Air Mail stamp

Letter Six, December 1994

Wes Finally Responds to His Aunt (#1/3)

December 18, 1994

Priscilla, Queen of the Northwest
Dallas, Oregon 97338

Dear Aunt Priscilla, Queen of the Northwest,

I appreciate the two letters you wrote and have been meaning to write for a long time. I first began this letter in September of 1993. After your second letter, where I'd offended you with part of my last Christmas letter, I definitely wanted to write before I sent the next one. So, since I want to mail you this year's Christmas letter this week, I'm sitting down to finally put it all down on paper for you. Since you brought up many issues in your letters -- and since it has been a long time without me writing back yet -- I'm including copies of your letters for you.

First off, you've always been one of my favorite aunts. I always appreciated the times when you lived in Irving and our families did many things together growing up. It was fun.

Since I came out at about 17 -- some 14 years ago -- we've had more distance, both geographically and emotionally. That's unfortunate on both counts. I'm sure part of it must be the way I came out: More than one person has reminded me that, at that early time, I seemed to have to tell everyone I came into contact with that I was gay. That probably got on people's nerves.

More recently, it appears we have both become at least somewhat politically active and that we have differences of opinion in the political arena in relation to gay people. That could be another source of distance, but it does not have to be. Instead, by explaining why we feel the way we do -- just as you have started to do with your letters -- it could be a way to understand each other better.

In your first letter, you mentioned "...for the gays to say we have to teach it to our children (my grandbabies) as normal acts and behaviors..." I understand where you are coming from; particularly, in your view, the "normal" part. My hope would be that all children are taught to respect people who are different. Period.

You also brought up when we lived in Irving and kids would pick on me and call me "queer" and "faggot." I did hate it. It was awful. I always felt like I was going to get beat up.

Later you suggested I ask Jesus Christ into my life. I have already done that. And, same as you, my day goes better when I pray in the morning and in the evening. And sometimes during the day.

Your second letter came after my last Christmas letter to you. The part where I wrote that I went to D.C. to do my part "to counteract the lies, hysteria and hatred being promulgated by the so-called 'religious right' in its push to eliminate civil rights for homosexuals" made you angry. Given your viewpoint, and that there was no explanation to go along with that statement, I understand. Let me do what I can to explain where I was coming from and to clear up some misunderstandings as well.

The easiest misunderstanding to clear up is the part about two of my friends who had died, Don and Stuart. You wrote "You also wrote about your hero-friends, Don and Stuart, who recently died of AIDS and that they had been together for 52 years. Does it not make you wonder that if they were faithful to each other and had a monogamous relationship how they developed AIDS..."

What I'd written in my letter was "I was particularly saddened by the deaths of my hero-friends Don Johnson and Stuart Johnson (no relation). Don had been with his lover 52 years. Stuart was always an example to me of how to manage having AIDS." I can see how you took it how you did, due to the lack of room for further explanation in my Christmas letter. But Don and Stuart were not together. Stuart was a friend from an AIDS support group I went to. He was a hero to me because he continued living life to its fullest even as his disease started taking his life. He wrote columns for a support group newsletter, he spoke to groups about how to prevent AIDS, he traveled through Europe and interviewed people there for the newsletter here, he wrote music, and lots of other things. He was a fine and wonderful person doing things for other people.

Don was my piano teacher. He was with his partner of 52 years until he died of heart failure last summer at the age of 82. They had been together since before World War II, and were only separated by their military service in that war. (His partner Dale died this summer of lung cancer.) Both of them were just great old men who were fun to be around. Dale would tell how he flew the hump in India/China during the war. Don could tell me stories from when he was very little and World War I was on. One I remember was how, when he was five years old, a waitress gave him extra sugar when he was traveling with his mother. That was during a time of war rationing, and that generous, special little act had just made his entire trip -- and he remembered it for 77 years. Both of them could share about their 52 years together. They were the kind of old people who are just fascinating: Old, with the kind of great life experiences that go along with that, but still sharp enough upstairs to have wonderful, fascinating conversations with.

