Did AIDS retard the development of the gay rights movement?

[Beet]

Some of the young uns here don't remember the level of hysteria over AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) dates to July 1996, I remember being startled to read articles celebrating the sharp decline in AIDS deaths in the autumn of 1998. It was around this time that society became aware that the disease had been contained. In fact if you google it, lots of charts end in 1998.

The gay rights movement also jumpstarted around this time. I would say it was definitely established after Vermont shocked the nation by allowing civil unions in the spring of 2000. Yet it was always interesting... after the personal liberty revolution of the 1960s and Stonewall riots in 1969... it took 30 years for gay rights to really take hold as a movement. During this time AIDS was active c.1981-1998 and dominated a lot of public attention, including that of gay rights activists.

I suspect that without AIDS, we may have seen gay rights emerge even sooner.

[Beet]

I actually heard the opposite theory, that it accelerated the gay rights movement.  This is based on the idea that the most important weapon in the advance of gay rights has been the increasing visibility of glbt people in every arena of life.

In the 1970's, according to the theory, openly gay people were a phenomenon mainly of a few large cities.  Most Americans knew a "confirmed bachelor" or two women who were "roommates" for 30 years, but they didn't know any "gay" people.  And closeted gay people enjoyed the freedom of not having to deal with any backlash.  Don't ask, don't tell.

AIDS changed everything.  Gay men started getting visible lesions, starting dying, all over the country.  In tons of families.  In tons of workplaces.  And their friends and relatives were forced to face the harsh light of reality for the first time.

For those gay men not infected, they spent their time going to more funerals than most 80-year-olds, while society at large seemed completely indifferent.  Keeping their mouths shut suddenly had less appeal.

According to the theory, it was AIDS that destroyed the "closet", both for those infected and for those who weren't.  And once gay people were everywhere, gay rights became pretty much unstoppable.

Fascinating, you may be right.

[Beet]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/opinion/global/the-aids-epidemic-can-be-ended.html?_r=1&