You can purchase an autographed copy of Anything But Straight by sending a $35 check or money order to:
-------------------------
Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
The hypocrisy in the GOP has reached new depressing lows. A Washington Postarticle today explains that many of the "homophobes" are really play-acting to kiss the ass of the Religious Right. How sad and pathetic this is, but the Foley scandal has made it difficult to maintain this facade. Let's hope the Republican Party chooses acceptance over thier loopy base, but I would not place a bet on that.
16 Comments:
This sort of thing is a lot more embittering to me than any of the anti-gay venom pouring from the Religious Reich.
Anyone with half a brain has known that for years now, antigay Republicans have worked closely with people they know very well to be gay. So it wasn't a case of their being anti-gay because they really think gays are mentally-diseased and/or morally corrupt. (The gays who make this corrupt bargain usually oblige by keeping quiet so as not to cause charges of hypocrisy to be raised.) In fact I doubt they had much of an opinion about gays one way or the other.
Which suits me fine. But it makes me retch to read of people who heartlessly fomented fear and hatred of gays now say "Honest, we didn't mean it! We like you guys!"
A lot of people I knew are dead because other people who didn't even care enough about gays to hate them, so to speak; went along with the haters.
About 1990 or so, I remember seeing a report on CNN featuring an AIDS public service announcement (never released, as far as I know) featuring ta-da! Ronald Reagan! The Gipper in his warm, grandfatherly fashion was saying how people with AIDS were not dangerous and should not be discriminated against, and that children with AIDS or HIV needed love and could be held and kissed without risk. WHERE THE HELL WAS HE WHEN IT MATTERED? AND WHERE THE HELL WERE THE REST OF THEM?
posted by Anonymous, at
10/20/2006 5:57 PM
I don't know but where the hell were you guys when you were getting infected with AIDS??? Come on!
posted by Anonymous, at
10/20/2006 7:58 PM
Oh, nice. How christian of you. Do you also blame women who get brest cancer because they have the audacity to have brests? Or people with bad hearts when they have a heart attack? How about women who are assaulted, do you blame them because of what they happened to be wearing at the time? Please crawl back under your rock.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/20/2006 8:46 PM
The neocon republicans are USERS, plain and simple. To get unbridled power and wealth, they pandered to and used evangelical whack-jobs, bashed gays and used other gays who were low and pathetic enough to work for them. Now that the gods have had it up to here with their outrageous HUBRIS--their house of cards is finally imploding. Wise man Lord Acton said it all, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
posted by Anonymous, at
10/20/2006 10:27 PM
Actually Anonymous, a lot of 'us guys' were out there trying to spread the word about the epidemic (since nobody else seemed to give a shit, except for making agitprop at election time), visiting sick friends and running errands for them, going to funerals--you know, fun stuff like that.
Considering the way syphillis spread like wildfire throughout 16th century Europe (usually looked upon as an age of faith by pious Christians) and continued to cut a wide swath right up until antibiotics arrived during World War II, I don't have much patience for finger wagging from ignoramuses bent on saddling gays with all the blame. (Some informed estimates place the percentage of 19th century Americans infected with syphillis as high as 10 percent.)
No one will ever know precisely how much time was lost (and how many lives) due to what amounted to official negligence (in some quarters, this charge could probably be upgraded to depraved indifference). An idea can be gained however by noting that when the National Institutes of Health finally bestirred itself and went looking for the virus in 1984, they found it almost immediately--and even this may have been by claiming that the viral cultures generously provided by the Intitute Pasteur (which had isolated the virus now called HIV the year before) were the results of their own work. Meanwhile, a team led by Dr. Jay Levy at the University of California--San Francisco reportedly isolated the virus as early as 1982--the year after the first reported cases of AIDS appeared and two years before NIH finally got off it's ass! Had authorities taken things as seriously as they had Legionnaire's Disease in 1976 thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people would be alive now including the majority of clotting-factor dependent hemophilliacs, who were virtually wiped out by very pooled transfusions they needed to stay alive. But hey, there were only a few thousand of them; and the rest were just junkies and fags. Anyone seeking further details may consult the book "And the Band Played On: People, Politics and the AIDS Epidemic" by the late Randy Shilts. (Guess what he died of, kiddies.)
I'm sorry to have to go on at such length, but somebody has to set the plain facts down before they all disappear down the memory hole.
"We were the wretched survivors not only of those taken from us, but of our very selves"--Tacitus, a Roman historian writing about the reign of the Emperor Nero.
In memory of Kevin Kelly--lovable, loving, and beloved. (finis)
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 1:29 AM
I have had friends die from AIDS. And they got it from having lots of unprotected sex. We know how to stop it and yet, it continues - not the same things as breast cancer (since men get that too) and not the same thing as a heart attack since that can be genetic. So don't compare frivilous behavior with disease. Oh- hmmm and how did syphillis spread??? Same way ... I'm not condemning gays. I am saying that ANYONE who engages in riisky behavior is going to be at blame - not the rest of society.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 10:04 AM
I dont think anyone was blaming society, but government inaction in the face of a crisis; just like the Katrina/New Orleans debacle. Humans will always do things that arent good for them because it feels good (smoke, drink, abuse drugs, and over-eat to the point of obesity and diabetes); but a civilized and compassionate society wont just leave them to suffer and die because 'it was their own fault'.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 10:33 AM
Well- we are letting millions of drug addicts and prostitutes suffer and die. And we are letting children suffer and die (children are the largest population of the homeless). So yes, a civilized country will let people do that. Why don't people who can take repsonsibility for themselves - do so.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 12:05 PM
Most people do take responsibility for themselves, but accidents will always happen. This is a fact of human existence and it applies to both gay people and heterosexuals. Look at he millions of unintended pregnancies in this country that resulted because heterosexual couples behaved irresponsibly. So when the question is asked, "Why didn't the gays behave responsibly," realize that the answer is precisely similar to the explanation for heterosexual irresponsibility... it's just a fact of human existence and is in no way exclusive to gay and lesbian people.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 12:10 PM
Anonymous 12:05--I said civilized *AND* compassionate. We may be civilized, but we are far from being truely compassionate. And you are exhibit A!
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 2:42 PM
So what - I am compassionate and all I am saying is treat yourselves to the same compassion and stop spreading AIDS in your community.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 3:56 PM
Regan, I too have serious questions about the government being involved in this. Call me a conspiratist but I fully believe that our government was behind this and that it escalted out of hand. It just angers me to no end, that we have watched our frineds die literraly left and right in the early days and gay men are STILL going around wanting sympathy for soemthing they can put an end to. In the beginning - no one knew. But now we do!
posted by Anonymous, at
10/21/2006 4:06 PM
How in the world can anyone compare the risk of death with the risk of pregnancy!! Two entirely different consequences of risky sex. This is not a gay or straight issue. This is men who have risky behaviors are still getting AIDS and no more sympathy from this freedom fighter.
And you cannot tell me that all those condoms are breaking during sex. You know it - I know it. Men are have risky sex. They get AIDS. They don't get my sympathy anymore. In the early days when we knew nothing - sure. But not now.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/22/2006 12:50 AM
Exactly!! I totally agree. Take responsibilty, protect your life with everything you have. We know how to stop it.
posted by Anonymous, at
10/22/2006 2:23 PM
Remember that the LGBT community gave Republicans AIDES! ;)
