This letter is addressed personally to Phil Dalton. Phil, I would like to know how many girls you have had sex with in the last ten years (baseball cards and bubble gum were probably more important to you than girls at that time), and have you always used a condom? In every other country in the world, AIDS is a disease affecting primarily heterosexuals. Only in the United States is it considered a gay disease. It takes a misinformed, immature person to print such a blatantly ignorant statement as “AIDS is not that big of a deal” and “AIDS is being called an epidemic … just to get attention for it”, and the words of Kilpatrick reek of hatred and discrimination. Your statistics are misleading and outdated by years, as well. I suggest that you gather any future information on AIDS and HIV from a source such as the AIDS Care Network. The telephone number is 1-968-5181.

I am totally amazed at the stupidity of comparing a disease with 100 percent fatality rate to such generalized health problems like “heart conditions” and arthritis. Many of these are treated effectively, and most cancers are treatable, as well, with low mortality rates. There is no cure for AIDS and any treatments available are temporary at best. Death within a few years or months from diagnosis is inevitable.

To date, there are over 200,000 reported cases of clinical AIDS within the United States. This is six times the figure reported back in 1987, and this is considered an extremely conservative estimate by AIDS care-givers and health officials from the Center for Disease Control. One out of every 10 Americans is infected with HIV. Many don’t even know that they are carrying the virus until they get tested, and infection is on an alarming increase among heterosexual teens having unprotected sex with multiple partners.

The implication that AIDS is a gay problem echoes an attitude of blind supremacy and reveals that you are nothing more than a sexual bigot—or could it possibly be hatred resulting from the paranoia of your own hidden desires? Your article hinted at a topic concerning the allocation of taxpayers’ money toward medical research, but you abused the media by using it to discriminate against people who are already suffering the horror of this disease and to bash gays with your simpleminded prejudices. I am not alone in considering you a disgrace to journalists and the human race.

Kelly J. Doorn

Gay/Lesbian Union

Pride Letter editor