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Another Perspective

Jerry Thacker shouldn't take his sacking from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS panel too badly. St. Paul wouldn't have made the cut either. Or Pope John Paul II. Or anybody with a conscience still functioning in the midst of our MTV culture.

Thacker's exhumed comment about AIDS as a "gay plague" predictably doomed his appointment in a city of skittish pols. Thacker made the mistake of having once told the truth, a practice not tolerated in Washington, D.C. Had Thacker called AIDS a heterosexual plague, on the other hand, D.C. activists might have urged George Bush to name him chairman of the panel.

Thacker also made the mistake of considering homosexual activity sinful. That made him automatically "anti-gay." Hating the sin but loving the sinner isn't an acceptable position. No, to love the sinner you must also love his sin. And if, say, that sin has led to the spread of a deadly disease, you show compassion by encouraging more of that sin. Thacker's belief that "Christ can rescue the homosexual" is of course not compassionate. That's hateful. When someone is hurtling toward hell in this life and the next, don't stop the person. Cheer them on. Call the person's vice virtue and you will win praise for having a big heart.

It is reported that HIV has devastated Thacker and his family. His wife contracted it through a blood transfusion in 1984 while giving birth to her third child. Thacker was then infected by his wife. And their daughter contracted the virus too. But don't expect Thacker and his family to receive much sympathy. They are not the right sort of victims. They didn't contract the disease through drug use or promiscuity, so don't wear a ribbon for them. We reserve ribbons for the truly deserving -- those people who bravely frequented bathhouses and medicated themselves with syringes.

Thacker's appointment "represents the triumph of ideology over objectivity and impartiality," said Lee Klosinski, director of programs for the AIDS Project Los Angeles, before the appointment was withdrawn. And AIDS panels stacked with homosexual activists are monuments to objectivity and impartiality? Heaven forbid that Thacker might have brought a little balance and perspective to a panel saturated with political correctness.

The dumping of Thacker represents the triumph of liberal ideology. No one can state the obvious lest "controversy" ensue. And the spread of AIDS represents the triumph of homosexual ideology over common sense. How many people have died of AIDS because no one had the guts to challenge the homosexual dogmatism which forbid the deployment of medical precautions?

Homosexual activists are so objective and impartial that they tried to suppress Rolling Stone's report "Bug Chasers: The Men Who Secretly Long To Be HIV+." Writer Ed Needham says homosexual groups "aggressively" told him to drop the report. AIDS activists -- some of the very ones who called for Thacker's head -- don't want to admit that some homosexuals are spreading the disease with glee. "They don't want to address that this is really going on," Needham quotes Dr. Bob Cabaj, director of behavioral-health services for San Francisco County.

"The men who want the virus are called 'bug chasers,' and the men who freely give them the virus are called 'gift givers.' While the rest of the world fights the AIDS epidemic and most people fear HIV infection, this subculture celebrates the virus and eroticizes it," writes Freeman.

AIDS activists denounced Thacker for calling the homosexual lifestyle a "deathstyle." Will they also denounce the "bug chasers" who are living it? Freeman quotes a man who says spreading HIV is the "most erotic thing I can imagine. I'm murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that's sort of, as sick as it sounds, exciting to me."

Is this one more alternative lifestyle we have to respect? Thacker said no. Clearly he lacked the sophistication to sit on an AIDS panel.