Over the Rainbow: - Wrestling With Angels

(MSM). In 2008 there were 13,500 reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis, the most
infectious stages of the disease. Reported cases of syphilis showed that 63 percent were
among MSM. This is of particular concern because syphilis infection facilitates HIV
transmission. Syphilis rates among blacks was about eight times higher than that of whites in
2008 (CDC,2008).
HIV was introduced into the United States through the homosexual community. After its
initial diagnosis in 1981, it spread rapidly across the country through male homosexuality,
intravenous drug use, bisexuality, and multiple high risk heterosexual partners. Infants were
infected by mothers who had the HIV virus. In 2006, CDC estimated that over half (53%) of
new cases occurred in gay and bisexual men. Through 2007, the cumulative estimated number
of AIDS diagnoses in the 50 states and the District of Columbia was well over one million,
1,018,428. Over half (50.3%) of these cases were reported in four states: New York, California,
Florida and Texas. By 2007, the cumulative estimated number of deaths from AIDS in the 50
states and the District of Columbia included 557,902 adults and adolescents and 4891 children
under age 13 years. Although Blacks represented about 12% of the U.S. population,
cumulated estimated AIDS cases for Black and African Americans through 2007 exceeded that
of Whites, numbering 426,003 to 404,465 respectively. Black women were particularly
affected as bisexual men brought the disease home to their wives and girlfriends. (CDC,2007).
Cumulative estimated # of AIDS cases for 50 states and DC (CDC, 2007)= 1,018,428
Cumulative estimated # of AIDS deaths for 50 states and DC (CDC, 2007) = 562,793
Life expectancy for gay and bisexual men is compromised by perhaps 20 years. An article
printed in the New York Times reported that a young male homosexual has about a 50%
chance of getting HIV by middle age. In 1998 the CDC reported that an estimated half of all
new infections of HIV in the U.S. were among people under 25. HIV/AIDS is accompanied by a
list of other STD’s common among the homosexual population. Included in this list of particular
concern is anal cancer. Other maladies include Chlamydia , cryptosporidium, herpes simplex
virus, human papilloma virus or genital warts, isospora belli, microsporidia, gonorrhea, viral
hepatitis types B & C and syphilis (Brinkmann, 2004).
Refusing to admit any problem with the homosexual practices themselves, homosexual
activists actively suppressed information portraying HIV/AIDS as a gay disease, contending that
it affected the whole population equally. However, in his ‘State of the Moment’ address at the
National Conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) in February of 2008,
the executive director, Matt Foreman made a statement acknowledging HIV as a gay disease.
He said, “Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi, we
cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that”. Curiously ,
Over the Rainbow: The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America. 2010
Dr. M. L. Coppock
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