How Did the Deadly Virus of Hate Weaken America? : AIDS: For 12 years, the country’s moral immune system was allowed to deteriorate. Today, there’s hope that legacy will be reversed.

The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is a perfect metaphor for it.

The malignant neglect of the past 12 years has led to the breakdown of our country’s immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically. Why was our immune system not stronger? Why did we not have better resistance to that deadly virus of hatred?

What’s happened these last 12 years is that bigotry was legitimized. Rules were made by and for white, Christian, heterosexual males. All the rest of us were left out. And a disease that has infected far more heterosexuals than homosexuals throughout the world was dismissed as a gay disease with that official, homophobic wink--implying that those deaths didn’t really matter.

I will never forgive my fellow actor Ronald Reagan for his refusal to even utter the word AIDS for seven years, and for blocking adequate funding for research and education, which could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Then came George Bush, once the moderate, who, in a Faustian bargain, allied himself with the same primitive, gay-bashing, immoral minority.

I sat and watched the Republican convention in utter disbelief. How could the Pat Buchanans and the Pat Robertsons, presuming to be spokespersons for God, spew such doctrines of divisiveness, intolerance and inhumanity? Who is that God?

A lot of us of different political outlook came together that week. The radical right linked the issues for us and reminded us of how much was at stake as he branded the concerns of women, gays, minorities and Democrats as un-American. How dare he call us un-American!

When Pat Buchanan thundered: “We stand with George Bush against the amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women,” I wondered: Who is Pat Buchanan to pronounce anybody’s love invalid? How can he deny the profound love felt by one human being for another--a love that all too often takes them to the bitter end, holding each other in hospices and hospitals all over this nation?

The far right finally went too far. The country looked straight into the face of hate and the majority of the people said “Enough!” Enough racism, enough sexism, enough gay-bashing, name-calling and discrimination--enough extremism.

And we elected new leaders. Women, gays, Jews, people of color, working people, old people, young people, all of us who valued ourselves enough to demand that our voices be heard, all of us who cherish common decency and common sense revolted and out-organized, out-financed and out-thought those who despise what is best about this country--our cultural, racial and religious diversity.

I feel we are entering a time of healing. Finally, we have a President whose agenda is compassionate and caring and who I think realizes that the most cost-effective thing to do is spend money on AIDS research and patient care with the same sense of urgency that has been devoted to the military budget or bailing out the failed savings-and-loans. He has said that “AIDS policy can now be made based on sound scientific and public health principles--not on panic, politics and prejudice.”

Now that the Cold War is over, it’s time to stop living with the paranoia of what if and start facing the reality of what is . What is , is a real crisis in education, in health care, in the economy. What is , is the need for a nation to feel secure.

But how can we feel secure when our teen-agers are not being educated about AIDS--when, according to the World Health Organization, by the year 2000 most new HIV infections may be found in women? And they also estimate that, by then, the figures could reach a staggering 40 million people infected--10 million of them will be orphans.

In 1986, I saw a play by Larry Kramer called “The Normal Heart.” Set against the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, it’s about everybody’s right to love.

The main character, Ned Weeks, founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, only to be thrown out because he was too loud, too aggressive, too accusatory, too angry.

Months later, discouraged, disheartened, sick of fighting his friends as well as his enemies, sick of the stupidity, worn down, he faces his lover who’s dying of AIDS. And his lover looks up at him and says: “Please learn to fight again. Don’t lose that anger. Just have a little patience and forgiveness--for yourself as well.” After his lover dies, Ned cries out: “Why didn’t I fight harder! Why didn’t I picket the White House all by myself if nobody would come?”

We’re filled with hope right now that some day, somehow, we will see an end to this human tragedy. But let us vow, if need be, to picket the White House all by ourselves--until somebody comes.