Newt Gingrich's Tennessee campaign co-chair is none other than Tennessee GOP state Sen. Stacey Campfield, which seems only fitting since Campfield, too, appears to fancy himself a historian -- in addition to a public health expert.
Campfield is at the center of much controversy in Tennessee and nationally after he told me that AIDS began with a gay "airline pilot" who was "screwing a monkey" and that it is "virtually impossible" to be infected with HIV via heterosexual sex.
By mid-week a new American hero had emerged in this saga, Martha Boggs, who kicked Campfield out of her restaurant in Knoxville because, as she told a TV reporter, he'd gone from "stupid to dangerous." And hopefully the entire affair has brought much-needed attention to Campfield's notorious "Don't Say Gay" bill, which is being pushed once again through the Tennessee legislature and would ban discussion of homosexuality in schools.
It all began when I interviewed Campfield about the "Don't Say Gay" bill. Campfield claimed homosexuality is harmful, and though he's told the media that I turned the discussion to AIDS, he's actually the one who raised AIDS as one of the reasons why being gay is supposedly harmful.
After I pointed out that HIV, globally, is a pandemic mostly among heterosexuals, he then went into his theories about an airline pilot and a monkey and claimed it was "very rare" for heterosexuals to get infected with HIV.
When listeners to my radio program and readers of Huffington Post sent Campfield emails explaining how false and reckless his claims were, he sent them back his supposed proof: A right-wing tract using bogus science claiming gays died earlier than straights (and which was debunked over a decade ago when blowhard Bill Bennett was pushing these lies) and an advice column from 1988 -- yes, 1988! -- claiming that the risk to heterosexuals was virtually non-existent. Tell that to the millions of heterosexuals who have been infected with HIV since 1988, many of whom are dead.
Campfield is not backing down, still defending his claims and now positioning himself as a victim of "segregation" after being booted from the The Bistro at the Bijou in Knoxville. It shouldn't shock us to realize that bigots are still elected to public office, nor that voters are ignorant enough to back them.
But what is stunning and alarming is how, over 30 years into an epidemic that killed over 600,000 Americans and has has wreaked havoc on the world, a legislator anywhere in the U.S. would seem comfortable not only spouting reckless information that puts lives at risk, but continues to do so even after he's been refuted by public health experts. Our hero Martha Boggs was right when said he's gone from stupid to dangerous.
Follow Michelangelo Signorile on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msignorile
Michelangelo Signorile: 'Don't Say Gay' -- But 'Sodomite,' 'Pervert' Are Fine
Scottie Thomaston: Sit-Ins for Stacey
Stacey Campfield, Tennessee Senator Behind 'Don't Say Gay' Bill ...
Stacey Campfield, Tennessee Senator Behind 'Don't Say Gay' Bill ...
It got full and cant accept any more.
He would be classed as 'stupidly dangerous'.
Darwin award candidate?
The unpleasant word that should be required in any discussion of AIDS is "blood". The CDC reports that the virus did originate with chimpanzees and spread to hunters that absorbed blood from those chimpanzees. The reason that HIV was concentrated among homosexuals in the US is blood; their activities are likely to involve fluid-to-blood contact. The reason that AIDS is a continuing problem in Africa is that so many people also suffer from other STDs that increase the likely that heterosexual activity will involve blood.
When we were told in the 1980s that AIDS in the gay community was just bad luck, and it would soon spread in epidemic proportions to the straight population, that was propaganda - and the censored truth has cost more lives. AIDS does not have a preference for one sexual orientation, but the medical realities of transmission are still suppressed in the name of political correctness.
Are you inferring that Gay folks make each other bleed?
Actually, to be graphic, the lining of the rectum is more permeable than that of the vagina
The African infection rate goes way down with circumcisions, by the way.
No. There are homosexuals around the world. And around the world, the incidence of HIV infection correlates with marginalization. In some places, that marginalization is social, and prostitutes and migrant workers have the highest rates of infection. In other places, marginalization is economic, and poor people are the most at risk for contracting HIV. In the U.S., gay men were and still are highly marginalized - but HIV infections are on the rise in other highly marginalized groups in the U.S. - like African American women. That marginalization of gay men continues today, the CDC and institutions like AMFAR note that even though Gay men make up a majority of cases of HIV in the U.S., substantially less resources are devoted to HIV awareness and prevention directed at gay men - and - many programs designed for gay men have been hindered or even eradicated as a result of the efforts of conservative politicians.
On a global scale, the people of most African nations are marginalized - they have been systematically exploited by developed nations and by too many of their own leaders.
This is not true. AIDS is a medical condition that is transmitted when bodily fluids of one person come into close contact with the blood of another person. It's spread is related to very specific sexual behaviors. Any other lens through which you view the issue is a distraction, or an excuse, from facing reality and dealing with it.