Homophobia ‘Fuels’ HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Black Communities, Opinion Piece Says
Homophobia "fuels the scourge of AIDS in black America, and the plague is making its greatest inroads into the population from which come the worker bees of the black church: black women," Cynthia Tucker, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor, writes in a Journal-Constitution opinion piece. The "disproportionate spread" of HIV/AIDS among black women can be linked "directly" to the "covert world" of black men "on the down low" -- black men who have sex with men but do not mention their male relationships to their female sex partners, friends or family members -- Tucker says. The "underworld" of these men "has its roots in black homophobia so virulent that these men are unwilling or unable to acknowledge their sexuality," Tucker says, adding that homophobia in the African-American community has "cost us more dearly ... than white America" because "AIDS takes a more devastating toll in black America." Tucker concludes that instead of "preach[ing] a message of intolerance and exclusion," black churches should be "struggling [to fight] against homophobia" (Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/6).
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