12th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's death

Former President Ronald Reagan died 12 years ago today. Following is the text of every speech and public comment he made as president on the subject of HIV/AIDS during the first four years that the epidemic raged:

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35th anniversary of the first mention of AIDS

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the first mass media mention of the disease that would come to be known as AIDS. The June 5, 1981, edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), published by the Centers for Disease Control, included an article entitled, "Pneumocystis Pneumonia --- Los Angeles".

The article described the onset of Pneumocystis pneumonia among five gay men over an eight-month period at three different hospitals in Los Angeles.

The enormity of the tragedy that would become the global HIV/AIDS epidemic was not understood at the time and consequently was not even hinted at in the article. It would be only a matter of time, however, before it became clear that over one million people in the United States as well as millions more across the planet were infected. The mortality rate approached 100%, with no effective therapies available for years.

• Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, June 5, 1981

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Larry Kert, Broadway's original "West Side Story" Tony, passed away 25 years ago today

Larry Kert, the original Tony in Broadway's West Side Story, passed away 25 years ago today of complications from HIV/AIDS.

Kert starred in a number of original Broadway productions, including Cabaret and Company, as well as in the touring companies of several Broadway productions.

The openly gay Kert is best known for having originated the role of romantic lead Tony in the 1957 Broadway production of West Side Story.

The musical, based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, was the brainchild of creative team Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, and Arthur Laurents. Kert became famous for his passionate delivery of songs "Something's Coming", "Maria", and "Tonight". Carol Lawrence starred opposite Kert as Maria.

Kert was survived by his partner Ron Pullen. Both had tested HIV+ in 1985.

• Larry Kert's New York Times obituary

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Thirty years ago: John Roberts authored memo advising Reagan not to say AIDS couldn't be transmitted through casual contact

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of a memorandum by White House attorney John Roberts advising that President Ronald Reagan not publicly state that HIV could not be transmitted through casual contact.  Roberts would eventually become Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.


In the memo addressed to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Roberts stated that the matter was a "disputed scientific issue", and he advised that Reagan avoid repeating an earlier briefing memo's talking point that "as far as our best scientists have been able to determine, AIDS virus is not transmitted through casual or routine contact."


On the contrary, Roberts advised that "There is much to commend the view that we should assume AIDS can be transmitted through casual or routine contact, as is true with many viruses, until it is demonstrated that it cannot be, and no scientist has said AIDS definitely cannot be so transmitted."


See here and here.

Senate passes HIV/AIDS bill

Details at Reuters. Every one of the "no" votes was a Republican. See the roll call.

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More Helms-isms

More statements by Jesse Helms from the floor of the U.S. Senate:

♦ "We spend a great deal of time focusing on the needs of drug addicts and homosexual men. The AZT Program has money which could be better spent on others. Even the most innocent of AIDS patients, children infected by their parents, reap no benefit from this program. If the American people have to fund an AIDS treatment program, at least let the money go to those who have contracted this disease through no fault of their own." (04 Apr 1989)

♦ The gay rights movement is "a radical and repugnant political movement". (07 May 1990)

♦ "I despise the abuse of the once beautiful word 'gay.' They are not gay; they are repulsive." (20 Feb 1992)

♦ "...I should point out that the homosexual groups are going beyond the public schools in their efforts to get at the Nation's school children. In San Francisco, again, they are trying to force the United Way — which is a private agency — to stop funding the local Boy Scout Council — another private organization — because the Scouts refuse to allow homosexuals to become Scoutmasters. And hooray for the Boy Scouts. I am even prouder of them than I have ever been before." (20 Feb 1992)

♦ "...it should be clear by now that the homosexual lobby in this country is no longer content with forcing the schools and other institutions to teach children that homosexuality is a normal and an acceptable lifestyle. They are now demanding the right to go into schools and private institutions — preferrably at Federal expense — to proselytize for homosexuality and to recruit sexual partners." (20 Feb 1992)

♦ "Mr. President, New York City alone has diverted almost a half million dollars in Federal money intended for drug-abuse prevention to a homosexual group which, among its many disgusting activities, sponsors after-school parties for high school students at the local homosexual community center. A staff member of the group says the parties are meant to — I quote — 'enable older gay activists [to meet] teenagers recruited from the New York City public schools.'" (17 Sep 1992)

♦ "The leadership of the Boy Scouts of America have taken the legitimate and understandable position that the homosexual lifestyle is inconsistent with the standards of the Boy Scouts of America and with the purposes of the Boy Scouts of America. And good for them because they are absolutely correct." (22 Sep 1992)

♦ "Mr. President, the so-called homosexual lifestyle is so focused on instant sexual gratification that the average homosexual male has between 20 and 106 different sex partners in a given year." (22 Sep 1992)

♦ "A study by two homosexuals titled 'The Gay Report,' found that 73 percent of homosexuals had at some time in their lives had sex with boys 16 to 19 years old or younger." (22 Sep 1992)

♦ "Mr. President, our efforts to treat AIDS as a public health concern have been thwarted by a vocal, militant minority which has used the AIDS issue to promote a political agenda it has failed to achieve in its own right. Of course, I am referring to the homosexual lobby. Members of this militant movement have masterfully manipulated the American public. By feeding on America's compassion, they have turned the AIDS epidemic to their political advantage by using it to promote something they have never achieved before — homosexual rights." (21 Jan 1993)

