Times Poll on AIDS

This note is in response to your opinion poll regarding persons with AIDS. As your poll indicates, no amount of public education will overcome widespread prejudice, something homosexuals know only too well. While I can’t argue with public opinion (and ignorance), I do feel reporting this kind of information only inflames an already sensitive situation and increases (or sanctions) the public’s fears of coming in contact with those who are ill with AIDS.

It had been suggested to me by Neal Schramm of the Los Angeles AIDS Task Force that as a person with AIDS, my civil liberties might be in jeopardy. At the time I laughed, accused him of being hysterical and likened the situation to the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. To hear that even 15% of your poll favor tattooing AIDS people and even more favor requiring papers for infected people only confirms Schramm’s darkest suspicions.

I write this response for all those suffering who are too sick to get out of bed and say, “Enough is enough.” Being diagnosed with AIDS is a personal tragedy and not yet a crime against the state. I want to state publicly and to reassure all your readers that as long as I am able to stand and fight, no one is going to quarantine me, irrespective of circumstances. No one is going to stop me from gainful employment. Lest we forget, persons with AIDS are not monsters. They are still our sons and daughters, spouses and even parents who continue to contribute to society. As ill Americans, we need support and encouragement in the face of this hopeless public attitude. Finally, let us all remember that as the saying goes that “those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes.”

STEPHEN M. CHAPOT

Los Angeles