World AIDS Day

Today is “World AIDS Day”.

Bill’s personal AIDS time line...

Early 1980’s...
We are in San Francisco. I know many people with HIV. There is no help available except for a couple of hospitals with AIDS wards. Mainly, we take care of ourselves. Many of us die at home surrounded by friends. This was the case with most of my friends.

We heard nothing from the Federal Government. No help was available. A handful of drug companies were coming up with new drugs. The life expectancy was 6 months to 2 years. The mortality rate was 100%.

I was in a choir with 42 other gay men. Today, they are all dead except for the remaining 2 of us.

Mid 1980’s...
Death is all around me. I walk through The Castro, our current neighborhood, and I’m told that yet another friend passed away. Hope is gone. Why doesn’t our government help? Why does our President say nothing about AIDS?

1986...
My closest friend Stanley, told me one morning after we saw each other at a Sunday brunch that he had “it”. He came over to our table, gave me a hug, and whispered into my ear, “I have it.” My heart sank. He said nothing more.

1987...
I saw Stan a couple of days before we left San Francisco. I knew it was the last time I would see him. I made sure that I said the words, “I love you.” He started crying and said, “I love you too.” Then, we cried together. I left two days later for Connecticut, for Kent’s new job. Two months after living here, a friend calls me to let me know of Stan’s passing. He fought so hard. He was very brave.

1988...
I still care. I sign up to work as a “buddy” with the AIDS Project Hartford. We did a lot of good work. The clientele were mostly gay men. Later, we started seeing other minorities and IV drug users coming to us for help.

Today...
World AIDS Day is like Christmas. It comes around once a year and preaches caring, love, forgiveness, kindness..... but nothing ever changes. It exists so that we can go away feeling good that at least once a year we thought about AIDS, just like once a year we buy a Christmas tree, dress it up with gaudy ornaments, and somehow convince ourselves that we have found love, compassion, and understanding.

I don’t think of AIDS anymore. My friends are dead. I’m alive. My life goes on without them. People didn’t care then that we were dying, and they don’t care now. They claim to care about the orphaned children that are parent-less because of AIDS. They claim to care about the fact that half of all new AIDS infections are coming from the black community. They still care little that gay people are getting this disease, and many, despite all the evidence, are still calling AIDS “largely a gay disease”.

On my way to work this morning, I heard an evangelical preacher talk about how the evangelical community has been late in coming to the table to help those with AIDS (you think?). He said that they thought it was a “gay disease”, and now that they see that it’s killing heterosexuals in Africa and America, they’ve suddenly decided that they should have helped more (not saying much), kind of like how President Reagan should have helped more when people in my community were pleading with the Federal Government to help us with funding in the 1980’s as people in my community were dropping like flies, and while comedians such as Bob Hope were popping AIDS jokes just for laughs.

But now that others are catching AIDS outside the gay community, this evangelical preacher is now saying that he is “sorry” for not bringing the “love of Christ” to us (gays) sooner. Preacher, you are 20 fucking years too late! GO AWAY! Preach your road-side crap to someone who gives a shit about what you have to say -- someone who hasn’t had to hold friends as they took their last breath as you were preaching that AIDS was punishment from your loving, caring, God.

AIDS burnout. Now, I’m supposed to stop everything and care again, because the world has finally caught up to what AIDS is.

In 25 years, nothing has changed. Except now, their children are getting AIDS.

Can someone explain to me again why now, at this stage in the game, that I’m supposed to care? When my friends were dying, no one cared. I’m simply following the example.

Post-publishing note - 12:20p.m.
This entry makes it sound like I’m a very hardened person inside. I’m actually not. I’m actually a very compassionate person. But, I hate fake people and I hate fake promises. And, I really hate fake people who hide behind fake promises condemning people they don’t even know based on what they perceive to be the “Love of Jesus Christ”.

I suppose my experience could be compared to Vietnam era troops. They went to fight for their country against an enemy that we could not defeat. When they came home, they were spit upon and called “baby killers”. And we wonder why so many of them are bitter and disillusioned.

I’ve been through a battle. The casualty rate was high. We are losing the war on AIDS and people are still calling it a “gay disease”. It’s sad and pathetic. Many of us had no home to come home to because many of us were disowned by our families by the same mentality that damns us to Hell by the same evangelicals, and Christian community at large. Many people stated at the time that they “didn’t want their tax dollars to fight a disease that was ridding society of queers”. Indeed, I remember one “Christian” stating that Christians should “kill a queer for Christ.”

This is what it was like for me and so many others like me. I don’t claim to carry the cross on this issue. So many people in the gay community went through this. I honestly can’t tell you which was worse: having my friends die of AIDS, or having people not care that we were dying of AIDS.

People in the Christian community love to state that gay people get AIDS because they are so promiscuous. I will undoubtedly be accused of stereotyping and lumping all Christians together, just as they have lumped all gay people together.

My friend Stan used to lament that he and his partner had no civil recognition of their partnership. In Tuscon, they had a “civil union.” It was basically a few friends who gathered one afternoon, and listened to the two of them publicly stating their relationship to each other. But, it was given no consideration. It had no legal weight and was not recognized. In one conversation with him, we talked of marriage. This was long before anyone was talking about marriage for gay couples. He told me, “Marriage is something that people like us will never have.” It was the tone in his voice and the way he said it that I remember. He said it in such a way that I could tell he had little motivation to put value in a relationship that no one else put value in. There was no support.

This issue has come full circle in the Christian community. They used to say that if we could just be in relationships and be monogamous, we wouldn’t get AIDS. Today, when so many in the gay community are trying to achieve marriage - something that could cut down on AIDS transmission if people give it a chance - the Christian community is doing everything in it’s power to keep us down - to keep us in a place where we put no value on ourselves, or our relationships.

We must not let that happen.