♦ "Who would have thought, even 5 years ago, that the President of the United States would nominate a homosexual person for a high-ranking Federal job, a person who helped orchestrate an action against the Boy Scouts because the Scouts refused to lower their moral and spiritual standards." (20 May 1993)

♦ "Mr. President, two articles about the Achtenberg nomination in the Washington Times this morning discuss the pornographic and blasphemous activities during last year's San Francisco Gay Pride parade led by Roberta Achtenberg and her partner — and their son." (24 May 1993)

Jesse Helms speech: The AIDS Coverup

From the Congressional Record:

THE AIDS COVERUP (Senate - January 24, 1990)

Mr. HELMS . Mr. President, the January 22 edition of Time magazine included a most enlightening report, 'The AIDS Political Machine,' in which Time describes the activities of a well-oiled special interest lobby which has distorted the statistics of the public health apparatus of the U.S. Government.

It is important that an objective assessment be made of the question raised by the magazine: Have AIDS activists distorted the national medical response to the disease? It is essential that all of us review the following facts and decide for ourselves whether the militant AIDS lobby has not in fact skewed the national health care agenda to the detriment of millions of other critically ill Americans who do not have, nor will ever, have AIDS.

Mr. President, the Centers for Disease Control will shortly announce that the number of Americans infected with the AIDS virus is far below the alarming numbers projected in the middle 1980's. In fact the predicted--circa 1986--1.5 million infections may turn out to as low as 650,000. Despite the dire warnings, there has been no AIDS outbreak in the heterosexual community.

Federal AIDS funding is now at $1.6 billion per year. Compare that with the $600 million allocated for heart disease--which kills millions. There are 4 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease. Each one will die a distressing death, yet Alzheimers funding is a mere drop in the bucket compared to AIDS. Cancer kills half a million people each year, but cancer research is shortchanged in the headlong flight to appease the AIDS lobby.

The dollar figures used for AIDS research represent more than excessive Federal attention to the disease. Slowly but surely money and talent are being diverted from other projects to AIDS research. Because AIDS research is so singularly focused, chances for spinoff medical discoveries are remote. As Doctor David Korn, dean of the Stanford Medical School, told Time, '...target money too narrowly, you exclude other areas that may prove very fruitful.'

Mr. President, the AIDS lobby has forced Government to do away with proven public health measures which have successfully controlled deadly diseases in the past. Activists demand quick Federal funding, and approval of untried miracle cures, thereby leaving the door open for quacks and snake oil salesmen. Approval of AZT was rammed through the FDA system in less than 4 months. James Todd of the American Medical Association noted that 'penicillin couldn't get through that fast.' (The average drug approval time is more than 2 years.)

Mr. President, I have yet to mention the political agenda which keeps the AIDS machine rolling along consuming dollars and traditional values as it goes.

AIDS is on the way to becoming a legal handicap for discrimination purposes. The Americans With Disabilities Act, which passed the Senate in September, extends civil rights protections to HIV carriers even though upwards of 90 percent of them caught the disease through unlawful conduct and warped 'life styles.'

Homosexual activists hailed the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. We may shortly see the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which leaders of the radical homosexual left proclaim as the most important step toward including 'sexual orientation' in the Civil Rights Act.

Mr. President, compassionate Americans have seen their Government make concession after concession to the AIDS lobby, and to the homosexual movement which supports it. What originally began as a response to a public health emergency has become a battle for the transformation of the American value system. I doubt that many look with favor upon that.

Jesse Helms said gays "caused" AIDS epidemic, victimized Ryan White

From the Congressional Record during debate of the Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990 (Senate - May 14, 1990):

Mr. HELMS . ...Let me say that I do agree with the Senator about the horror of this disease. But there is one thing about it. I have never heard once in this Chamber anybody say to the homosexuals and IV drug users, who make up over 90 percent of the AIDS population, 'Stop what you are doing.' Does the Senator realize that if they would stop what they are doing, there would not be one additional new case of AIDS in the United States of America other than those already in progress....

Ryan White was an innocent victim of these people. And I think it is about time that this Senate addressed the moral issue. I have not heard one Senator, except listening to myself, who has said, look, this talk about who is causing this, who caused it from the very beginning?...

More on Helms

It was just announced that Jesse Helms is going to be buried in a right-wing plot.

Jesse Helms is dead

Former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) was a vicious race baiter, a crypto-Klansman, and a hater of gay people who used his Senate position to stifle HIV prevention funding so that the killer plague could rampage through the gay male community. Hell just got fuller.

Detroit bans transgender discrimination

The Detroit City Council voted 8-1 to add gender identity to the city's nondiscrimination ordinance.

One of the votes in favor of protecting transgender people was from Councilmember Barbara-Rose Collins. Collins lost her seat in Congress in the 1996 Democratic primary amid controversy over her firing of a gay aide who was terminated two days after his partner died of AIDS complications. The Office of Fair Employment Practices later ruled that he was fired because Collins and her chief of staff thought he was HIV+, marking the first time that a member of Congress was found liable for employment discrimination under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. It seems that Collins has come a long way since.

See 365Gay.com.