And The Band Played On

“Don’t offend the gays and don’t inflame the homophobes. These were the twin horns on which the handling of this epidemic would be torn from the first day of epidemic. Inspired by the best intentions, such arguments pave the road toward the destination good intentions inevitably lead.” 

During the publication of the CDC’s newsletter detailing instances of Pneumocystis pneumonia in gay men, the original title of the article, which referred to homosexuality, is dropped. With the advent of the epidemic and its initial connection to the gay community, thus begins the visible hesitancy of everyone to tiptoe around the topic of homosexuality.

“How very American, he thought, to look at a disease as homosexual or heterosexual, as if viruses had the intelligence to choose between different inclinations of human behavior. Those Americans are simply obsessed by sex.” 

Dr. Jacques Leibowitch reads the article about the cases of gay men with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and immediately thinks of several of his own patients exhibiting similar symptoms. He makes an interesting social commentary about American culture when he notes that instead of focusing on the disease, the Americans were busy thinking of the implications of a person’s sexuality.

“The connections started falling into place. Of the first nineteen cases of GRID in Los Angeles, four had had sex with Gaetan Dugas. Another four cases, meanwhile had gone to bed with people who had had sex with Dugas, establishing sexual links between nine of the nineteen Los Angeles cases.” 

Gaetan Dugas becomes the notorious Patient Zero when it appears that most infected cases covered by the CDC are linked to him. At this point, it emerges that the disease can be spread through sexual transmission, although the CDC cannot make this claim confidently yet. Despite knowing his status, Gaetan still has sex as an act of anger, revenge, and sadness. 

“By now, somebody was dying almost every day in America from an epidemic that still did not have a name.” 

Before it becomes known as AIDS, it was called various names such as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), ACIDS (Acquired Community Immune Deficiency Syndrome), and CAIDS (Community Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). All of these terms troubled the CDC because they wanted the disease’s focus to be on the immune deficiency it causes and not on the homosexual community. These struggles revealed why AIDS was perceived as a gay disease rather than an epidemic. 

“Enno Poersch was amazed at the turnout. These weren’t political people—they were the party crowd he had danced with on Fire Island; finally, they were caring about something other than the ‘four D’s’ of drugs, dick, disco, and dish.”

Until familiar members of the gay community were being struck with the disease, no one cared about the epidemic and many gay men focused on their hedonistic lifestyles. When the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) begins, health is not a concern. However, with more people dying, survival becomes a movement for the gay community. 

“She recognized it as the socially prominent international trade consultant who had died of encephalitis in August, the one who so vehemently had denied being gay.” 

Selma Dritz discovers that a blood donor was infected with AIDS after his blood is given to a baby who then shows symptoms of the disease. For the first time, they are able to see a blood transfusion case in which AIDS is transmitted. There is a feeling of despair over what it will mean for those who are closeted donors and for those receiving their transfusions in the future.  

“There would soon be a fifth ‘H’ to add to the ‘Four H’s’ of the disease risk groups—homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, and Haitians. The fifth ‘H,’ they said, would be house staff.” 

Without proper understanding of AIDS and its transmission, medical personnel are fearful, with some nurses refusing to tend to infected patients. Because the disease is misunderstood, even doctors and researchers do not have the answers and some become paranoid. Because the disease continues to have close connections with demographics seen by many as not a part of the respectable mainstream (drug addicts, gay men), further bias arises with the spread of the disease.

“Now AIDS became more newsworthy, particularly as the implications of transfusion AIDS sunk in. Because any chance accident might put one in need of a transfusion, just about everybody was now at risk for AIDS, it seemed.” 

With the possibility of AIDS becoming transmitted through blood transfusions, the epidemic finally was being viewed as just that, now that AIDS could impact the heterosexual community. Although the notion of AIDS being a “gay disease” is not completely dispelled, the disease gained a higher chance of being covered by the media, who had been wary of talking about AIDS and homosexuality. 

“‘I am sick of guys who moan that giving up careless sex until this thing blows over is worse than death,’ Kramer wrote. ‘How can they value life so little and cocks and asses so much?’” 

Here, Larry writes about the gay lifestyle, and that many in the homosexual community are unwilling to let go of being promiscuous, despite knowing the danger AIDS poses. While this lack of safety may seem difficult to fathom, sexual liberation had the potential to be a foundational tenet of a gay man’s identity; to give up such a lifestyle was seen by some as limiting who they were. Larry goes on to write his piece, “1,112 and Counting,” in which he criticizes New York for doing nothing to help solve the AIDS crisis. It becomes an article that makes AIDS a political issue. 

“I don’t know what to say except that I love you.” 

When Rick hears from his uncle, Gary Walsh, that he has AIDS, he is astounded and also does not know what response to give to an epidemic that is still unknown and not discussed outside of certain groups. Yet, for those that have an inkling, they know the prognosis is not good and with that knowledge, Rick says what is honest in the face of mortality. 

“For the good of the people of this country and the world, we should no longer accept the claims of inadequate funding and we should no longer be content with the trivial resources offered. Our past and present efforts have been and are far too small and we can’t be proud. It is time to do more. It is time to do what is right.”

Dr. Don Francis writes a memo to Dr. Walter Dowdle on the government’s lack of assistance for the epidemic thus far, even while AIDS is claiming lives daily. At this point, the lack of resourcefulness in dealing with the epidemic has become ridiculous; even though funding is available, no one seems to want to offer the amount of help that is truly needed. 

