AIDS Prevention Programs for Teenagers
However well-intended, your April 1 editorial, “Ignorance Can Kill Your Teenager,” ignores the deadly impact of HIV and AIDS on gay and bisexual youth. Sixty-three percent of the reported AIDS cases among men under 25 are from unsafe sex with other men.
To be at all effective, prevention programs must specifically address the unique issues affecting gay youth and directly confront the homophobia which, in gay youth, saps away the already low self-esteem many young people have. Failure to take these steps leads to an increasing infection rate among this most at-risk population.
As home to the Pedro Zamora Youth HIV Clinic, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center encourages government institutions, schools and other entities engaging in HIV prevention, testing and treatment efforts to directly confront homophobia and its impact on the health, welfare and self-image of young gay and bisexual men. Gay and bisexual youth are disproportionately affected by HIV, and any action to curb the growing infection rate must not only mention them, it must include programs tailored to them.
DARREL CUMMINGS
Deputy Executive Director
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Community
Services Center
* The collision of the religious extremist agenda of the Republican Party in our state Legislature and the very life of teenage Californians was displayed for all to see in the April 1 Times.
The naked revenge by the religious extremist PAC, the California Independent Business PAC against independent-minded, moderate Republican Assemblyman Brian Setencich of Fresno in the March primary was meant to serve as a brutal warning against any Republican who defies the party’s extreme right wing in the Legislature.
The religious extremist agenda supported by the California Independent Business PAC includes staunch opposition to comprehensive sex education in public schools. Your editorial, by contrast, sounded the alarm on the burgeoning epidemic of AIDS among teenagers and the need for reliable, comprehensive sex education.
One of the California Indepen- dent Business PAC’s golden boys, Assemblyman Steve Baldwin (R-El Cajon), chair of the Education Committee, has introduced AB 2248 into the Legislature, which would change current policy, making it much more difficult to provide sex education in schools.
The agenda of the religious extremist right has certainly been dangerous to democracy for some time. As this minority gains increasing political control in our Legislature, it’s proving to be dangerous to the very life of our children.
KRIS OCKERSHAUSER
Unitarian Universalist Project Freedom of Religion
Rancho Palos Verdes