Hardwick, meaning that "in the middle of a mass-death experience, laws against gay sex were upheld," Schulman said.
In 1981, at the start of the AIDS crisis, "gay sex was illegal - sodomy laws were not federally overturned until 2003," said Sarah Schulman, author of the 2021 book, " Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993." Even in comparatively liberal New York City, gays and lesbians had few codified legal protections until 1986, Schulman said.Īlso in 1986, the Supreme Court explicitly rejected the right to consensual homosexual sex in the case Bowers vs. Legal restrictions on gay men and lesbians weren’t just preferred by a majority of Americans they actually existed in most places in the United States. Earlier this year, Gallup asked the question, "Do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?" It found that 70% of respondents said such marriages should be recognized. Since then, sentiments have changed substantially. Gallup also asked whether respondents thought "gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal." In four surveys taken during the AIDS crisis - twice in 1986, once in 1987, and once in 1988 - the response "should be legal" attracted the support of only between 32% and 35%, while "should not be legal" ranged from 54% to 57%. When Gallup asked the question a decade later, only 38% said it was acceptable, while those who said it was not acceptable grew to 57%. The pollster Gallup has twice asked the question, "Do you feel that homosexuality should be considered an acceptable alternative lifestyle or not?" In 1982, only 34% said it was acceptable, while 51% said it was not acceptable. For many, the AIDS crisis only reinforced negative perceptions. While cultural acceptance of gays and lesbians began to increase in the 1970s, majorities of Americans remained uncomfortable with homosexuality, even among family members. The second source of the pariah status was the fact that AIDS hit gay men the hardest. "That was six years of people with AIDS being literally untouchable." "She was the first famous person to be seen touching someone with AIDS in public," Kaiser said. One public watershed came in 1987, when Diana, the Princess of Wales, was photographed shaking hands with an AIDS patient at Middlesex Hospital in London. Kaiser said he was so worried about finding out that he might be infected that he refused to take a screening test for "several years." Only when his physician ran a test on him surreptitiously did he learn that he was negative. Even after it became clear that the virus could only be passed only by close contact of bodily fluids, it took years for many Americans to become comfortable in proximity to people who had the virus.Ĭharles Kaiser, the author of " The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America," recalls the era as being "a period of absolute terror" for gay men. Initially, the disease was poorly understood and appeared to be a death sentence. The pariah status was traceable to two distinct, but linked, beliefs. Let’s walk through the evidence of how gay men, as well as intravenous drug users, were treated as pariahs during the years after 1981, when the virus that causes AIDS was first identified. "Utterly ridiculous," said Lillian Faderman, author of the 2016 book, " The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle." "Willfully ignorant," said Eric Marcus, who addressed the first dozen years of the AIDS crisis in his audio memoir,.
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Prager’s comment "is entirely ahistorical and inconceivably upside down," said David France, a filmmaker and author of the book, " How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS."
Gay men were pariahs in public opinion, under the law, in the media, and among government officials. But we checked with multiple historians of the period and each was mystified by the characterization that the AIDS epidemic somehow spared gay men and intravenous drug users from being treated as outcasts. Prager did not respond to an inquiry for this article. Dennis Prager: "During the AIDS crisis, can you imagine if gay men and intravenous drug users.had they been pariahs the way the non-vaccinated are? But it would've been inconceivable" /GQsOq4X63u- Jason Campbell November 8, 2021