Dennis Prager should never forget 'When AIDS Was Funny' and neither should the rest of us

 

I apologize to those who may get bad flashbacks from the above. I wouldn't have posed it if it weren't necessary.  On Monday night, conservative personality Dennis Prager said an absolutely idiotic thing in defense of anti-vaccine activists:

“During the AIDS crisis, can you imagine if gay men and intravenous drug users, or the vast majority of people with AIDS, had they been pariahs the way the non-vaccinated are? But it would’ve been inconceivable.”

Prager is being inane on so many levels. For the purpose of this blog, his inanity involves a deliberate rewrite of history. The truth was that the people Prager listed were seen as pariahs during the AIDS crisis,  most specifically gay men. The above video underscores that fact: It was created by director Scott Calonico and premiered during World AIDS day in 2015:

The nearly 8-minute film features previously unreleased audio of former Reagan press secretary Larry Speakes scoffing at, and making light of, persistent questions in a span of three years (1982-1984) on the disease's outbreak from reporter Lester Kinsolving. The audiotape, which includes reporters openly laughing at the notion of a "gay plague," puts the administration's lack of response in perspective. 

 "As you can hear in the tape, the whole AIDS issue was treated by Speakes and the press pool, for that matter, as a joke. I'd like to think that the Reagan administration didn't realize what they were grappling with at first," Calonico told MSNBC. 

 Reagan did not utter the word AIDS until 1985, following the death of his friend, Hollywood actor Rock Hudson, from the disease. He did not speak about the disease at length until near the end of his second term in 1987 during an AIDS conference in Washington, D.C. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died," by the time Reagan made that speech. Reagan also reportedly prevented his surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, from being more aggressive about raising public consciousness of the disease.

One reason why Koop may have been unsuccessful could have had to do with a White House aide by the name of Gary Bauer. Bauer reportedly undermined Koop's efforts because he felt that AIDS was "God's punishment." Since that time, Bauer has traveled in and out of several "traditional values" groups, including  Focus on the Family and serving for a time as president of hate group the Family Research Council. His last bit of exposure was being one of the conservative evangelicals supporting and making excuses for former president Donald Trump when he was in office. As far as I know, Bauer has never been questioned or confronted about his activities regarding the AIDS crisis while he was in the Reagan Administration.

'Transphobic tweet final straw for soap opera: 'General Hospital' releases troublesome cast member' & other Tue midday news briefs

“General Hospital” Actor of 26 Years “No Longer Part of Cast” After Calling Four Star Transgender Admiral a “Dude” on Social Media - And Fox News, etc will anoint him the new "victim of cancel culture" even though based upon the article, he has been acting rather stank on a number of issues for a while.

U.S. proposes rescinding Trump-era expansion of religious exemptions - That's right. Drop those exemptions. 

Gay Republican group declares “struggle for gay rights” is over & announces new focus on Middle East - These are some straight up dumbasses. Who are they to declare that for the rest of us? 

‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ LGBTQ discharged vets urged to seek benefits - Because they deserve them.

Fox News aired 88 segments about a sexual assault in VA to lie on trans kids, pro-trans policies in schools

Years ago when Fox News was gaining power, some of us predicted what would happen should that propaganda crap shack folks call a network turned its full force against the LGBTQ community. The election last Tuesday in Virginia demonstrated what we were afraid of. And Media Matters has the details:

Right-wing media weaponized a sexual assault at a Loudon County, Virginia, high school in order to spread anti-trans disinformation and make trans rights into a wedge issue in Virginia’s gubernatorial election -- despite trans-inclusion having nothing to do with the assault. In particular, Fox News aired 88 segments in just over a three-week period about a student sexually assaulting a classmate in a girls bathroom. 

After right-wing outlet The Daily Wire published a story about the assault, which included an interview with the survivor’s father, right-wing media twisted the story into an opportunity to perpetuate the myth that trans-inclusive bathrooms allow predators to attack women. In the October 11 story, the assault survivor’s father asserted that the attacker “is apparently bisexual and occasionally wears dresses.” In addition, he falsely claimed that kids are using the trans-inclusive bathroom policies “as an advantage to get into the bathrooms.” However, as Media Matters previously reported, the policy was passed by the school board on August 11 -- months after May 28, when the assault was reported to have taken place.

 . . .From October 11, the day of the Daily Wire’s published interview with the survivor’s father, through November 4, Fox News aired 88 segments that discussed the assault.

 Key findings include: 

 Fox’s so-called “straight news” programs aired 33 segments about the assault, accounting for over one-third of the total segments. The remaining 55 segments were from its opinion programs. 

 Fox & Friends and its weekend counterparts as well as Fox & Friends First, the network’s weekday early morning show, together aired the most segments (26) about the assault. The Ingraham Angle and Fox News Live aired the second-most segments (7 each), followed by America Reports With John Roberts & Sandra Smith (6 segments). Tucker Carlson Tonight aired 4 segments on the topic. 

 On October 26, one day after a Loudoun County juvenile court judge “found sufficient evidence” that the “teen sexually assaulted a classmate in the girls’ bathroom,” coverage of the story peaked, with Fox airing 10 segments on the subject. The second-most segments per day occurred on October 13, two days after the Daily Wire report was published, and October 27, two days after the judge’s verdict. Fox aired nine segments on the topic each day. 

