Guest - AIDS and responsibility

My wife Gini wrote this post. Last night I watched PBS Frontline program about the AIDS pandemic. It was an interesting history lesson covering the last 25 years from when patients were first observed in hospitals with the very devastating, wasting illness. AIDS turned young men into emaciated old men within months. The history was interesting; the bias was very clear after a short period of viewing this program. Never once did PBS indicate that some of the people who got sick with AIDS had a choice in their risky behavior. For example in San Francisco once Director of Public Health Melvyn Silverman had all 14 Bath Houses closed, - before a judge ordered them reopened with monitors - did it never occur to any of these men to just stay at home and not go some place where the possibility of contracting a serious, deadly illness was so high? What about the IV drug users? Did it never occur to some of these people that with the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS that maybe giving up, shooting up was a great idea? The facts are clear that man is a free agent and can CHOOSE a healthy lifestyle that will keep him free from these deadly diseases. Or is he? Michael Fumento's fascinating book The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS shows even more clearly how partisan politics has taken this tragedy and distorted people's thinking about AIDS. I highly recommend we arm ourselves with the truth about this disease. Truth is to set us free, so we can live to have compassion and minister on those sick with AIDS. These people should not be shunned at all, but need our care, our prayers.