ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 1, 1993                   TAG: 9301040279
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short


AIDS DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE

I'VE NEVER responded to any of your letters before, but I had to respond to the Dec. 20 letter, "Social costs for gay lifestyle run high."

It's that kind of ignorance in society that creates hatred and anger in our children.

Mr. Hillis and his numbers on homosexual promiscuity are outrageous. The gay community is no less or no more promiscuous than the heterosexual community. Straight people cruise, also.

And as for his remark, "they keep spreading a variety of sexual diseases," that's even more ignorant. AIDS is not just a gay disease, as evidenced in the number of children who die daily or the number of women who die or are infected daily because of promiscuous male partners. AIDS does not discriminate.

In all fairness, Mr. Hillis, you can find a reason to discriminate against anyone. Blacks, Jews, Latinos. You can discriminate from now on, but how would you feel if you were the one being discriminated against? Or, what if it were one of your sons? DEBBIE HOBBS RADFORD



by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB