Invulnerable
On the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Frank Rich surveys the state of gay rights. Rich is disappointed that President Obama has not been a strong enough advocate. But while there are problems--it's hard to believe gays they're still barred from military service--it's easy to forget the huge advances made since 1969, when homosexuality was still considered a disease and a criminal offense.
But it was this bit that caught my eye:
It took AIDS and the new wave of gay activism it engendered to fully awaken many, including me, to the gay people all around them. But that tardy and still embryonic national awareness did not save the lives of those whose abridged rights made them even more vulnerable during a rampaging plague.
I'm not sure if I get his point. Is he saying if gays had more civil rights at the time, they would have been less vulnerable to AIDS?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
5 Comments:
Yes, that's precisely what he is saying. Telling teenagers that their natural desires make them diseased, mentally ill and evil leads them -- in many cases -- to lower self-esteem and more self-destructive behavior.
So he's saying that. Please close the loop for me and explain, even if this is true, how this led to activities that made AIDS spread faster.
Resulting self-destructive behaviors can include intentionally self-destructive ones or, more commonly, increased risk-taking.
So let me get this straight. Your blaming the gay lifestyle on repression, and if only they'd been treated better, they would all agree now that how they used to act was wrong and not being true to themselves? Let me ask you, after Stonewall, and after homosexuality was no longer declared an illness, did that lead to less sex?
There were people back then at the beginning of the epidemic who warned against the sexual lifestyle of gays. (There's a documentary out about it now.) They were treated by the gay community as repressive types who were trying to take away their rights.
I am making no broad claims as to promiscuity or whatever else you may mean by the phrase "gay lifestyle." I'm saying doing stupid stuff while having sex like bugchasing and barebacking with strangers is in part attributable to lowered self-worth. On rereading Rich's piece, I'm not sure that's what he meant. He may have meant something as simple as inability to get on their partner's health insurance. But it's what I believe I've seen among my gay friends.
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