A Whisper of AIDS_awhisperofaids

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AIDS patients experience isolation and rejection at home and in society.To make the matter worse, our silence over the iue of AIDS has led to the uncontrollable spread of the disease.Mary Fisher, who contracted HIV from her husband, broke the silence with her landmark speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, where she brought the convention hall and millions of television viewers to tears with her call for compaion and action in the face of AIDS.Le than three months ago, at platform hearings in Salt Lake City, I asked the Republican Party to break the silence which has been kept over the iue of HIV/AIDS.I have come tonight to bring our silence to an end.I bear a meage of challenge, not self-congratulation.I want your attention, not your applause.I would never have asked to be HIV-positive.But I believe that in all things there is a good purpose, and so i stand before you, and before the nation, gladly.The reality of AIDS is brutally clear.Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying;a million more are infected.Worldwide, 40 million, 60 million, or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years.In the context of an election year, I ask you--here, in this great hall, or listening in the quiet of your home--to recognize that the AIDS virus is not a political creature.It does not care whether you are Democrat or Republican.It does not ask whether you are black or white, young or old.Tonight, I represent an AIDS community whose members came reluctantly from every segment of American society.Though I am white and a mother, I am one with a black infant struggling with tubes in a Philadelphia hospital.Though I am female and contracted this disease in marriage, and enjoy the warm support of my family I am one with the lonely gay man sheltering a flickering candle from the cold wind of his family's rejection.This is not a distant threat;it is a present danger.The rate of infection is increasing fastest among women and children.Largely unknown a decade ago, AIDS is the third leading killer of young adult Americans today--but it won't be third for long.Because, unlike other diseases, this one travels.Adolescents don't give each other cancer or heart disease because they believe they are in love.But HIV is different.And we have helped it along--we have killed each other--with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence.We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long.Because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks: Are you human? And this is the right question: Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being.They are human.They have not earned cruelty and they do not deserve meanne.They don't benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts.Each of them is a person.Not evil, deserving of our judgement;not victims, longing for our pity.They are people, ready for support and worthy of compaion.My call to the nation is a plea for awarene.If you believe you are safe, you are in danger.Because I was not hemophiliac, I was not at risk.Because I was not gay, I was not at risk.Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk.Tonight, HIV marches firmly towards AIDS in more than a million American homes, littering its pathway with the bodies of the young--young men, young women, young parents, and young children.One of families is mine.If it is true that HIV inevitably turns to AIDS, then my children will inevitably turn to orphans.My family has been a rock of support.My 84-year-old father, who has pursued the healing of the nations, will not accept the premise that he cannot heal his daughter.My mother refuses to be broken;she still calls at midnight to tell wonderful jokes that make me laugh.Sisters and friends, and my brother Phililp(whose birthday is today)--all have helped carry me over the hardest places.I am bleed,richly and deeply bleed, to have such a family.But not all of you have been so bleed.You are HIV-positive but dare not say it.You have lost loved ones, but you dared not whisper the word AIDS.You weep silently;you grieve alone.I have a meage for you: It is not you who should feel shame;It is we.We who tolerate ignorance and practice prejudice,we who have taught you to fear.We must break the silence, makeing it safe for you to reach out for

compaion.It is our task to seek safety for our children, not in quiet denial but in effective action.To the millions of you who are grieving, who are frightened, who have contracted AIDS firsthand: Have courage and you will find support.To the millions who are strong, I iue this plea: Set aside prejudice and politics to make room for compaion and sound policy.To all within the sound of my voice, I appeal: Learn with me the leon of history and of grace, so my children will not be afraid to say the word AIDS when I am gone.Then their children, and yours, may not need to whisper it at all.