Getting Serious About AIDS

If I or others like me warn about the rising tide of AIDS in Australia, or speak about the need to challenge the behaviour that is so much responsible for it, we will simply be dismissed as being “homophobic”. That is always a good way to end a debate: instead of dealing with the arguments, one simply resorts to name-calling. The other side often thinks that by simply labelling their opponents “homophobic” or “bigoted” or the like, they have won the argument.

Well, no, they have not won the argument, they have simply indicated that they are not able or willing to discuss the issues, and debate the evidence. Thus it is often a lost cause for me to try to convince them. But when a fellow homosexual makes such claims, then perhaps they will have to come up with another response, rather than rely on charges of homophobia.

And such claims were made by a homosexual just recently. Writing in the December 1, 2006 Australian, John Heard argued that homosexuals are too proud to confront AIDS, which is still the real killer down under. This is how he puts it:

“Forget gay marriage: the real story about homosexual Australians on this World AIDS Day is, once again and shamefully, an HIV/AIDS tragedy. This is because new figures from the University of NSW’s National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research confirm a worrying trend. They indicate that 10 per cent to 18 per cent of the inner-city gay population of Sydney is HIV-infected. That means HIV infection rates are still rising.”

To put things in perspective, he cites one African nation’s figures: “By comparison, UN figures cited in The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday claimed that Lesotho, a poor African nation, had infection rates of 20 per cent. That makes Sydney’s inner city comparable to an AIDS-ravaged African nation. But you will not hear homoactivists, medical associations, legal institutes or others, some of whom have been very vocal in their support of gay unions, campaigning for a change in the way the gay community approaches the facts of infection, or arguing for a re-evaluation of the tenets of gay liberation.”

Indeed, homosexual activists seem often to be silent on this, while harping on about same-sex marriage, something which the majority of homosexuals do not even want. “They are too busy talking about relationship equality and gay marriage, even though the only reliable study of the intentions of gay men and lesbians, the Private Lives survey conducted by La Trobe University in 2006, found the overwhelming majority of gay men did not intend to formalise their relationships at all and that most weren’t even in a relationship of any kind, let alone in a union that would approach the mainstream definition of a marriage.”

Continues Heard, “It is time, then, that ordinary Australians – whether same-sex attracted like me, or otherwise – stood up and demanded more from leaders and activists. It is time to clear away the politically correct nonsense, to stop focusing on fripperies such as gay marriage and other diversions and start focusing on something that will really assist gay men and the wider community: an intense campaign aimed at HIV/AIDS prevention.”

And Heard does not mince his words when it comes to the reckless behaviour of many homosexuals: “Twenty five years after Gay Men’s Health Crisis, ACT-UP and Australian-based anti-HIV activism first kicked off, someone has to take the blame for this outrageously long-lived, unbelievably reviving, preventable epidemic. It is time to state that a reasonably well-educated, Western gay man who contracts HIV in 2006 because of sex is at least a reckless fool, and if he deliberately brings it upon himself, at best a suicidal sociopath.”

“Yes, believe it or not, there is a whole gay subculture that rests upon ‘bug-chasing’, or the despicable sport of actively seeking out or passing on HIV infection for the satisfaction of sexual or other perverse fantasies. A great effort from within and without the gay community is needed to counter these rising infection rates and the lifestyles and political ideas that support them, not least because of the strain they put on the health system. It is time the love got tough.”

Indeed, tough love is needed to turn things around. For too long AIDS has been a politically protected disease. Says Heard, “What a miserable situation. It must, at the very least, force a rethink of the way governments and citizens, inside and outside the gay community, approach the rising HIV infection rates. We could start by throwing off the notion of gay pride, for there is nothing to be proud about given Sydney’s HIV infection rates.”

Taking responsibility for one’s actions and behaviour is a good place to begin: “This would involve a more sober evaluation of the plight of infected gay men. AIDS victims should, rightly, be spared the stigma that too often attaches to their disease. However, unlike the early days of the epidemic, individual responsibility is, often, the key now to whether or not a man becomes infected. Some AIDS patients are no longer, and have not been for some time, purely blameless victims of this terrible affliction. It may sound harsh to say so but it is the truth. Recognising as much could save lives.”

Concludes Heard, “Perhaps it is time, in 2006, to encourage the return of a proper sense of personal and collective shame, for the sake of all of us, or at least to insist upon a more public accountability for the private decisions that are too often the cause of such increases in HIV infections. Because, no matter how one looks at these miserable figures and their depressingly familiar reflections in the infection rates of New York City, San Francisco and other Western cities, pride may literally be killing us.”

Quite so. It is time more responsible and honest homosexuals like Heard raise their voices. For too long Political Correctness has silenced those who would speak sanity into this situation. The Australian is to be applauded for printing this piece. It is hoped that it will be the beginning of a much needed turnaround. Lives are at risk, and it is time that truth spoken in love be heard.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20849414-7583,00.html

[1041 words]

2 Replies to “Getting Serious About AIDS”

  1. You may want to research this aspect more also. I am forbidden to say who told me but you can rest assured it was a reliable source. Perhaps you could do some research that would then back this up. I was told that there was nothing glamorous about the homosexual lifestyle from a nurse who had to nurse gay men following bowel removal due to perforation of the bowel and other injuries, from having sex in a way that is not natural. These men now wear external bowel bags (that sometimes rupture). In addition after years of unnatural sex the muscle that opens and closes the rectum, the sphincter, no longer works properly and the result is that faeces leak out requiring men to purchase ‘plugs’ from the chemist to prevent the leaking. I am told that this item is the leading seller at chemists at present. I was told this information by a regulator in the pharmacutical industry.

    You are a brave warrior, don’t give up.
    Here is a poem.
    From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth
    From the laziness that is content with half-truth,
    From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
    O god of all truth, deliver us.

    Lorraine Harvey

  2. Thanks Lorraine
    Yes you are right. Colostomies and men wearing diapers are not uncommon in the homosexual scene, because of their high risk lifestyle. Such news will not make it on to episodes of “Will and Grace,” but the truth needs to be told nonetheless.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: