Council Candidate Tests AIDS Positive
Both leading candidates for a City Council seat are openly gay and one announced Thursday he has tested positive for the AIDS virus.
“In one sense, it’s nobody’s business that I’ve tested positive for the presence of the HIV virus in my blood,” Tom Duane wrote in a letter mailed to 40,000 households on Manhattan’s West Side. “But I am a candidate for public office, and I believe in being candid.”
Duane is running against Liz Abzug, daughter of former Rep. Bella Abzug, to represent a newly configured district that includes the city’s largest concentration of homosexuals. The winner of the Democratic primary there is considered a virtual shoo-in for the general election.
Duane is the first candidate for public office in New York to disclose his positive HIV status, said Gregory King of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign Fund.
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