Infection_Ag11 said:Ulysses90 said:Beaux12 said:
I've been told there was all this backlash against gays in the 80s. You have to be a victim to be politically successful.
There was no backlash against gays. The clear causal relationship between promiscuous male homosexuality and the spread of AIDS removed the argument that AIDS was a public health emergency because it could be stopped in its tracks by individual abstinence i.e. self restraint from a behavior with destructive consequences. That really angered the homosexual lobby because they wanted billion more to be spent to create a vaccine an magic pill cure for AIDS and a solution based on modifying behavior was unacceptable and "unfair."
The homosexual community considered any suggestion that the "lifestyle' should be reformed t be backlash.. As in just about every other case, leftists cloak themselves in victimhood whenever they get mugged by reality.
In their defense, the United States did start spending billions on HIV research as soon as it became widespread knowledge that people other than gay men were getting it. There was definitely a "those people deserve it" mindset throughout much of the 80s that hindered medical research.
It's unfortunate they had to die, but people like Ryan White and Arthur Ashe saved millions of lives years down the road by being public faces of the disease.
I don't have any criticism of Ryan White or Arthur Ashe but I don't believe their actions saved millions of lives. You can correct me if my memory is failing me but neither of them nor the foundations carrying their named advanced a message of avoiding high risk behavior.
Ryan White and Arthur Ashe were innocent victims because they received blood products from donors who were engaging in high risk behavior. With all due respect to them, destigmatizing and personalizing AIDS didn't save lives. Raising money to treat the symptoms of HIV infection is laudable but it's not preventative.
As soon as the very specific list of high risk activities was known, the general public was accused by the practitioners of those high risk activities of having a "they deserve it" attitude. A solution that was based on personal responsibility rather than continuing to spend billionn on a vaccine was too easy. Those who make money from government spending were not going to ever let such an opportunitygo to waste again and they were ready to exploit COVID to its full potential.
The solution to the AIDS 'crisis' was 75% "keep your d*** in your pants" and 25% "don't use a dirty needle." It was certainly not Tony "AZT" Fauci's, "you'll catch it off cereall box, now fund my vaccine research."
Faced with that realty, the homosexual activists shifted their tact from trying to scare the public to accusing th public of being heartless for not spending billions more to cure those who were already infected. Ronald Reagan was the focal point for their anger because they accused him of having a "they deserve it" attitude because he wouldn't support spening massive amounts of public funds on a cure for a disease that was easily preventable by exercising personal restraint on behavioral impulses.
