-
A number of sources close to the council said the Thacker nomination was pushed by the council's controversial executive director, Pat Ware, an African American woman allied with the Family Research Council and other conservative Christian groups and a vocal proponent of abstinence as an AIDS prevention method. Ware referred media calls to the White House.
A member of the council said Ware has made several comments to gay members of the council suggesting that gay white men are responsible for infecting the African American community with AIDS. Others confirmed that Ware and her allies among conservative Christian groups have promoted that theory.
"It is very clear that increasingly people within the Christian right and in the conservative movement are seeking to blame gay white men for the spread of the epidemic," said A. Cornelius Baker, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, an AIDS treatment organization. "Not only that, they are seeking to blame white gay men for the plight of African Americans in this disease. It is unacceptable.
"As an African American, I find this whole attempt to create division and wedges in our community one that is intolerable. It is a lie, and it is a lie that we cannot buy into."
Now, what on Earth could encourage this bunch to appoint a black woman who blames gay white men for the problems of African Americans.....