Out in the Mountains

    
  

by Hugh Coyle

"Money for AIDS, not for war!" was
one of the more popular slogans chanted by
protesters at the recent ACTUPdemonstra-
tion on Burlington's Church Street. When
asked by a Free Press reporter what she
thought about that, Jackie Paronto of Essex
told them, "I think they should go to
Saudi.. .They are just hurting the families of
people going."

Well, before we all take a field trip to
the Middle East (a trip the U.S. military
won't let US take with THEM, by the way),
you should know that you don't have to go
to the Gulf to take part in a war. Sons and
daughters around the country are already
dying here at home. For some reason,
though, those casualties tend not to countas
much to people like Ms. Paronto. A life lost
on foreign soil in a questionable conflict
seems to matter more to the American
public than the many thousands of lives
being lost here to AIDS.

Ms. Paronto's remarks, and the many
others like hers that are made daily by those
opposed to issues like increased funding for
AIDS, do more than hurt the families of
those who suffer the abuses of an intolerant
society. They invalidate the lives (and
deaths) of others. They impede and jeop-
ardize important legislation. In the long
run, it can be argued, they kill.

Ms. Paronto is not alone in her inabil-
ity to equate a life with a life, a death with
a death. There are those for whom the
subject of AIDS is still a touchy subject, too
touchy to deal with honestly and seriously
no matter what the cost.

Take the recent American version of
the "Red Hot & Blue" special aired on
national television (or, perhaps more sig-
nifrcantly, the NBC show "Lifestories"

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No More AIDS, No More War

    

which dealt with AIDS but was not aired).
The American "Red Hot & Blue" show, un-
like its British counterpart, focused on Cole
Porter, chronicling his life with interesting
clips and asides, not once mentioning that
Cole was one of "them," and not doing
much to significantly educate the viewing
audience on the topic of AIDS, which was
the initial motivation behind the project. As
a matter of fact, you could argue that any
connection with AIDS was secondary, an
afterthought. Sure, lots of people are dying
of AIDS, but Cole Porter - now a special on
him just might bring up those late Saturday
night ratings. (Just don't mention that he
was - well, you know.)

More than a decade after the onset of
AIDS, Americans still find themselves
unable to discuss certain issues relating to
sexuality (and not just homosexuality) in an
honest and direct way. You'd think we were
all still stuck in some kind of cultural ado-
lescence, a condition quite unworthy of a
world superpower. We could save lives -
thousands of lives - if we just admitted that
human beings are sexual and that their
behavior now could have life-endangering
side effects. But no, ratings come before
lives. Advertising dollars are worth more
than one life saved.

The equations we use to determine our
priorities are still somewhat questionable.
We'd rather talk about the rising price of gas
as a reason for funding an all-out invasion;
the argument that thousands of people are
dying here at home falls on deaf ears when
members of the gay and lesbian communi-
ties approach Congress for increased AIDS
funding. Then again, if we did channel
some of the money used to defend the oil
fields of the Gulf into AIDS research, we'd

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