Dear Supervisors: How About New Vote on AIDS Bias?

Note to Board of Supervisors:

Bravo! Nobody is quite sure what got into you, and the big-money boys must be wondering how soon the fever will pass, but your steps toward eliminating gifts and other freebies deserve salute.

If it’s true that what you have in mind would be the most stringent anti-gift policy in the state, so much the better.

And there’s no need to take it so personally, Supervisor Riley. No one is accusing you or your colleagues of soliciting favors. But maybe you need to be out of office for a while to realize that there’s no good reason for public officials to take anything from lobbyists. In short, you have the burden of proof backward: The point is not to convince the public that the gifts don’t buy access. Rather, it’s why you should get them in the first place.

But enough of that. What I really want to do this morning is encourage you to forge ahead while the fire of reformist zeal still burns within you.

Why not really let ‘er rip and pass an ordinance that would prohibit discrimination against people who are either HIV-positive or who have AIDS?

As you know, you’re just one vote away from passing it, anyway, since it lost a year ago on a 3-2 vote. One of those three votes came from Don Roth, and look what happened to him.

Hello, Bill Steiner. You can be the third vote the board needs, and if the board gets the third vote, it might as well make it unanimous.

I know, Mr. Steiner, that you come out of the social service world and that, especially, you know all about HIV-infected children. You probably know there’s no real reason to discriminate against HIV-infected workers, students or people looking for housing. Why not put the board over the hump and allow it to join the other metropolitan areas in California that have adopted such a measure? Harriett Wieder and Tom Riley have supported the measure in the past, and there’s been scuttlebutt that Riley thought he could eventually win over a third vote. He shouldn’t have to lobby you, Mr. Steiner. Why don’t you make it easy for him and Wieder and slip them a note that you’ll support the ordinance?

This is not a revolutionary step. All an ordinance would do is prevent HIV or full-blown AIDS patients from automatically forfeiting their basic civil rights. Yes, federal law protects them in some ways, but the board could expand local protections and send a clear, coherent and educational message about the AIDS crisis.

As you know, supervisors, chances of AIDS transmission from workplace or other casual contact are virtually nil. As you also know, someone fired from a job just because they’re HIV-positive needlessly thrusts them onto either unemployment or other public assistance rolls. As you also know, if a person has fully developed AIDS and comes down with a related infectious problem, there are federal guidelines that safeguard the workplace.

So, you’re not endangering anyone with this ordinance. It’s purely political, and inasmuch as you’ve shown the willingness to address the perks issue, show some guts on this one, too.

Pearl Jemison-Smith, chairwoman of the county HIV Planning Advisory Council, said 2,200 people have AIDS in Orange County. Between 10,000 and 15,000 are HIV-positive, she said.

When I talked to her Thursday, she praised your efforts in fighting AIDS, citing the Health Care Agency professionals as dedicated workers.

But as a board, you need to back that up with a vote.

As Jemison-Smith said: “What I’d like to see is the board say in a loud and clear voice that discrimination is abominable, whether it’s racial, sexual or whatever it is and that with HIV, it’s bad enough that people are ill, but they shouldn’t be discriminated against.”

Stephen Coppola, a local attorney who helped draft a previous ordinance that you rejected, says: “The moral argument for me is that our society is supposed to be one that’s humane. The basis for firing people because of HIV status is generally founded on discrimination because people are perceived to be gay. That’s the real root. If someone comes into the office and they have cancer, people will bend over backward (for the employee) if they like them. So, (the reaction to AIDS patients) really goes to religious discrimination, and our society was founded on tolerance.”

Supervisors, you’ve had your chance on this issue before. You weren’t ready to step forward.

Please reconsider. Some AIDS activists wish I wouldn’t even bring it up. They don’t like to say so publicly, but they’d just as soon have you handle this issue quietly behind the scenes, because they know the pressure the opponents will put on you.

That’s why, supervisors, you need to do it openly and with conviction. Educate the public and let them know that protecting HIV-positive workers has nothing to do with endorsing the gay lifestyle or granting anyone special favors.

It has only to do with political courage and doing the right thing.