AIDS Ignorance: The Endless Story

Not many visitors to the White House are greeted by guards wearing rubber gloves. But that was the insulting welcome accorded a delegation of gay elected officials last Tuesday, the latest in a series of affronts that homosexuals have encountered under the Clinton Administration.

First President Clinton reneged on his campaign promise to lift the ban on gays and lesbians in the military. More recently, his attorney general cravenly sat on the sidelines in a Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of an anti-gay proposition passed in Colorado. Now comes the contemptible behavior of White House guards toward the delegation of 40 gay officials who had been invited as a peacemaking gesture. Several guards donned rubber gloves to inspect the bags of delegation members. One told an outraged visitor that it was “to protect ourselves,” presumably against AIDS.

The most charitable reaction to this shockingly rude display is to laugh at Secret Service members so appallingly ignorant about AIDS. As almost every schoolchild knows by now, AIDS is spread by intimate sexual contact and through blood, not by shaking hands or inspecting briefcases. Do the guards not know there are gay people on the White House staff itself?

A more sinister theory is that the guards, with approval of superiors, deliberately insulted the visitors to humiliate the President. Either way, Secret Service brass have much explaining to do to their bosses at the Treasury Department.

The White House has apologized. But Clinton should use this sorry episode to show courage and speak out against the forces of ignorance and intolerance that have now apparently swept even onto the grounds of the White House.