Not All Gays Are Homosexual Activists

No matter how the liberal media tries to define the Far Right as homophobic, there are times I do believe that gay activists are their own worst enemies and do the most harm to nonactivists. In fact, there would be far fewer AIDS victims today were it not for the militant activism by the National Gay Task Force and other gay civil-rights group in the 1980s.

In May, Newsweek magazine heralded President Obama on its cover as our first Gay President after he revealed that he supports same sex marriage.

One would think that this would be a giant public relations coup for their cause yet what did the activists do on a recent trip to the White House? Some took turns making an obscene gesture in front of conservative icon Ronald Reagan's official portrait.

Naturally the Drudge Report headlined the infantile gestures and whatever gains have been made for gay rights since Obama's announcement promptly evaporated.

One visitor to the White House, Matthew Hart, made this astonishing statement to explain the venom towards Reagan: "Ronald Reagan has blood on his hands. The man was in the White House as AIDS exploded, and he was happy to see plenty of gay men and queer people die. He was a murderous fool, and I have no problem saying so. Don't invite me back. I don't care."

Mr. Hart no doubt sincerely believes this statement but it is just one more distortion about the killer disease by the gay rights civil rights crusade.

Although many homosexuals refuse to acknowledge the truth about the AIDS epidemic, the clear fact is that it never would have become an epidemic if it had been treated like other sexually transmitted diseases.

It was also largely preventable at this time with changes in behavior and taking simple precautions.

If Reagan is guilty of anything it is that he did not insist that the AIDS virus be treated with the standard criteria of battling dangerous contagious diseases.

Chandler Burr in The Atlantic wrote about the exception that the AIDS virus received that might very well have led to its epidemic numbers:

"In 1985, shortly before the federal government was to announce the licensing of the first test for detecting HIV, the National Gay Task Force and the gay civil-rights group Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a petition in federal court to delay this action, pending a legal guarantee that the test would not lead to widespread screening aimed at gay men. They then put pressure on the Food and Drug Administration, which along with the federal Centers for Disease Control (now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and henceforward referred to as the CDC) had been made aware of eager queries from school districts hoping to use the HIV test to identify and fire gay teachers. The FDA quickly acceded to the demand that the HIV test be used not to screen and identify people for HIV infection in systematic campaigns but only to screen the blood in blood banks."

This very insistence on anonymity made it possible for the AIDS virus, which was originally limited to the male gay community, to seep into the general population.

The wives and partners of those infected had no idea how vulnerable they were to this incurable disease.

Blaming Ronald Reagan for this is an exercise in disinformation but it is also an indication of how influential gay activism is in our culture.

Recent studies dispel the myth of the actual percentage of homosexuals in America which had previously been determined to be around 10% because of a skewered Kinsey report. These studies show that the percentage is actually 1-3%.

How can such a minority community influence so much of our society? Aha! Therein lies an answer that no one wants to address.

Demographically the homosexual community is far wealthier than the average American.

When I worked for a British airline, we had a sales meeting where we were told to establish programs targeted towards the gay community because it could afford the high end travel tours. But by cloaking their societal demands as a civil rights issue akin to the black civil rights community this fact is generally dismissed as unimportant.

I fully expect that there will be a backlash against this column as there was when I wrote one defending the Boys Scouts.

Not only did I receive obscene hate mail, subscriptions to gay and porn magazines were ordered in my name.

The same thing happened to a priest and others who dared to defend me in a letter to the newspaper editors.

While these may have been unfortunate I also received much supportive correspondence from gays who were appalled at this treatment.

My nephew and his partner were disgusted by the comments made online vilifying me.

Others explained that these activists did not represent most gays who simply wanted to live their lives in private.

Many Catholic homosexuals also live chaste lives as members of Courage, the only church sanctioned homosexual organization.

Unfortunately the general public only hears from those with media and celebrity mouthpieces with their own personal liberal agenda.

I can't help but think back to the days before gay liberation unleashed risky behavior.

I had many friends at work and in our West Side apartment building. The fact that they happened to be homosexual was as incidental as my being Hispanic.

I traveled often with these friends in my airline job until I left to raise a family. None of these friends had any desire to be married. Neither have my nephew nor his long term partner tied the knot even though New York now allows same sex marriage.

The motive behind same sex marriage activism seems to have more to do with forcing society and the church to accept alternate lifestyles rather than any lifelong commitment to a loved one.

At a job reunion years later, I was shocked to learn how many close friends had since died from AIDS. I miss them all terribly especially Hugh, Gary, Al, George, Roy, Warren, Frank, Steve, and Billy.

After the White House demonstration by some activist guests of infantile and ignorant behavior, there was an influx of caustic tweets and angry comments by left and right bloggers who have become less tolerant of the gay rights agenda.

If the remaining states that have not sanctioned same sex marriage puts the proposition to a public vote it is highly likely it would be defeated.

One has to wonder if the attention won by such in-your-face tactics will undo the strides made in tolerance and acceptance by the nonactivist homosexuals among our families and friends.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com