AIDS and right-wing hysteria.

AIDS AND RIGHT-WING HYSTERIA

DEAR BILL,

It has been over a year since NR carried my first letter on right-wing homophobia and AIDS hysteria. That letter was generally distorted by those conservatives who did not just ignore it; but, as homosexuality and AIDS are both very emotional subjects, I expected no less. Therefore I was both heartened and disheartened by an article in the November Commentary, "AIDS: Are Heterosexuals at Risk?" by an occasional NR contributor, Michael Fumento. Heartened, because Mr. Fumento's well-researched, rational investigation into the AIDS crisis is not what I've come to expect from conservative journals; disheartened, because of the way conservative commentators (including NR in the November 20 editorial section) have distorted Fumento's article to find support for their own political agenda.

Naturally, conservatives really liked his principal medical point, that anal intercourse is by far the highest-risk activity for the transmission of AIDS in the United States; AIDS education that does not emphasize this fact is a waste of time. His principal political point is that it is wrong for gay ideologues to argue that heterosexuals are equally at risk for AIDS. To both points I say, Nihil obstat.

But if one argues that massive AIDS education for heterosexuals would be a misdirection of efforts, then it inescapably follows that there is no justification for more drastic measures, such as quarantines, mass blood testing, etc. This is indeed bad news for the LaRouchites and their fellow-travelers among homophobic conservative ideologues. They cannot have it both ways.

Perhaps for this reason NR has chosen to ignore other, less ideologically convenient parts of Fumento's article. First, AIDS, like most other sexually transmitted diseases, is more readily passed by males than by females. So, heterosexual women have more to fear from it than heterosexual males do.

Second, the high rate of AIDS infection in African heterosexuals is attributable in part to high rates of incidence of other sexually transmissible diseases, diseases that are also on the increase among heterosexuals in the United States. AIDS is not the only sexual disease that threatens Americans. It just happens to be the only one that promiscuous heterosexuals have generally escaped.

A third point, which Fumento made and which has been totally ignored for obvious reasons, is that oral sex is almost certainly the safest sex of all, less risky than vaginal intercourse. And even Fumento did not report that there have been no cases of AIDS among lesbians in the U.S. who were not also intravenous-drug abusers.

Fumento, to his great credit, refutes what seems to be the emerging conservative "party line": that AIDS is a peculiarly homosexual disease, but still somehow a threat to the general population. If it can only be spread by anal intercourse, how do heterosexual males catch it? Even if AIDS could only be spread by anal intercourse (which, contrary to the assertions of some homophobes, is far from universal among gays and far from unknown among straights), that would not prove that homosexuality per se is morally inferior to heterosexuality--without regard to how either is practiced.

When a cure is found for AIDS, will this make homosexuality morally acceptable to traditionalists? No, of course not. Does the fact that lesbians have the lowest rate of sexually transmitted diseases prove that lesbianism is morally superior to heterosexuality? No. If oral sex is in fact less risky than vaginal sex, what moral point does that prove? None.

No activity can cause AIDS, if the pathogen is not present. And just because a disease can be contracted through a particular activity, that doesn't make that activity immoral. Is breathing immoral? Shaking hands?

Fumento rightly decried media sensationalism on the risk of AIDS to heterosexuals. You should thank him, Bill, for not including NR in the list of examples that he gave. Forgive me if I am not so restrained.

Wayne Lutton, in a scurrilous attack on the Surgeon General's Report on AIDS (NR, Jan. 30, 1987), claimed that AIDS was a great threat not only to promiscuous heterosexuals, but also to the general population through casual contact. Now we are told not to worry. Real men don't get AIDS. (Except through casual contact?)

In its editorials, NR has objected to condom advertising (even though the magazine itself carries ads for alcohol and tobacco, the abuse of which kills more Americans every few weeks than AIDS has killed since its onset). To argue, as NR has, that ads and education urging the use of condoms are pointless because gays in San Francisco and New York have known about them all along is truly absurd. What they did not know about was the risk of AIDS or the fact that the risk of catching it could be reduced by the use of condoms. "Everyone knows" about seatbelts, speed limits, and many other things about which repetitive propaganda is recognized as a public good. In fact, sex education works. The AIDS infection rate has fallen very sharply among gays.

Even though, as Fumento suggests, American heterosexuals may have little to fear from AIDS at present, there will still be other benefits to society and to individuals from AIDS education for society in general. There will be fewer cases of other sexually transmitted diseases, fewer unwanted pregnancies, and hence fewer abortions. There has already been a decrease in heterosexual (and homosexual) promiscuity and prostitution. Am I missing something, or aren't these things that conservatives should welcome?

Last spring NR carried an editorial entitled "Tragic Confusion," which seems to describe all too well the state of conservative thought on these subjects. This editorial said, "No one wants to persecute or cause pain to homosexuals." This is sadly and obviously untrue. As I said in my first letter, the overwhelming majority of the sex problems in our society are heterosexual in nature: rape, child abuse, abortion, etc. What we need is not more heterosexuality (or homosexuality), but better, more responsible sexuality. We cannot achieve this through heterosexual hypocrisy that ignores the real problems of our society in favor of macho moralizing.

What this controversy really demonstrates is how difficult it is for public-health officials to carry out their duties in a pluralistic society. Reducing the health risk of certain behavior may in some sense encourage that behavior. "Moralists" may value continence above the public health, but is that a viable position for a public-health officer?

Conservatives have done the Republic a grave disservice by heaping abuse on those, like Surgeon General Koop, who have refused to join in the general AIDS hysteria, and instead are working to contain the spread of the disease. I am reminded of the story of St. Theresa being stuck in the mud in a rainstorm. She looked to the heavens and told God, "If this is the way you treat your friends, it is no wonder that you have so few of them."