Another misunderstanding shows up in the paragraph where you wrote "Next the statement of 'why work until you die' makes me wonder if you, Tom and the others are not using the system and by doing so depriving others of their rights. If you are all so sick and unable to work and believe you are entitled to social security disability, how in the world do you find the strength and energy to take part in marches and travel to Disneyworld. The money you are using to have fun on deprives old people and those who are truly disabled and cannot support themselves."

I understand where you are coming from here, too. This is another case where I did not explain everything fully in my Christmas letter due to only having one-page in which to try to recap a full year. Near the top of my letter, I'd written "If you'll recall, when we left off I'd just gotten the okay to sell all of my Enron stock and I had major purchases in mind." In the middle I wrote about looking for a house. And near the bottom I wrote "About three weeks after he moved down, I took Tom to Disneyworld for 7 days. It was a nice change of pace toward our life together on 'retirement.' After two years of commuting 250 miles, we were now together."

What isn't explicit here is that I knew that the move to Houston would be stressful on Tom and, foreseeing that, I saved some money from the sale of my Enron stock and planned a surprise trip for him. It was from my savings -- I would not have been able to afford it on my social security disability. The second part that's not mentioned is that I was rather ill while we were in Disneyworld, and needed antibiotics and four hours of naps in the afternoon while we were there. Even if it would have fit, it would have been a bit of a downer to close the letter on. Similarly, almost any sick person can muster the energy for a one-time, one-day event (in this case, the D.C. march) if you pace yourself and don't overdo it. In my case, I brought lunch -- including my antibiotics -- and also took a nap under a tree.

(There may also be some confusion about the social security system. There's a part called SSI, Supplemental Security Income, for very poor people. Another part is SSDI, Social Security Disability Income. People can get SSDI if they paid into the system, and the amount received is relative to the amount paid in -- just as Social Security's retirement portion works. Since I've already paid in $30,000 in Social Security taxes, what I receive in SSDI is only a fair return of what I've paid in. Unlike me, however, most of my sick friends get SSI because they didn't have good jobs to qualify for SSDI. SSI is truly a pittance. My friend Patrick gets $461 a month to live on [SSI is a fixed amount for all Texans], plus $72 in food stamps. From that, he manages to pay $325 a month rent [that's pretty low for around here], his utilities & phone, and he scrapes through the month. And, since he is so poor, Medicaid will pay for three prescriptions a month. In order to get his prescriptions, though, he must go to the county clinic. Other than the busses needed to get there, it is almost invariably an all-day affair -- and that just to get a recurring prescription filled. There is nothing lavish about it. I do not qualify for Medicaid, but I am fortunate enough to still have medical insurance from my employer: My (insured) '93 prescription expenses totaled $16,000. Then there's the issue of timeliness. It took me a year to receive my first SSDI payment, which at the time was pretty fast. [I've known of people who died before ever getting their first payment.] If I had not had private insurance, I would have been in dire straits. No, it's not a free-lunch system as some would have you believe.)

Now on to the march itself. You wrote "From what I learned and saw about the homosexual day in D.C., I sure wouldn't be proud to associate myself with it even if I were homosexual. The behavior was lewd and sickening. It appeared that homosexuals have no control over their sexual urges, they act like animals and do their "rights" wherever and whenever the urge hits. The news media, who was so in favor of homosexuality, would not even show the behavior on TV as they knew it would turn people off and those who had started to join in on the homosexuals side would change their minds. C-Span was the only station that carried the disgusting behavior. I don't know why they weren't arrested for indecent behavior and exposure. If it would have been heterosexual people acting that way they would have been arrested. Talk about discrimination."

