Sex Panic, a loose federation of academics, authors, and historians, and others denies this charge. Its members are quoted as saying they are an organization which hopes to alert American gay males and others to a growing "sex panic" in the political arena, a panic, they say, that Republicans are encouraging.

Log Cabin's emergence into the sex debate marks the first such condemnation of the Sex Panic group by any national gay organization.

In an op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Log Cabin Republicans executive director Richard Tafel warned that Sex Panic is romanticizing deadly behavior, with potentially dangerous consequences for young gay men.

"Fulfilling their own need for victim status," Tafel wrote, "members of Sex Panic imagine themselves under assault for being gay and view thoughtless unsafe sex -- complete with HIV infection -- as the ultimate liberation. Their callous selfishness has the potential to guide another generation of young gay men toward potentially deadly choices."

"It is time for the gay community to enunciate our values, such as individual responsibility," Tafel wrote. "Let's stop blaming oppressive forces and take control of our lives to ensure we don't witness a second, more devastating generation of this plague."

Tafel also called upon other national gay organizations to come forward and denounce Sex Panic and to stand up for individual responsibility.

"It is high time that every gay and lesbian organization in the country denounce the antics of those within our community, such as Sex Panic, who romanticize sexual behavior that could lead to death."

DANGEROUS RHETORIC THREATENS GAYS

By Richard Tafel,

Executive Director,

Log Cabin Republicans
a gay political organization,
Washington, D.C.

"I'm an HIV anarchist!" railed Tony Valenzuela, a 25 year-old activist at a town hall meeting last summer in San Diego.

On a panel entitled Sexuality: Where the Personal Meets the Political at the Creating Change Conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, he boasted to the audience about being HIV-positive, a porn star and a prostitute. He described unsafe sexual behavior as "transformational," almost a spiritual experience, and explained all of this boasting under the principle of "sexual self-determination" -- no one had a right to tell him how to live his life.

A few weeks before Valenzuela's speech, former Secretary of Education William Bennett chided President Clinton on ABC-TV's This Week for not mentioning "the truth" in a speech before a gay organization that the homosexual lifestyle leads to death. He cited scientifically discredited data arguing that being gay in and of itself means preying sexually on children, leading an unhappy life and dying young. Bennett carefully couched his attack on gays based on his 'genuine concern' for gay people.

And so we have the sad state of affairs of the AIDS debate as we enter 1998. The more things have changed, the more they stay the same -- with a few important nuances.

Most frightening about Valenzuela's speech was that a small group of mostly middle-aged gay leftist men, known as Sex Panic, are using him as their poster boy. These men pretend that the gay community hasn't been decimated by AIDS, using the language of freedom and individual rights to justify sexual behavior that can be deadly. The gay community already debated whether to change its behavior or die, and for so many gay men the option was offered too late. But today, with all of the risks known, Sex Panic romanticizes being HIV-positive, almost implying to young people that if you aren't positive, you're not fully gay.

In their own desire to make their status normative and breathe some relevance into tired, Marxist politics, they've made the connection between HIV, gay freedom and oppressive conservative forces. Fulfilling their own need for victim status, they imagine themselves under assault for being gay, with thoughtless unsafe-sex complete with HIV infection as the ultimate liberation. Their callous selfishness has the potential to guide another generation of gay young men toward potentially deadly choices.

And on the other extreme of the debate are the equally dishonest words of Bennett. During the Bush administration, he remained silent when Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan released a study that showed that suicide rates among teenagers who were coming to terms with being gay were many times higher than any of their peers. But like the equally outdated Sex Panic, the hateful, blunt anti-gay rhetoric that Bennett liked in the 70's and 80's just doesn't cut it anymore. So he cloaks his distaste for gay people in 'concern,' by citing discredited researchers working for the religious right.

The President missed the chance to "tell the truth on this one," Bennett said, because "the best available research suggests that the average life span of male homosexuals is around 43 years of age." Forty three?

By challenging Bennett's lies, we let young gay men know that they can have wonderful and fulfilling lives as openly gay people. But equally important, it is high time that every gay and lesbian organization in the country denounce the antics of those within our community, like Sex Panic, who romanticize sexual behavior that could lead to death.

It is time for the gay community to enunciate our values, like the importance of individual responsibility. Let's stop blaming oppressive forces and take control of our lives to insure we don't witness a second, more devastating generation of this plague. We cannot sit by while another generation is left with two hopeless extremes, each fostering deadly consequences.