Petrelis Files

WPost More Pro-Gay Than HRC
Over Huckabee AIDS Quarantine View

An editorial in today's Washington Post castigating GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee for his outrageous endorsement of quarantining people with AIDS and lack of tolerance for gays is miles ahead of what the Human Rights Campaign said today in a letter to Huckabee.

The "HIV Clueless" editorial is notable not just because it takes Huckabee to task for his dangerous views, but also for using the words homosexual, gay, and even lesbian, and not in a direct quote from the candidate:

"Actually, in 1992, the year after basketball star Magic Johnson made the dramatic announcement that he was HIV-positive, it was already widely understood -- and widely publicized -- that HIV could not be spread by casual contact or even through close physical contact short of unprotected homosexual or heterosexual sex. [...]

"Nor can his view on AIDS be separated from Mr. Huckabee's animus toward homosexuality, which at the time he called "an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle." [...]

"But in refusing to "recant," as he put it to Fox News, his 1992 views on AIDS and on homosexuality as a "lifestyle," he fails to lay to rest legitimate doubts about his objectivity and fairmindedness when it comes to the rights and interests of gays and lesbians, and the public health concerns of everyone."

On the HRC front, the nation's largest gay advocacy organization also expresses criticism and strong concern over Huckabee's views, but the group is more upset over his AIDS quarantine remarks and doesn't hold him accountable in anyway for his anti-gay thinking.

HRC's release, asking the former GOP Arkansas governor to meet with them, the AIDS Institute and Ryan White's mom Jeanne, only uses the word homosexuality in a quote from him:

As reported by the Associated Press, "Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could ‘pose a dangerous public health risk.’"

Hmmm, the Washington Post is practically falling over itself to use the "h" and "g" words and hold Huckabee to account for his AIDS _and_ gay views, while the leaders at HRC are much more interested in invoking a brave heterosexual kid with AIDS, an "innocent victim" who doesn't raise any troubling icky issues like male-on-male anal transmission of HIV. HRC never says the word gay in their statement!

As if to further show how far it will go to avoid including gay males with AIDS, the HRC letter to Huckabee says this:

Governor Huckabee, if you need a reminder of how calls for "isolation" can shatter a Mother’s heart, you only need to turn to Jeanne White-Ginder.

I have tons of respect for Mrs. White-Ginder and see her as a true heroine in the AIDS battle, but her shattered heart in reaction to the call for isolating AIDS patients should not force HRC to ignore the broken hearts of all people with AIDS, including gays with the disease.

How can HRC go out of its way to omit the concerns and voices of gays with AIDS in this debate? Maybe the HRC leaders have forgotten that gay men are the largest category of people living with HIV/AIDS in America. Whatever the reason for the omissions, HRC continues on its well-worn path of spinelessness.

The Washington Post editorial today, coupled with the New York Times editorial on Monday about the defeat of the hate crimes attachment, are prime evidence of how the mainstream media is better right now at standing up for gays, and in the case of the Post, being more inclusive of gays than the Democratic Party hacks at HRC.