From what you write, it's apparent that you saw some pretty outrageous things -- lewd sexual things and nude things in particular. I was there in person, so maybe I can help fill in some of the details. I did see bare-breasted women and some people in leather and drag. I did not see any kind of sex acts. There was a huge crowd, however, and there may have been some. (Attendance figures vary from 300,000 to 1,000,000. Whatever the number, it was a lot of people.) I was near the very start of the march. (I think I was around group eight of about 80 or so?) About halfway down the parade route, which was maybe 20 blocks or so, I sat down up on a building's steps, in the shade, to rest and watch the marchers. (When I was in the march, I could see many of the spectators but could not, of course, see the other marchers behind me.) So, from my vantage points both in and out of the march, I believe I can say as well as anyone what the people were like. As I mentioned before, I did see bare-breasted women and some people in leather and drag. But I saw a great many more people who were just like anyone in our family. Just regular folk who felt they were marching for equal treatment for all people. I bought a commemorative video that pretty much shows what I just described. I'd be happy to copy and send it to you if you are interested. I don't doubt you saw something rude, but it was definitely not the focus of the march I was at. Someone must have captured the most outlandish things they could and showed it as being representative of the bulk of the march.

You wrote "I believe that the homosexuals agenda is to destroy christianity and families." The vast majority of the homosexuals I know are Christians. I don't believe they have an agenda to destroy their own religion. And everyone -- straight or gay -- comes from a family. The primary resentment I hear from gay people toward their families is the same resentment I hear from straight people: That their family was really messed up when they were growing up. The thing that I do hear from some gay people that I don't hear from any straight people is stories of being disowned for being gay. (I've never heard of a straight person being disowned for being straight.) Given that, however, I still don't believe there is a gay agenda to destroy families.

Later in that same paragraph you wrote "They don't care about the rest of the world. The money being spent for a cure for AIDS (the homosexual disease) is creating a havoc with our medical system. The insistence of the homosexuals for a cure for aids at the expense of all other illnesses is a farce, especially since we all know HIV/AIDS is a virus and there has never been a cure for a virus." I wouldn't want research into other illnesses to stop. I believe the "at the expense of all other illnesses" belief is a result of lack of information. Here is what I have researched, which was accurate as of March 1992:

From Project Inform's March 1992 PI Perspective, "The Myth of 'Too Much Spending on AIDS'"

1. It is not true that more is spent on AIDS than cancer. Federal spending on cancer well exceeds that spend on AIDS - by several hundred million dollars, according to Bush Administration budget figures for 1992 and 1993.

2. The amount spent testing treatments for AIDS is shockingly small. Although the Bush Administration frequently claimed that $4 billion was spent annually on AIDS research, that figure was false. It included all federal dollars spent in any way remotely related to AIDS, of which only a fraction are actual research dollars. Congress believed it was spending just under $1 billion annually on AIDS research, but that figure was also misleading as it included many expenditures that play little or no role in the search for a cure.

For patients, perhaps the most meaningful definition of AIDS research is the amount spent testing treatments in people. In 1991 this figure amounted to approximately $150 million dollars, and the figure for 1992 was little different.

3. Unlike cancer and heart disease, AIDS is an infectious disease requiring special costly expenditures.

4. AIDS has not "plateaued" as critics charged. The first 100,000 cases of AIDS accumulated over the first 10 years of the epidemic. The total reached 200,000 less than 2 years later. This hardly sounds like a disease which has plateaued. The most conservative estimates show an annual growth rate of nearly 40%, with triple digit growth in some sub populations. The growth is slowing only among gay men. In contrast, the rate of heart disease is shrinking, not growing, as are some forms of cancer.

5. AIDS is a new and rapidly spreading disease, while deaths from cancer and heart disease are stable or declining. We are burdened today with funding the necessary basic research of a new disease. These early research costs for cancer and heart disease were borne generations ago. Federal dollars have been spent on cancer and heart disease for decades, while nothing was spent on AIDS, but critics of AIDS funding count only the current expenditures for these other illnesses.

6. AIDS is primarily a disease of the young, striking young men and women in their prime, as well as their children. The majority of deaths from heart disease occur in the elderly, as do most deaths from cancer. Although these illnesses also strike younger people, they do so at a far lower rate. When death rates are compared in specific age groups, the picture changes dramatically, with AIDS being the larger killer of young men and women. Crude comparisons which lump all cancer and heart disease patients in a single group without regard for age make no distinction between the effects of aging and the onset of disease in otherwise healthy individuals with long life spans ahead of them.

