Ron Paul 'Homophobic' Newsletter Claim Is Actually True
Kirchick's sloppy research and smear agenda exposed
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Amidst the smear, distortion and guilt by association attack pattern employed in the recent New Republic hit piece on Congressman Ron Paul, one claim attributed to the presidential candidate and scorned as homophobic actually turns out to be true - the fact that some gay men actually want HIV and call themselves "bug-chasers".
Who spouted this outlandish, anti-gay hate crime rhetoric in January 2003? David Duke? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The John Birch Society? No, it turns out it was that bastion of right-wing, narrow minded, bigoted intolerance - Rolling Stone Magazine.
"Commenting on a rise in AIDS infections, writes James Kirchick in his hit piece, "one newsletter said that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."
In another newsletter, writes Kirchick, "Readers were warned to avoid blood transfusions because gays were trying to "poison the blood supply."
Some gay men enjoy living with HIV? Some gay men actively pursue the disease thereby increasing the AIDS risk to others? Is this claim homophobic as Kirchick insinuates? Whatever your view on homosexuality, the fact that there is a community of gays that actively seek to catch AIDS is widely accepted as fact.
Highly publicized at the time and featured prominently on the Drudge Report, Rolling Stone Magazine's January 2003 "Bug Chasers" article lifted the lid on how some homosexuals actually want to be infected.
In the essay, writer Gregory A. Freeman details an "Intricate underground world that has sprouted, in which men who want to be infected with HIV get together with those who are willing to infect them. The men who want the virus are called "bug chasers," and the men who freely give the virus to them are called "gift givers."
How far removed is the newsletter claim that HIV infected gays "enjoy the attention and pity" from having AIDS than, as reported in the Rolling Stone piece, that gays "Feel lost and without any community to embrace them, and they see those living with HIV as a cohesive group that welcomes its new members and receives vast support from the rest of the gay community, and from society as a whole."
The Rolling Stone article quotes Harvard's Dr. Marshall Forstein, who states that "Gay men who are doing this haven't a clue what they're doing. They're incredibly selfish and self-absorbed. They don't have any idea what's going on with the epidemic in terms of the world or society or what impact their actions might have. The sense of being my brother's keeper is never discussed in the gay community because we've gone to the extreme of saying gay men with HIV can do no wrong. They're poor victims, and we can't ever criticize them."
So yes Mr. Kirchick - the contention made in the newsletter, that some gay men enjoy catching HIV, is a fact.
In highlighting the fact that some claims Kirchick attempts to pass off as lunatic fringe thinking are actually true, I am not attempting to lend credence to the other claims cited in the newsletters. Most are taken wildly out of context by Kirchick and others are distasteful, as Ron Paul himself has admitted.
Others are outright made-up, like Kirchick's ludicrous assertion that Ron Paul called Martin Luther King a "gay pedophile".
However, the fact that Kirchick was completely unaware of the widely publicized 2003 Rolling Stone article proves once again that his agenda was to throw the kitchen sink at Ron Paul in a blatant smear attempt absent any semblance of journalistic integrity or regard for the truth.
