A Retrospective Journey through AIDS..."
Michael Wallace Connett
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A Retrospective Journey through AIDS..." Michael Wallace Connett |
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"The HIVe at Seminary Square"
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Monday, May 31, 2010 1:04 PM
The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches
Commentary - Special Health Issue #734 - May 1997 Sex and sensibility - Larry Kramer In his terribly important new book, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, Gabriel Rotello makes the definitive, airtight case that AIDS in the gay male population is not going away. We've changed, but we haven't changed enough, and because we haven't changed enough, the infection rate continues to be unrelentingly high. All our efforts at education, "safe sex", and behavior modification have been insufficient to keep the gay population from continuing to be destroyed. Gabriel's book also makes the airtight case -still considered controversial, unfortunately, rather than undeniable- that we brought AIDS upon ourselves by a way of living that welcomed it. You cannot (* have sex) indiscriminately with multiple partners, who are also doing the same, without spreading disease, a disease that has for many years also carried death. Nature always extracts a price for sexual promiscuity. None of this is new or should be new. Tragically, not enough of us have responded to this information maturely and responsibly. Too many of us have used almost every conceivable excuse not to face this plague squarely and honestly. We think we know what's safe and unsafe, know all about condoms, know all about these new drugs we've put our faith in so quickly, and we get very irate when the word promiscuity is used. But nobody is out there saying loud and clear and nonstop: Stop acting like assholes. Start acting like adults. Even in the best of times, an adult does not play Russian roulette with (*genitals). It's been particularly distressing to me as a writer, as someone who tries very hard to believe he's an artist, to see how almost every other gay writer -as well as journalists, essayists, poets, playwrights, painters, photographers, filmmakers, what have you- has, to my mind, ignored the primary job of being an artist: telling the truth. What is this truth? We must create a new culture that is not confined and and centered so tragically on our obsession with our penises and what we do with them. We have made a culture out of our sexuality, and that culture has killed us... Isn't it still? And hasn't it spread to all men who have sex with men? Is Marriage an attempt to lay the cornerstone of this new culture 7 years later? Constitutional amendment corners many Americans By Adam Goodheart The president, speaking on national TV from the White House, has declared me and millions of other law-abiding American citizens unconstitutional. Or so it felt as President Bush urged the nation to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages. I knew last week's announcement would come, yet actually hearing it filled me with waves of sadness, shame - and anger. Like many other gay and lesbian Americans, I believe that marriage - that most private and fundamental of contracts between two people - is a basic human right, one too long denied to us. Like many, I also recognize the breadth of public opinion, from wholehearted support for giving gays the right to marry to passionate opposition. But vast numbers of Americans favor a compromise such as
civil unions or simply haven't yet given this suddenly prominent issue much thought. What Bush proposed effectively would force these millions of moderates to choose between two radical camps. He declared gays' desire for equality not just wrong, but so dangerous that we must amend the Constitution to prevent it from being realized, now or ever. Most Americans, I believe, would rather ponder this issue for a while, see how things play out in Massachusetts and California, then reach their own conclusions. In a sense, they agree with the Founding Fathers, who recognized that as the nation grew and evolved, Americans gradually would develop new ideas about freedom. 'Keep pace with the times' In 1816, Thomas Jefferson predicted future generations would extend liberty's ideals into realms not yet imagined: "Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind," he wrote. "As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances,
institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times." Speaking from a house once occupied by Jefferson, Bush proposed an amendment that would all but block the possibility for American institutions to keep pace with the times on the rapidly evolving subject of homosexuality. Indeed, it was one of the rare occasions in history when our government has tried to turn back the clock on freedom and use the Constitution against a specific class of
people, as the U.S. Supreme Court did in the 1857 Dred Scott decision, or as President Franklin Roosevelt did when he ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Intensely personal For me, the president's conclusion was the most insulting part of the entire speech: "In all that lies ahead, let us match strong convictions with kindness and goodwill and decency." Hey, it's not personal, Bush seemed to be trying to say. Despite that disclaimer, the fight will be a very personal struggle indeed. The question of gay marriage touches on many people's most closely held private beliefs - not just about love, sex and family, but about religion, fairness and basic notions of right and wrong. Millions of Americans' views on this are dictated by their feelings for a gay brother, sister, child or close friend. Many are tugged in two directions at once: A heterosexual's religious background might encourage him to condemn same-sex marriage, yet he might also feel sympathy toward a homosexual couple he knows. Bush is asking these Americans to make a stark choice that many are not prepared to face. Many, even those far from ready to enthusiastically support gay rights, have a "live-and-let-live" attitude. They now are compelled to make choices - religious beliefs vs. family loyalties, for instance - that most don't want to face. As politicians and ordinary citizens decide which side of the fence they stand on, they will face rancorous discord - not just on the public stage, but also within families and communities. Bush and his allies have created a new issue potentially as disruptive as the abortion question has been for the past three decades. The leader who promised us four years ago that he would be "a
uniter, not a divider" has brought this to pass. Adam Goodheart, a fellow at Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors. Do the math Lasting success is achieved by addition and multiplication, not subtraction or division. If your winning depends on causing someone else to lose, that success is doomed to eventually run out. By contrast, when your success is built by creating new value for the world around you, it can continue to grow indefinitely.Do the math. When you continue subtracting and dividing, you soon reach the very real limit of zero. But you can continue adding and multiplying with no such limit. Certainly it is a competitive world. Yet the most successful competitors are those who do not depend on the competition, those who make the whole pie bigger instead of fighting over a single slice. Real success and real value can never be wrested away from another. Your success and fulfillment must be built by you. Focus on the competition, and that competition will throw obstacles in your path at every turn. Focus on creating new value, and the world will enthusiastically push you forward. "Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it." |