7. Although they remain serious problems, major progress has already been made against heart disease and cancer. Some cancers are routinely cured with early intervention, and treatment provides extended life in many others. Similarly, there are useful treatments for most forms of heart disease which permit many of those afflicted to live long and useful lives. Even heart transplant patients, for example, have a greater average life expectancy than the typical AIDS patient.

8. AIDS is no more a "behavioral disease" than many forms of cancer and heart disease. Few would seriously dispute the links between smoking and lung disease, dietary habits and some forms of heart disease, exposure and skin cancers, etc. As a society, we must resist as inhumane and immoral any effort to blame the victims of any disease for their illness. We must renew efforts to educate people about the behavioral links to many illnesses. But most importantly, we must treat all who are ill with compassion and kindness. This message is common to virtually all major religions and philosophies.

No, the problem is not that too much money is being spent on AIDS. On the contrary, there is still too little being spent on AIDS research. The problem is that the government spends far too little on health research overall, including AIDS, heart disease and cancer.

Nonetheless, our research into AIDS has been yielding benefits for all medical science. Though still not clearly understood, we have a much better understanding of the immune system. Now we know that immune system cells produce chemical messengers called "cytokines," and that these play an important role in anyone's immune system. (Experiments are underway on how to artificially manipulate cytokines to counteract immune system problems, not just with AIDS but with lupus, M.S. and arthritis.) Similarly, we used to think that "just" white blood cells handled infections. Now we've discovered "macrophages" and "dendritic cells" that are also critical. Through study of Kaposi's Sarcoma, we've learned that some cancers may have a viral link. The drug approval process has been quickened for people with life-threatening illnesses who are willing to try drugs before they are fully proven. And we are beginning to learn how to restore people's immune systems -- critical not just for AIDS patients but anyone with an autoimmune disease (lupus and M.S. come to mind) and for those who have had chemotherapy -- by removing immune cells, multiplying them outside the body, and reinfusing them. This research has potential benefits for many people.

You also mentioned that "we all know HIV/AIDS is a virus and there has never been a cure for a virus." So far this has been correct, as far as curing a virus. We have had good success at helping inoculate people against viruses, however: Influenza, measles, chickenpox, some forms of pneumonia, smallpox, and poliomyelitis (polio) -- all caused by viruses -- are examples.

On another front, you mentioned the common perception that AIDS is the homosexual disease. 70% of AIDS cases worldwide are in heterosexuals and are heterosexually transmitted. It has only been in the Western world, where AIDS is much less prevalent, that this is not the case. And even that is changing. Here's an article from the March 12, 1994, issue of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution:

HETEROSEXUAL AIDS RATE UP SHARPLY
By Anne Rochell

AIDS among heterosexuals is rising dramatically, accounting for the largest proportionate increase in reported cases in the United States last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The number of AIDS cases that can be traced to sexual contact between a man and a woman rose 130 percent in 1993, compared with a 109 percent increase for all other exposure groups combined, the CDC said.

The heterosexual population is "accounting for a larger portion of the epidemic every year," said CDC analyst Pat Flemming. "The heterosexual epidemic has accounted for a large or the largest percentage increase in the past several years."

Since AIDS was recognized in 1981, the proportion of people contracting the deadly virus from heterosexual sex has increased more than tenfold -- from less than 1 percent to almost 10 percent of the total AIDS cases, the CDC said in its annual update. Conversely, the proportion of men getting AIDS from having sex with other men has decreased from 75 percent to 47 percent of all cases.

This is a bit of a tangent, but while we're on the subject of AIDS I might as well mention condoms. The reason why is I have heard criticism of campaigns promoting condom usage to reduce the spread of AIDS. Though there are certainly closely-related issues like whether talking about sex encourages people to actually have it before they're married, etc., and these are valid issues of discussion, there is one bit of misinformation that I want to clear up. That is the subject of reliability. I think we all know that condoms are not 100% effective. But one inaccurate statistic I have heard is that condoms have microscopic holes that allow HIV to pass through. When I hear it what is quoted is that researchers studying surgical gloves made out of latex found "channels of 5 microns that penetrated the entire thickness of the glove." What is not mentioned is that the quality of latex condoms is higher than that of latex gloves. (This is from the CDC's National AIDS Hotline Training Bulletin, #60, August 4, 1993, p. 2:) "Condoms are made differently than gloves. Condoms are double-dipped in latex while gloves are only single-dipped." That double-dipping eliminates those holes.

