Our Responsibility is Real

One of the many books I have read over the years is, And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic. The book, written by Randy Shilts, chronicled the discovery and spread of HIV and AIDS. The book was and still is an excellent book on the advent of HIV and AIDS and gave a very informative timeline to the disease. The book was made into a movie in 1993 staring Matthew Modine. I read the book and then watched the movie. The book was a history lesson for me and it awakened in me the happiness, the sadness, the misery, the loss and the hypocrisy that existed then and now in the gay community. In the book, the many permutations of HIV and AIDS was traced to Africa and to patient zero, Gaetan Dugas.

Two and a half years ago I attended a dinner given by my partner's friends who lived around the corner from us. A few minutes after I got my drink one half of the couple went on a tirade about Republicans, HIV & AIDS, Ronald Reagan and his shunning of the gay community to George Bush and his hatred of gay people. I took a deep breathe and sat down to dinner and said nothing. When we left I said to my gf, "If we are invited to this house again I will not sit still and listen to the ranting and raving by some queen who have no respect for me." The next time we attended an event at this person's home he behaved himself and I didn't have to challenge him on his turf.

I try to respect where people are coming from but I have a really big problem when gays insist that "everyone" is against them. And in reading this blog you know that I feel the same way about blacks and everyone else who believe the same thing. In the 1980's NO ONE knew about HIV and AIDS including the president of the United States. The doctors who were dealing with this "cancer" knew nothing about it so how the hell did we expect the president to know about it. And the myth that has lived on about Ronald Reagan is that he said nothing about HIV and AIDS until 1987 but it has been proven that he talked about it and the money that was allotted for it in 1985. But the thing that gets me the most is this - when the health department in San Francisco found the virus in gay bath houses and wanted to shut them down gays hissed and booed and said no. We don't hear about this very important little fact when gays talk about Ronald Reagan and his supposed homophobia. We don't hear about it because it would suggest that gays had a hand in their deaths. We don't hear about it because it's not politically correct. We don't hear about it because it calls attention to the victim hurting the victim. Maybe we should hear about it and all the other things that politically correct and angry gays don't want us to hear.