On July 3, 1981, newspapers reported an aggressive cancer outbreak among a group of men:
Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.
The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment.
From the outset the discovery led everyone to believe it was solely a gay man's illness. Homosexuality was of course already stigmatized in society, but now there was an explicit reason to treat gays differently. Never mind that research was just beginning on this rare form of cancer and its underlying causes, it was seemingly easy to blame gays and their immoral behavior, saying, much like they do today when there's a disaster or tragedy, that gays' moral depravity is responsible.
Researchers soon found out that the cancers were just symptoms of an underlying immune disease that was universally fatal. Initially, this fatal disease was called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency:
NEW HOMOSEXUAL DISORDER WORRIES HEALTH OFFICIALS
A SERIOUS disorder of the immune system that has been known to doctors for less than a year - a disorder that appears to affect primarily male homosexuals - has now afflicted at least 335 people, of whom it has killed 136, officials of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said yesterday. Federal health officials are concerned that tens of thousands more homosexual men may be silently affected and therefore vulnerable to potentially grave ailments.
[...]
The cause of the disorder is unknown. Researchers call it A.I.D., for acquired immunodeficiency disease, or GRID, for gay-related immunodeficiency. It has been reported in 20 states and seven countries. But the overwhelming majority of cases have been in New York City (158), elsewhere in New York State (10), New Jersey (14) and California (71).
This was despite the fact that, as even the New York Times noted at the time, the disease had "developed among some heterosexual women and bisexual and heterosexual men." The NYT quoted a doctor saying:
Dr. Lawrence D. Mass, a New York City physician, said that ''gay people whose life style consists of anonymous sexual encounters are going to have to do some serious rethinking.''
The name of the disease was later changed to AIDS.
Due largely to the fact that gays were forced into a closet and persecuted by society, forced to stay quiet and hidden, it became increasingly difficult to receive help for AIDS research and treatment. Health care professionals begged for help at every turn but forced silence over the debate on homosexuality kept money from being spent to solve the crisis.
The right wing contributed to this atmosphere, repeatedly condemning gays and referring to AIDS as god's punishment. So-called religious people joined the right in condemnation:
AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination. Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals." Reagan's communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is "nature's revenge on gay men."
Newly-elected President Ronald Reagan had been supported and funded by these right wingers and the Religious Right, and Reagan was conspicuously silent:
First reported in the medical and mainstream press in 1981, it was not until October 1987 that Reagan publicly spoke about the AIDS epidemic in a major policy address. By the end of that year, 59,572 AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died. He and his administration did almost nothing during the first seven years of the epidemic. AIDS research was chronically underfunded. Community education and prevention programs were routinely denied federal funding.
Reagan, a man affectionately dubbed the Great Communicator by his supporters, was excruciatingly, unjustifiably silent about HIV and AIDS. Defenders of the Reagan legacy like to argue that his domestic policy advisers downplayed AIDS to such a degree that the former president never developed a sense of urgency. To accept this, you would also have to believe that Reagan never watched television or picked up a newspaper.
This disease was killing people - and it was indiscriminate. People of all races, sexes, orientations and classes could be affected, and AIDS spread rapidly. Yet, the simple fact that it was a disease perceived to affect gays was the only thing that really mattered. AIDS was never actually a gay-specific disease; the misperception that it only killed gay people and the politics of homosexuality and debate over its morality led to deaths of thousands and later millions of people. If anyone had just dropped the homophobia at any turn, this may have abated.
Rep. Waxman said in 1985, "It is surprising that the president could remain silent as 6,000 Americans died, that he could fail to acknowledge the epidemic's existence. Perhaps his staff felt he had to, since many of his New Right supporters have raised money by campaigning against homosexuals."
That Reagan couldn't discuss a fatal disease because it was remotely linked to some gay people is a horrific travesty and it should be a lesson for all politicians that homophobia and homophobic rhetoric kills. When the "debate" over orientation is one sided, when only the opposition is willing to go out on a limb to discuss the issue - and right now, the opposition is in the minority, so it's unquestionable that their arguments really are "going out on a limb" - that's when we need our allies to speak up. If not for them, then for us. Gays are far from the only community deeply affected by AIDS. In fact many poorer people, including people of color, are far worse off because of this epidemic than even gay people are.
The ongoing AIDS epidemic shows more than anything that when we're faced with homophobia we have to fight against it. When we're faced with silence on our issues, we have to speak loudly. When we're faced with obstruction, we break down those walls. Nobody is going to do it for us. Between homophobia and 'political homophobia', we know by now that even silent allies and politicians who offer lukewarm support can be dangerous.
The truth is, "silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival."
It's a matter of everyone's survival.