Nomination and withdrawal of Jerry Thacker
Daze Reader is a little behind the curve on this story. The Bush administration appointed Jerry Thacker, a gay-bashing religious wacko, to the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.
In his speeches and writings on his Web site and elsewhere, Thacker has described homosexuality as a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle and asserted that "Christ can rescue the homosexual." After word of his selection spread among gays in recent days, some material disappeared from the Web site. Earlier versions located by The Washington Post that referred to the "gay plague," for instance, were changed as of yesterday to "plague."
Once the controversy broke, the White House vehemently disavowed Thacker's views, and Thacker withdrew his nomination. One of the other new Commission nominees says, "This is like putting a Dixiecrat on the Civil Rights Commission, and you just can't do that. For a president who I think has been much better on gay issues than people assumed, it sends a bad signal." Today's San Francisco Chronicle story includes this disturbing passage:
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.
Ugh.
