AIDS Threatens to Be ‘Biggest Political Issue’ : Welfare of Majority vs. Rights of Minority

The deadly new scourge of AIDS is recasting one of democracy’s oldest and thorniest political dilemmas--the conflict between the rights of a minority and the welfare of the majority.

The tension building between the two groups threatens to turn AIDS into what New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo recently called “the biggest political issue in the country.”

The minority, in this case, is the nation’s male homosexual population, among whose ranks acquired immune deficiency syndrome has so far wrought its greatest havoc. The majority is the rest of the citizenry, including many who see gays not just as potential victims of AIDS but also as potential carriers.

Because it is invariably fatal and no cure is in sight, AIDS transcends ordinary political concerns. While friction between the gay community and the rest of the country has been relatively moderate thus far, mainly limited to disputes over such things as restrictions on public bathhouses, some politicians warn that the continued rapid growth of AIDS could transform what is now just an undercurrent in the political mainstream into a high-profile, high-explosive issue.

Although some evidence indicates that Democrats would have the most to lose from escalation of AIDS as an issue, its potential impact has politicians in both parties worried.

And some analysts believe that the significance of the political controversy over AIDS transcends partisan lines.

Civil libertarians fear that the spread of the disease beyond the few big cities where it is now concentrated--New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco--might turn it into a weapon against gay activists and their political allies.

‘Could Lead to Purge’

“This could lead to a period of purge and recrimination on a wide scale,” said Thomas B. Stoddard, legislative director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

For gay political activists, AIDS poses a potential threat to the political advances homosexuals have made in recent years.

“There is no question that people on the right are trying to use AIDS as part of an attack on gay rights,” said Jeff Levi, political director of the National Gay Task Force.

However, some gay leaders believe that such tactics from the right will ultimately serve to mobilize gays politically.

“To a degree we are on the defensive,” said Tom Chorlton, executive director of the National Assn. of Gay and Lesbian Democratic Clubs. “But to a degree we are not going to accept that position.”

Conservatives also see reason for concern.

“If the Reagan Administration bureaucracy manages to mishandle the issue and it becomes a much larger public health crisis, then at some point it becomes a question of ‘Why did they fail?’ ” said Georgia Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich, founder of the Conservative Opportunity Society. “Then it becomes a downside proposition for people who, in effect, have been defending the Reagan Administration.”

One reason AIDS has not generated more political heat so far, apart from its limited geographical focus, is that most politicians have been reluctant to put much public emphasis on the issue, an attitude that springs partly from squeamishness and partly from political common sense.

Moral Judgments

“For years and years we couldn’t say that blacks get lower test scores than whites, because then you were considered a racist,” said New Right leader Paul Weyrich, who has been trying to stir up interest in the AIDS issue among conservative lawmakers. “Well, now you can’t say that the immoral behavior of certain people is causing this problem because immediately people say: ‘Who are you to make moral judgments?’ ”

Republican National Committee Chairman Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. acknowledged that some questions that have arisen over AIDS, such as testing the blood of military personnel and allowing young AIDS victims to attend school, are legitimate political issues.

“They are issues in and of themselves,” he said. “But that’s different from having one of the two national political parties organizing a campaign using this disease as a focal point.”

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House health subcommittee that handles most bills related to AIDS, said: “I think it creates problems for anybody if AIDS is politicized in a way that stirs up public fears.”

Compromise of Liberties

Asked during a recent NBC television documentary on AIDS whether the government might have to “step in and compromise” fundamental civil liberties to curb the spread of AIDS, Waxman declared: “Absolutely. There’s nothing that should take a higher priority than stopping the spread of this disease.”

In a later interview, however, Waxman contended that while efforts to control AIDS hold the “potential” for conflicting with civil liberties, no one had yet made a “constructive” proposal for combatting AIDS that would have to be balanced against an intrusion on civil liberties.

Instead, Waxman said, the battle against AIDS should rely mainly on educating people with “an active sex life,” that they have a special responsibility to prevent the spread of the disease. “I don’t think you can enforce this in a mandatory way when you have a million people involved,” Waxman said.

Political Battlefronts

Nonetheless, there are already signs that anxiety about AIDs is appearing on the political battlefronts. The New York Civil Liberties Union’s Stoddard believes that by calling for the closing of New York’s bathhouses during the city’s recent mayoral campaign, Diane McGrath, the unsuccessful Republican-Conservative candidate, added to the pressure on incumbent Democratic Mayor Edward I. Koch and Democratic Gov. Cuomo, who had previously put off any action on the bathhouses.

Shortly before Election Day, Cuomo proposed regulations to crack down on the bathhouses, and Koch agreed to enforce them. “Once she (McGrath) raised the issue, then Koch and Cuomo had to do something,” Stoddard said.

Cuomo’s Washington counsel, Brad Johnson, contended that McGrath’s comments were “irrelevant” to Cuomo’s decision on the bathhouses. Johnson said the timing of the decision stemmed from the fact that Cuomo wanted to be sure the procedures he established would not lead to prolonged legal challenges.

Issue in Houston Race

AIDS also became an issue in the mayoral election in Houston, where former Mayor Louie Welch sought to take advantage of fear of the disease in challenging incumbent Kathy Whitmire, who had been elected with gay support and had championed gay rights. Though Whitmire was reelected with nearly 60% of the vote, two of her allies on the City Council were forced into runoffs.

