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Date Posted: 13:45:04 01/23/03 Thu
Author: Jay Hovah
Subject: Good news LG!
In reply to: Laura Gay 's message, "And something not funny at all ..." on 10:50:58 01/23/03 Thu

I got this from my honey who works at AIDS Housing of Washington:

Conservative withdraws from AIDS panel, Gay rights groups criticized WH choice

WASHINGTON (AP) --A Christian activist chosen by the White House for a presidential AIDS advisory panel is withdrawing his name under pressure for characterizing the disease as the "gay plague," along with other anti-homosexual statements.

The administration had chosen Jerry Thacker to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS. He was to be sworn in along with other new commission members next week by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

On Thursday, however, Thacker was sending a letter signaling that he would not accept the appointment, administration officials said. The administration's choice of the Pennsylvania marketing consultant had come under severe criticism from gay rights groups and others. Thacker contracted the AIDS virus after his wife was infected during a blood transfusion.

Thacker is a former Bob Jones University graduate who later ran a radio station at the school, and his Web site at one point referred to AIDS as the "gay plague." He also referred to gay people as practicing a "death style," rather than a lifestyle. He has described homosexuality as a condition that can be cured by Christianity.

Like the Bush administration, he promotes abstinence from sex as the way to prevent HIV infection. "For the unmarried, the only truly 'safe sex' is not to have sex," Thacker has written. He describes himself as an activist in the Christian community.

In September 2001, Thacker returned to his alma mater to give two "Chapel Messages." As once summarized on the university Web site, the speeches focused on the "sin of homosexuality" and his family's struggle with AIDS and its association with gays. The 35-member commission advises the White House on AIDS prevention and treatment policy.

David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, applauded the news that Thacker would not join the panel but said Bush administration AIDS policies still fall far short. "While this is a positive development, the underlying problem continues to remain with this administration's approach to HIV and AIDS," Smith said. "They're obsessive focus on abstinence as the solitary mechanism to prevent the transmission of HIV is not based in sound science. They continue to come from an ideological perspective as opposed to a scientific perspective."

YAY!

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