For decades, the gay community and its allies have been doing incredible work combating HIV/AIDS and providing care for people with the virus, but according to anti-gay activists Janet Mefferd and Peter LaBarbera, gay rights supporters have tried to whitewash the epidemic and show little compassion to HIV-positive people.
While discussing LaBarbera’s “20 Resolutions for Pro-Family Advocates Battling the Homosexual-Transgender Agenda in 2013” on her radio show, Mefferd said that the Religious Right had an opening to exploit the issue of HIV/AIDS “because we’ll say, we care about people who are having terrible diseases because of the behavior and where is the compassion on your side for these people who have these illnesses?”
Of course, Mefferd and LaBarbera have both defended efforts to criminalize LGBT status, which only exacerbates the spread of HIV.
LaBarbera: Boy, about fifty years ago the whole issue of homosexual behavior was taboo. Now, they are basically running society, they are deciding which issues get covered on the news, which people get to speak at inaugurals, I mean wow, this country is really de-Christianizing fast.
Mefferd: That’s right. One of the things you’ve mentioned and this is one of your resolutions as well, but you mention the fact that we don’t talk very much at all anymore about the health consequences of the behavior. It used to be in the ’80s when then AIDS crisis was at its peek peak at the time, when Elizabeth Taylor and everybody came out and they had the red ribbons at every awards show and everything, everybody wanted to raise money and solve the AIDS crisis; people aren’t talking about AIDS anymore and yet it is still an issue, isn’t it? We still have venereal diseases and all kinds of bad health consequences to this, how are they successful and able to get this whole subject to be something we don’t talk about anymore?
LaBarbera: Well, it’s just the media, they have the media in their pocket and so the media is like a massive affirmative action program for the gay agenda, the media does not want to talk about the obvious connection between homosexual behavior and sexual diseases, especially for men. I put in my point four on my list, you know getting back to the behavior, try Googling ‘MSM, ‘CDC’ and ‘HIV,’ and you get this laundry list of articles about the strong, disproportionate connection between men who have sex with men and sexual diseases like HIV.
Mefferd: And on that point we could really make a lot of progress because we’ll say, we care about people who are having terrible diseases because of the behavior and where is the compassion on your side for these people who have these illnesses? This is awful.
LaBarbera: Absolutely.
This post has been updated, 1/16.
