AIDS victims target of LaRouche group
1986Carole Seligman 1986-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 2 →
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2 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1986 In a unique use of California's ballotinitiative process, the LaRouche organi -zation collected almost 700,000 signatures on petitions to place an initiative before the voters that would change the state's health code. The intent of the changes is to curtail the rights of AIDS victims and carriers of the virus.
Capitalizing on the genuine fear of this deadly disease with no cure, the LaRouche organization is attempting to mobilize support for the purpose of further victim -izing gay people.
The initiative, which has qualified for the state ballot in November, calls for subjecting AIDS victims and carriers to possiblé detention, denial of employment in certain industries, school exclusion, travel restrictions, quarantine, and isolation.
The fact that AIDS is not a "gay disease" but a sexually transmitted disease-which just happened to begin with the gay population in this country-is a fact LaRouche wants you not to know. Epidemiologists are now beginning to track AIDS vigil in San Francisco on May 31 the spread of AIDS general population.
None of the provisions in the proposed legislation, which purports to protect the population from AIDS, addresses the real issue posed by the AIDS crisis-how do you stop it?
Solutions based on rationality Several groups in the gay-rights movement have offered initial solutions based on rationality and scientific knowledge instead of fear. The Mobi -lization Against AIDS, for example, calls for a crash government spending program for research for a cure. The group also calls for extensive public education-because AIDS is a preventable disease when you know how it's transmitted!
The billions of dollars the U.S. government spends on nuclear-weapons research and war, if funneled into research to save human life rather than extinguish it, could produce dramatic results against the AIDS virus—not to mention cancer, heart disease, and a host of other diseases. This is not idle speculation. It is a matter of scientific method and fact.
"Fund AIDS Research, Not War!" is a chant heard on many a demonstration against U.S. intervention in Central America. This is an approach that makes sense-especially now that the House of Representatives has given Reagan $100 million in military and economic aid to the contras.
The LaRouche Initiative can only pass if California voters remain uninformed and continue to believe that the AIDS virus can be spread through casual contact like influenza or the common cold.
Ignorance and fear are the two ingredients LaRouche hopes to tap in the coming election. AIDS is not spread by casual contact.
Four basic modes of transmission account for all the cases so far: (1) intimate Ryan sexual contact, (2) contaminated blood products used in transfusions and for Actlon/Joe hemophiliacs, (3) contaminated intravenous needles used and shared by drug addicts, (4) and mother to child transmission in utero.
Soclalist Coalition to stop initiative A statewide organization-California AIDS Network-has been formed to defeat the LaRouche Initiative. Its leaders, representing a broad cross section of gayrights and political organizations, spoke out at the group's first "Town Hall Meeting" in San Francisco on June 10.
The 200 participants at the meeting vowed to organize a massive grassroots voter-education campaign against LaRouche and promised complete unity among themselves to defeat this initiative. Every labor union was requested to join the campaign.
On June 11, the San Francisco Labor Council's Executive Committee passed a strong resolution calling on the entire labor movement "to join us in working with the gay and lesbian and other allied movements toward a united, broad-based campaign to defeat the LaRouche Initiative.
The LaRouche Initiative can be defeated, just as the Briggs Initiative-an attempt to prevent gays and lesbians from teaching in California's public schools—was defeated in 1979.
Reordering social priorities so that AIDS and other killer diseases are eliminated forever, though, will require the indepen -dent power of the broad labor movement and all its allies, organized in the political arena.
Reliance on the Democratic and Republican parties, both of which are com -mitted to profit over human needs, will be of no help to those who want to fight AIDS and put an end to the bigotry and fear encouraged by the LaRouche Initiative. |