Now it's time to address what I feel is the main part of your letter, the section about where I'd written I went to D.C. "to do my part to counteract the lies, hysteria and hatred being promulgated by the so-called 'religious right' in its push to eliminate civil rights for homosexuals." You were offended by that. I can understand how you would feel that way, given that you did not have any explanation from me to explain what I was referring to. Let me try to correct that now.

Probably the best place to start is the big overview. We both know that gays and lesbians are portrayed by the religious right as awful people. It is based on that initial belief that the religious right has been in a "religious war," as they have called it, against gays and lesbians. My direct, personal contact with thousands -- and friendships with hundreds -- of gays and lesbians tells a different story, however. These people may be different from you -- as are Catholics, Canadians, blacks, what have you -- but they have the same collection of positive and negative traits as anyone, including you. It is because of that direct contact and knowledge of gay people, including myself and my partner, that I feel that we are being lied about by the religious right.

For example, perhaps one of the best-known pieces that the religious right has put out about gay people is the video The Gay Agenda. I have a copy of it. The story it tells about what gay people want and do is moving and scary. It is also inflammatory and extremely inaccurate.

The Gay Agenda

What someone has done is largely taken footage of outrageous sections of a parade and used these as a basis for intimating that all gay people are like what is being shown. Similarly, "statistics" are quoted about gay sex practices. In particular, Dr. Stanley Monteith (who is an orthopedic surgeon and former John Birch Society member) gets on screen and says:
"100% of homosexuals engage in fellatio," "about 93% engage in rectal sex," "about 92% engage in something called rimming, which is licking in and around your partner's anus...you couldn't do this without some ingestion of feces," "fisting involved about 47% of homosexuals," "29% engage in something called 'golden showers'," "then there's something called 'scat' and about 17% of homosexuals engaged in that. And that was actively eating human feces..."
The statistics he quotes are from Paul Cameron, a decertified "psychologist" with the Family Research Institute (not to be confused with the Family Research Council). Cameron was thrown out of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) for falsifying data. He is also the one who started the myth about gays using gerbils for sexual pleasure. That particular item has been disproved by surveys of every emergency room in the country.

Paul Cameron and the Family Research Institute

Cameron's Family Research Institute puts out inaccurate antigay pamphlets. For example:

Cameron also operated out of Lincoln Nebraska, calling himself "ISIS," Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, a non-profit scientific and educational corporation. Operating under the ISIS name, he put out:

I received a packet from a California psychology academic on him:
"In 1984, all members of the American Psychological Association (APA) received official written notice that "Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists...."

"In 1985, the American Sociological Association adopted a resolution which included the assertion the following: "WHEREAS Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism; WHEREAS Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research....The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research."

To sum up, those "statistics" quoted in The Gay Agenda are, at best, gross distortions. Later, the video goes on to show NAMBLA marching in a parade. A voice-over says: "Homosexuals have a long history of focusing on youth. The North American Man/Boy Love Association has worked for two decades to abolish age-of-consent laws so that adult males can legally solicit sex from boys.
Then Joseph Nicolosi, author of "Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality" speaks about his fear of adolescent boys -- who often sexually experiment -- going to counselors who are "pro-gay" and being told that they're gay because of that experimentation.

That NAMBLA is mentioned first, and then the concern about boys being "recruited" is hardly an accident. NAMBLA does exist and it does want to lower age of consent laws, but it is representative of only a tiny percentage of gay people.

Previous letter | Next part of letter
Letter index | Cast of characters | Family tree
Wes & Tom's Cool Site
Guestbook!

© 1996-2023 by Wes