ST602662%BROWNVM.BITNET@mvs.oac.ucla.edu (03/25/91)
A recent posting was entitled "Just Deserts" The posting then went on to describe the case of a man whose most likely avenue for infection with HIV appears to be his repeated and brutal assaults of gay men in New York City. The title of the posting seems to say that AIDS (or in this case, ARC) is appropriate punishment for this man. I guess I'm a little scared that AIDS is seen as retribution for this man. Disease-as-a-punishment is a very old idea, usually intertwined with moral proscriptions about what defines good vs. bad behavior and/or thoughts. I thgought we had progressed a bit from that thinking. To be a bit more straightforward about it, if one views this man's infection as just retribution for his crimes, it is completely logical to see another's petty theft perpetrated in order to feed a drug addiction as rightly punished by HIV infection, or to see a gay man's "corruption" of youth, or even defilement of so-called "traditional American family values" as being paid back in kind through HIV disease. Be Well, Bill Jesdale