“The AIDS issue was not decisive, but for a single issue it demonstrated a lot of punch and impact,” said Richard Murray, University of Houston political scientist. Surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that concern about AIDS had “a significant impact” on about 20% of the voters, according to Murray.

Moreover, Whitmire would have been hurt more by the issue, Murray said, if the Houston electorate had included more lower-middle-class and working-class whites, who seem more worried about AIDS and its ties to the homosexual community than the blacks and upper-middle-class whites who make up the majority of Houston’s electorate.

Proposals for Research

At the national level, where most of the political debate about AIDS has focused on proposals for funding research, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) has been spearheading a drive for legislation aimed at curbing the disease by restricting homosexuals.

Dannemeyer complains that his legislative package--which would make it a felony for an individual in “a high risk group” to donate blood, prohibit health care workers with AIDS from working in medical facilities and cut off federal funds to cities that fail to close bathhouses suspected of spreading AIDS--has so far been bottled up in Waxman’s health subcommittee. If put to a vote, Dannemeyer contends, most of his proposals would pass “overwhelmingly.”

Lending credence to his claim is the 417-8 roll-call vote last month on a proposal by another Californian, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), giving the U.S. surgeon general authority to close down bathhouses and massage parlors linked to the spread of AIDS.

Waxman, who was among the yeas, had contended during the floor debate that Dornan’s proposal did not give the surgeon general any authority he did not already have. He later said of the bill: “It didn’t do anything I disagreed with. I didn’t understand why eight people objected to it.”

Political Clout

As for Dannemeyer’s proposals, Waxman argues they are not valid, though he acknowledges that they might have considerable political clout.

“There is no doubt,” Waxman said, “that if you can intimidate politicians with the idea that they might be labeled pro-homosexual or pro the spread of AIDS, they will vote to protect themselves.”

Similarly, Barry Lynn, legislative director of the ACLU’s Washington office, said of AIDS: “This is one of those issues where the fewer votes that come to the floor the better.”

For his part, Dannemeyer is waiting for suitable legislation to be called up for a vote so he can offer his AIDS bills as amendments. In the meantime, his proposals seem to be serving as rallying points for like-minded politicians.

The Republican Study Committee, an unofficial group of about 140 conservative legislators, held public hearings of its own on the AIDS problem and now, said Executive Director Robert S. McAdam, its members are “very interested” in mustering public and House support for Dannemeyer’s proposals.

Dangerous ‘Pandering’

Howard Phillips, head of the Conservative Caucus, a right-wing grass-roots lobbying organization, is planning a mailing to some of his 750,000 members to get support for Dannemeyer’s proposals. “I think AIDS is an important issue,” said Phillips, who contends that the public health has been endangered because political leaders have been “pandering” to the homosexual community.

If AIDS takes on greater importance as a national political issue, the Democrats seem to be in more jeopardy than the GOP. In part, this is because of the reputation of the national party leadership in recent years for permissiveness on so-called social issues. “I think the Democrats are more at risk,” said Houston’s Prof. Murray, “because the whole range of morality and life style issues are ones that usually cause more trouble for Democratic candidates than Republicans.”

In addition, the Democrats have opposed discrimination against homosexuals, most recently in their 1984 national platform in which they pledged to support legislation to oppose all forms of discrimination, specifically including bias based on “sexual orientation.”

Ban on Discrimination

The party’s own rules specifically ban discrimination in the conduct of party affairs on grounds of sexual orientation. And Chorlton, of the National Assn. of Gay and Lesbian Democratic Clubs, said there are more than 50 such groups around the country, compared with seven clubs affiliated with the GOP.

Nevertheless, perhaps because of the increased public concern about AIDS, some Democratic leaders seem uneasy about acknowledging their party’s ties to the gay movement, which has been increasingly active politically in recent years.

In response to a question at a press breakfast, Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced), chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, called it “misleading and irresponsible” to suggest that the Democrats had alliances with homosexual political activists. “If you look at the gay community it’s generally a wealthy community and it has very strong alliances to the Republican Party,” Coelho said.

“Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California was very involved with the gay community and their money. George Deukmejian gets a lot of support from the gay community, from some of the very wealthy gay community in Los Angeles.

‘Not a Partisan Issue’

“The public is concerned about AIDS because it is a medical problem and it affects all kinds of people and people are dying as a result,” Coelho added. “I just don’t think it’s a partisan issue.”

On that point Coelho is supported by an unlikely source--hard right spokesman Weyrich, who says that AIDS is neither a Republican-Democrat nor liberal-conservative issue. “What it is is an issue that separates those who believe private actions have no public consequences from those who believe that they do,” he said. “You just can’t put it in liberal-conservative terms.”

As Rep. Gingrich pointed out, the public debate over AIDS has produced what he calls “a role reversal” from the normal positions taken by conservative and liberals.

“You have us (conservatives) arguing for a general public policy that puts society at large above individual behavior,” Gingrich said. “And the other side (liberals) is arguing that you have to be real careful because you don’t want to take risks that infringe on these folks’ individual activities.”

In the long run, Gingrich said, the implications of the AIDS debate may extend beyond conventional political parameters.

“In a broader sense, if it’s taken along with the issue of competing in international economics, for the baby boom generation and their children it’s part of a series of things happening that suggest life may be a lot more difficult than they thought,” he said.

“It does turn out that promiscuity and drugs and running around in those circles can have consequences that are very, very expensive,” Gingrich said. “I think it’s part of the sobering up of America.”