The most effective public relations campaign in history has surely been that waged on behalf of North Americans male homosexuals in the past 25 years. To move from a despised minority associated in the public mind with inconceivable perversions performed in sordid settings to a flourishing community celebrated in the media and protected by law from public criticism in less than a generation is a remarkable feat. This triumph is all the more noteworthy because it was achieved in the midst of a deadly epidemic they were, in large measure, responsible for spreading. A tragic irony is that AIDS may have been the best thing to happen to gays since Plato's "Symposium".
Televised images of bodies emaciated and pitted by the disease, a relentless and shrewd portrayal of the homosexual as victim and an unscrupulous activist fringe combined to persuade officials to ignore public health measures that would have been normal in similar outbreaks of incurable disease and to convince heterosexual North Americans that old stereotypes had to go. After centuries of prejudice, the image of the gay man as helpless sufferer emerged and led to a new era of openness and popularity.
Little wonder then that homosexuals are reacting with horror and outrage to recent stories that indicate that a significant proportion of new case of AIDS are a result of deliberate choice. "Rolling Stone" magazine asserts that there are gay men ("bug chasers") who seek sexual thrills by attempting to become infected and others ("gift givers") who delight to spread it. This subculture which eroticizes the disease and dismisses the seriousness of their conduct may be responsible for 25% of new AIDS cases. Web sites claiming tens of thousands of registered members facilitate the union of those willing to give and those craving to receive. "Fill me with the poison seed" begs one member while others celebrate the freedom that being HIV+ can bring -- after all what more can happen to you after you have been infected? Though homosexual spokesmen have denounced the article and the statistics it quotes no one denies the existence of this particular manifestation of the gay community.
Anyone who cares to read gay and lesbian publications or has homosexual friends knows that there are some very dark corners in that lifestyle that, if widely known, might do much to dispel the positive image that is the current media and legal orthodoxy. The pressure group GLAAD has already begun a campaign to discredit the article.
I don't believe such folks have anything to fear, at least in Canada where an activist judiciary has forced legislators into advancing the gay cause and where "human rights" tribunals are tools to punish those foolhardy enough to dissent from the enforced consensus. Thanks to our splendid Charter of Rights and Freedoms those who obtain their sexual jollies from spreading a mortal disease are as protected a species as spotted owls. Should one be your child's teacher or hockey coach or, indeed, your MP, you are headed for a world of trouble and a reputation as a hate-monger should you voice a protest. As they sing at your city's annual moustache parade: they're here, they're queer, get used to it.
Nor should you look to gay groups to do the sensible thing and denounce this sort of behaviour -- the recent wide-spread denial of bug-chasing and barebacking and a plethora of other unhealthy variations will tell you all you need to know about how bad news is suppressed or even turned to advantage. "Rolling Stone" will be bombarded by protests, the Christian right will be blamed, the Victim Button will be pressed and in a week this will be all over. Next year in a B.C. kindergarten a kindly teacher will be reading to his little students from "Timmy's Daddies are Bug-Chasers".