Bush continues Right Wing campaign....he just doesn't get it...these people are radical and dangerous to the American way of life.....Bush still can't deal with AIDS.....and just about everyone he supports has been a SPEAKER AT BOB JONES UNIVERSITY!.....that great institution of LOWER LEARNING AND PREJUDICE
AIDS Panel Nominee Says No
The Bush team says the conservative left on his own, and president's views are very different.
By Vicki Kemper, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON -- The Christian conservative chosen
to serve on a presidential AIDS advisory council withdrew his name from
consideration Thursday, citing "the current controversy" over his previous
remarks about the disease.
Administration officials described the withdrawal of Jerry Thacker, who has
AIDS, as "his personal decision," but also sought to distance President Bush
from some of Thacker's words, including earlier references to AIDS as "the
gay plague."
"The views that he holds
are far, far removed
from what the president
believes," White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer
said.
News of Thacker's
expected appointment to
the Presidential Advisory
Council on HIV/AIDS
was confirmed
Wednesday night and
quickly ignited a
firestorm of negative
reaction from leading
Democrats, as well as gay civil rights activists and advocacy groups for people
with HIV/AIDS.
"Thacker's characterization of AIDS as the 'gay plague' and his offensive
public statements about homosexuality indicate a disturbing bias that is completely at odds with the role
the advisory commission should play," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said.
The short-lived controversy also cast critical attention on an issue the Bush administration has tried to
govern compassionately.(AHAHAHAHHA)
The administration asked Congress for increased federal funding this fiscal year for HIV/AIDS research
and for housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. While the administration has yet to release proposed
spending levels for fiscal year 2004, officials have indicated they will seek an additional $500 million to
fight AIDS around the world.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay political group, commended the administration on
its choice of seven other new appointees to the 35-member council, noting that four of them are gay.
"These new leaders offer an opportunity for the panel to change direction and move forward with
helpful," more science-based policies, the group said in a statement.
The Thacker appointment also revived criticism from Democrats, activists and some scientists that
ideological criteria have played a part in some of the administration's appointments to scientific advisory
committees.
The administration's AIDS education effort focuses on abstinence, and information about the
effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission has been removed from some government
Web sites.
In a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, Thacker insisted he is
not "anti-gay."
"I am, however, anti-HIV/AIDS," he wrote. "The three infected people in our family -- my wife,
daughter and myself --would not wish this disease on any other human being."
Thacker's wife, Sue, contracted HIV from a blood transfusion she received in 1984. Before she
realized she had the virus, she passed it on to her husband and their daughter.
Thacker said he used the term "gay plague" only "in describing the historical context" of the disease.
And summaries of his two "chapel speeches" at Bob Jones University posted on the Greenville, S.C.,
school's Web site reflected the writer's viewpoint more than his own, he said.
Thacker, an educator, vowed to continue his "personal mission of reaching the conservative faith
community to give them an accurate message about HIV/AIDS and how to avoid it."
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