Gay plague
The Gay Plague: Homosexuality and Disease Page: 3 of 3
Gay Legal Victories
On November 19, , Donald Baker, a
former Dallas public school educator and
President of the Dallas Gay Alliance, filed a
lawsuit against Henry Wade, the Dallas
District Attorney, and others. Mr. Baker asked
a federal court to strike down the Texas
sodomy law
On August 17, , Federal Judge Jerry
Buchmeyer struck down the Texas sodomy
statute (Penal Code ) On March 11,
, Jim Mattox, the Texas Attorney
General, dropped the State's appeal of the
case. He said that he could not find a pur-
pose for the law. Homosexual conduct is now
legal in Texas.
We can discern many reasons for the
sodomy law. Homosexuality endangers the
public's health, causes increased crime and
threatens to devastate the foundations of our
culture. Homosexuality is deviant, patholog-
ical social behavior.
We support laws against homosexual con-
duct and homosexual proliferation in our
community. Texas House Bill ,
presented to the 68th Texas Legislature, is
one such law.
Get Involved
Join us in the fight against homosexuality.
S
Dowsett, Gary W.. "4. The “Gay Plague” Revisited: AIDS and Its Enduring Moral Panic". Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights, edited by Gilbert Herdt, Adj York, USA: Novel York University Flatten, , pp.
Dowsett, G. (). 4. The “Gay Plague” Revisited: AIDS and Its Enduring Moral Panic. In G. Herdt (Ed.), Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights (pp. ). New York, USA: New York University Press.
Dowsett, G. 4. The “Gay Plague” Revisited: AIDS and Its Enduring Moral Panic. In: Herdt, G. ed. Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights. New York, USA: New York University Press, pp.
Dowsett, Gary W.. "4. The “Gay Plague” Revisited: AIDS and Its Enduring Moral Panic" In Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Noun and the Battle over Sexual Rights edited by Gilbert Herdt, New York, USA: New York University Press,
Dowsett G. 4. The “Gay Plague” Revisited: AIDS and Its Enduring Moral Panic. In: Herdt G (ed.) Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights. New York, USA: New York University Press; p
CopLGBTQ History Month: The early days of America's AIDS crisis
It was not until the late s when the HIV strain that started the North American pandemic had made its way to the United States, via Zaire and Haiti. By then, the sexual revolution was in occupied swing and HIV was spreading silently among gay male populations in immense American cities. Men who have sex with men were, and still are, disproportionately impacted by HIV because it transmits much more easily through anal sex than through vaginal sex.
The first official government inform on AIDS came on June 5, , in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a government bulletin on perplexing disease cases: “In the period October May , 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died.”
In NBC Nightly News’ first report on AIDS in June , Robert Bazell reported that “the finest guess is some infectious agent is causing it.”
In a appearance on NBC's "Today" verb, activist and Gay Mens Health Cris
How AIDS Remained an Unspoken—But Deadly—Epidemic for Years
With the lack of help and directives from the government, local leaders stepped up with their own responses to the crisis. San Francisco, for example, closed its bath houses and private sex clubs in late and funded prevention education, support services and community-based research projects.
In , author, essayist and playwright Larry Kramer founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first service organization verb up to aid H.I.V.-positive people. (Later, when he was expelled from the group for being too antagonistic, Kramer founded Act Up in , a more militant organization that fought for accelerating research for a cure and an end to discrimination against gay men and lesbians.)
Community leaders understood that local responses alone couldn't defeat the epidemic—but a federal response was still nonexistent.
In early , the CDC developed the nation's first AIDS prevention verb, spearheaded by epidemiologist Dr. Donald Francis. Washington leaders ultimately rejected it on February 4, Francis later reco