Ok, so I have been really deep in thought about this movie and why it affected me so much. Here's what I figured out, in case anyone is still reading this.
I don't know why I need to talk about this but it is bothering me, so here goes.
In the 80s I was a jw teen with hemophilia in NY, where the AIDS crisis essentially began in the US. I had not had my medicine for a long time because of dubbery.
Once news came out about AIDS, the dubs practically tripped over themselves jumping for joy, that jehoopla was vindicated. I remember that being said at the conventions and the thunderous applause. It was like when he told the jews to bury their poop--he had his reason and you should follow it by faith even before science tells you why.
Everyone expected me to be gloating over this more than most, because I had risked more by not taking blood. Barf. Instead I just found that attitude despicable.
I was in the 4H Club, as they called it, and the dubs pretty much thought all of us were evil. Haitians because of voodoo, homosexuals, heroin addicts, and hemophiliacs because the root of the word means "like blood" and jehovah hates people who like blood.
My peers were dying and I was terrified. No one seemed to be actually taking action to stop this crisis, only to gloat over the sinners who deserved the virus.
That is, no one except ActUP and Gay Men's Health Crisis, who were speaking out, advocating and actually helping people.
National Hemophilia Foundation took money from organizations who deliberately distributed tainted clotting factor for profit and testified against their own members in court.
My supposed advocates were turncoats at the worst moment in our history, when we needed them the most. And gay men's advocates were providing housing, comfort, and getting laws passed to help stop the spread of the disease and treat it. Sometimes they were even using in-your-face tactics to push for change. Mine were helping the enemy.
Could homosexuals be so evil then? Could a loving, intelligent god really feel that a penis in a vagina=good but a penis going in an opening 2 inches south of the vagina=totally evil?
I remember seeing dying men holding hands in the hospital, and thinking that seems so sweet and loving. How is this evil? It gave me the opportunity to examine what I had been taught by the dubs.
So my religion betrayed me by not letting me get medical care and then pretending as though god made the rule because he knew about this virus, and my advocacy organization betrayed me. The only ones who seemed to be doing the right thing were ActUP and GMHC. Which one of these organizations is good and which is evil, I wondered.
I am grateful to GMHC and ActUP for reducing the spread of the virus. I probably owe my negative status to them.
Thanks for listening.