“Politics knows only two principles: loyalty and revenge.” 

With Mayor Dianne Feinstein facing a recall election, she sides with her allies at the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. This proves to be disastrous for the gay community as the Toklas Club is against the bathhouse closures, especially because the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club is for it.  

“The second epidemic had commenced—the epidemic of fear.” 

When Dr. Anthony Fauci implies that AIDS can be spread through household contact in his article, the media and the nation becomes hysterical. Because there are no campaigns or educational strategies on AIDS, fear sets in, due to ignorance about the disease, and how it is actually spread.

“For some, it appeared that donating blood was an act that could overcome their personal fears about having AIDS. Thus, blood banks occasionally became the stages for gay men living out the psychodramas of denial.” 

The blood donor screening processes do not work and become havens in which closeted men could prove they were not gay and gay men could convince themselves that they were not infected. When more infected cases from transfusions come to the fore, the blood industry could no longer keep holding on to their ignorant belief that AIDS could be spread through blood transfusions.

“You’re a sexual Nazi.” 

Bill Kraus writes an essay encouraging gay men to reconsider their lifestyles, which results in criticism from the gay community. He becomes branded as a prude and even a homophobe working to disband the liberation achieved by gays. For those that are against him, it shows that the gay community is not ready to accept a different reality because that would mean that they would have to redefine themselves. 

“AIDSpeak was rarely employed to motivate action; rather, it was most articulately pronounced when justifying inertia. Nobody meant any harm by this; quite to the contrary, AIDSpeak was the tongue designed to make everyone content. AIDSpeak was the language of good intentions in the AIDS epidemic; AIDSpeak was a language of death.” 

Throughout the book, Shilts refers to AIDSpeak as a polite, neutral way of describing the epidemic that did more harm than good. With AIDSpeak, issues do not take on a political or urgent tone. Yet, at the same time, because it prevents the actual, uncomfortable conversations from taking place, it encourages no real action. 

“The situation was achingly familiar to Larry. It was a truism to people active in the gay movement that the greatest impediments to homosexuals’ progress often were not heterosexual bigots but closeted homosexuals.” 

As Larry observes, the obstacle to gaining funding, spreading awareness, or even eliciting concern for the epidemic is many times the closeted gay man in power who is too ashamed to admit to his own identity. At the home of a health director of a prestigious institute, Larry connects that the lack of money from this agency is directly tied to the man’s own closeted insecurities. 

“The bathhouses weren’t open because the owners didn’t understand they were spreading death. They understood that. The bathhouse were open because they were still making money.” 

The delay in the closure of the bathhouses are not merely political; their reasons are also financial, as they are profitable. With gay sexual liberation, these institutions are popular because they permit gay men to be who they are and to keep up with the hedonism of the times. In this process, it is more than an industry but a space where a homosexual man is always welcomed. 

“What delayed the NCI, therefore, was not the difficulty in finding the virus but their reluctance to even look.” 

When the discovery of AIDS takes the spotlight, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) does not waste time in taking credit. However, it is the French who discover it, and it takes them only three weeks, while for the NCI, it takes almost a year. Despite having more resources than the CDC, the NCI considered themselves too busy and superior to study AIDS until Dr. Gallo and his team are ordered to research its causes full-time.

“Feinstein countered her critics by forthrightly demanding that Silverman ‘have the guts’ to shut down the bathhouses before the imminent Gay Freedom Day Parade. ‘You go to the AIDS Ward and you see young people dying and you feel a strain,’ she said. ‘Dr. Silverman should take his medical information, make a decision and go with it—not count hands to see what is popular.’” 

On the topic of the bathhouse closures in San Francisco, politics strains a public health decision. Dr. Silverman is reluctant to make a decision for fear of his image, and he wishes the gay community would solve the problem itself by choosing what they feel is right for them. However, within the gay community, the bathhouse issue is complex, as it is also strained with politics and a lack of proper AIDS education and acceptance of the data.

“It seemed every john looking for action that weekend started negotiations by asking, ‘Are you the one with AIDS?’” 

After the arrest of infected prostitute and intravenous drug user Silvana Strangis, the media and others stigmatize her, as she represents the threat that a person could get AIDS from a heterosexual encounter. Although her case gave AIDS attention, it also revealed societal prejudices, in that AIDS meant nothing if one was a homosexual, a drug addict, or a prostitute. 

“The butcher’s bill was so high that long-tolerated transgressions could no longer be ignored. Reckoning was at hand.” 

At this point, it appears that Dr. Robert Gallo took his samples of the virus from the French team. Although Montagnier has been suspicious, out of decency he does not want to create a scandal. However, this presents a problem, because it means that the cause of HIV is not related to Gallo’s HTLV-III, but LAV, the family of lentiviruses suggested before by Montagnier. This delay in understanding and the rivalry between Gallo and the French team splits the focus of researchers.

“Still, Conant was thrilled with anything that brought the media spotlight to the epidemic. ‘Now there is a new risk group for AIDS,’ he told a reporter. ‘The rich and famous.’” 

With Rock Hudson’s diagnosis, AIDS was no longer relegated to the common person and homosexuality was now at the forefront, showing itself in the masculine Hudson, who played heterosexual characters. Most importantly, it showed that the disease could affect anyone.