I heard about this campaign a few weeks ago, but I didn't realize it would draw so much ire! CNN.com has a video up today on the *homepage* about LA Gay and Lesbian Center's new HIV prevention campaign, "Own It. End It." I'm actually okay with the part about HIV being a gay disease. I think that the media has really overblown the average risk that most non-IV-drug-using straight folks face from potential HIV infection to create a kind of unnecessary hysteria. Gay men, particularly gay men of color, continue to make up nearly 50% of new infections in most communities (when they may only make up 2-5% of the population).

The issue I have with this campaign is the last sentence in this blip at the bottom of their bus campaign posters:

"And it continues after 25 years because we haven't stopped it." This is the kind of shady public health messages that implicitly blames gay men for HIV. It's ridiculous and makes it seem as though gay men had not, as a community, made any effort to combat this epidemic. When the reality of the situation is that new infection levels are down to the lowest levels they have been in MANY many years (this, of course, varies slightly geographically). New infections among gay men have plummeted since 1982 largely due to the efforts of gay men. And Lorri Jean's (former NGLTF E.D.) organization has the gall to come out and blame men for not stopping it. As a gay man, it infuriates me.