issue in the debate over bath houses is whether or not private rooms encourage unsafe sex. "Adults can have unsafe sex anywhere," he said. "Barebacking (sex without condoms) is now a huge underground thing. Having private rooms doesn't mean that this type of thing will happen." If the initiative is approved by the Department of Elections, the group will need 10,200 signatures to put it on the ballot. |
That's right. And in some radical gay circles, author Randy Shilts is vilified for having told the truth. But a funny thing happened to And The Band Played On on the way to television: Shilts, who admitted years hence he had contracted AIDS himself, made certain that gays' own part in the initial spread of AIDS was downplayed, saying that his goal in allowing a miniseries based on the book was to reduce homophobia, not increase it.