Fox hosts and guests repeatedly tried to use the story to bolster the debunked bathroom predator myth. In one segment, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) claimed, “Maybe [Attorney General] Merrick Garland's Department of Justice should be looking into Loudoun County School Board superintendent who can't protect young girls from being raped by boys pretending to be girls." In another, Fox News host Jesse Waters called the incident a “transgender bathroom rape cover-up.” 

 Fox hosts also incorrectly claimed that the district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policy allowed the teen to sexually assault another student. On October 21, Fox host Will Cain asserted that the father of the survivor “wanted accountability from the school board after their transgender policies led to his teenage daughter being allegedly raped in the school bathroom by a man in a skirt.”  

The entire article deserves a read and a huge re-sharing. Fox News ran the same alarming story repeatedly without any courtesy of correction or any interviews from the trans community - i.e the community being targeted. I cringe to think how Fox News would have justified the lynching of black men for false accusations of raping white women had it been in existence during that time in American history.

Don't get angry or alarmed because I said that, readers. You know it's true.

'Marvel's 'The Eternals' has very strong box office opening' & other Mon midday news briefs

'The Eternals' are a hit.

Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ opens strong at box office despite mixed reviews - And worldwide, it is even a larger success. Thank goodness. Now I hope I don't have to hear any 'backlash against wokeness' garbage.

Eternals reignites the debate over LGBTQ superhero representation - But discussions like this are always good. 

There are only 5 Black trans elected officials across the entire United States​ - Can you say underrepresentation, boys and girls? 

U.S. Navy Launches Ship Honoring Harvey Milk - It becomes official. 

A story of a gay miner leads to one of the biggest scandals in American history - Lawd!

Melania Trump just received an award from Republican gay group. Why? I don't know.

Not a long post and certainly not one meant to be ugly. And I certainly hope that no one responding will be rude. Let's not go in for personal insults.

At its recent gala, the Log Cabin Republicans awarded former First Lady Melania Trump "with the Spirit of Lincoln Award for her commitment to enhancing personal freedom, encouraging individual responsibility, and ensuring equality under the law for all Americans."

I have a simple question. What the heck did she ever do for the LGBTQ community?  Name me one thing. Just one.

Religious right bragging how their transphobia helped GOP win VA governor's race' & other Fri midday news briefs

The religious right is crowing they won the Virginia governor’s race by sowing fear of trans people​ - I feel like the nun in that episode of 'Family Guy.; - "Hey! I didn't start this war, but it's on!!" 

Trans Boy Sues Tennessee Over Exclusionary Sports Law - Good for him! I hope he wins. 

 'Critical Race Theory' opponent expresses desire to censor part of Civil Rights Movement because it would put police in bad light - This is an LGBTQ issue per se cause you just KNOW how she feels about Stonewall. 

Texas governor calls books 'pornography' in latest effort to remove LGBTQ titles from school libraries - And the point of the above article is made when it comes to erasure. 

Gay-hating GOP politician with a second secret family wins election in New York - Well ain't that a blip.

'Critical Race Theory' opponent expresses desire to censor part of Civil Rights Movement because it would put police in bad light

Robin Steenman of Moms for Liberty thinks children of a certain age should be shielded from learning about bad police behavior during the Civil Rights Movement.

Editor's note - this may not be an LGBTQ-themed article per se. But then again maybe it is. The activist in this piece expressed a desire to censor part of the Civil Rights Movement in which police and firemen used fire hoses on children during the 1963 Birmingham protest. She implied that it would put policemen in a bad light to other children.  You just know how she would feel about Stonewall. 

We know that Critical Race Theory is not an actual thing being taught to children in K-12 schools. We know that the GOP exploited fears about it to scare white suburban voters. We also know that it has generated considerable success for them, particularly in the recent Virginia governor race. And lastly, we all know that Republicans will be using this culture war dog whistle in an attempt to take back Congress next year.

But none of this seems to be registering to folks like it should. I personally think that it's due to an inability to conceive what's going on here and what it could lead to. Those of us concerned with the erasing of history (for whatever reason, both actual and imagined) can't seem to get our message across. 

So why don't we turn to those groups and so-called concerned parents leading this 'fight' against Critical Race Theory and listen to what they have to say.

 A recent CBS article vocalizes what I'm talking about:

In Tennessee, (Robin) Steenman and other members of Moms for Liberty have pushed to eliminate portions of a widely-used language arts curriculum called Wit & Wisdom from area schools. They take issue with some of the reading materials about the civil rights movement geared for grade-school students.

"Grade two, module three, has five or six books. One of them is Martin Luther King and the March on Washington, which of course that should be taught. But how should it be taught? What should we focus on when we teach it?" Steenman asked. 

"There's one specific example in this book ... there's a very famous photograph of firemen spraying children that were engaged in protest in I believe it was Birmingham. It's a terrible photo, they're doing harm to children, Black children, they're blasted by fire hoses. And it shows that to these second grade children. Most kids up to that point have idolized the policemen, the firemen." "I don't want them to see racism yet — to engage, to learn racism. They can teach history but let's not teach racism," Steenman said.

To be honest, we don't know the particulars of the lesson plan Steenman is speaking of. There has been a tendency from people on her side of the argument to take things out of context. Still it should bother people that Steenman's objection stems from her personal opinions. It's not about learning history or protecting children. It's more about protecting her ideas.