To the editor:
Michael Specter's vivid account of the current resurgence of risky sex among American gay men frankly addresses the effects of drugs and the Internet on gay men's sexual decision-making ("Higher Risk," May 23). But it leaves out a crucial actor: the Bush administration.
It is remarkable that Specter describes a meeting of Gay Men's Health Crisis volunteers, yet fails to mention the administration's cuts to funding for gay-oriented HIV prevention organizations, under new Department of Health and Human Services guidelines that make it much more difficult for them to obtain federal grants.
The effects are not abstract. In some cities, gay men have noticed that there just aren't as many free condoms available at gay establishments and events as there were just a couple of years ago. The return to risky sex practices is troubling, but so is the return to the politics of the Reagan years. Then, as now, many gay men will suffer.
“one homosexual can pollute a government office” —U.S. Senate subcommittee report, 1950
2 comments:
While free condoms are nice (and effective) is it really the government's job to provide them to mature adults? In other words, should my tax money go to pay for condoms for other people? It's okay with me to buy them for low income people, but otherwise I have questions...anyhow, I can't remember the last straight bar I've been to (or anywhere since college, actually) where condoms have been provided for free.
the same is true on college campuses - there just isn't money. it sucks. (claire f-r again)
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