Related articles and links |  1 of 3

AIDS activist Jerry Thacker withdrew his name two weeks ago from the list of Bush administration nominees to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS amid a firestorm of criticism.

After gay groups charged Thacker with calling homosexuality a "deathstyle" and AIDS "the gay plague," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer distanced the President from the endorsement.

"Those words are as wrong as they are inappropriate. And they are not shared by the President," Fleischer told a press briefing. "The views that [Thacker] holds are far, far removed from what the President believes."

On Wednesday The Washington Post reported that the incident has continued to cause waves in the advisory council. Executive director Patricia Ware, who recommended Thacker for nomination, recently relinquished her position. "Administration officials said Ware was being promoted to a more influential role," the Post reported. "But several sources involved … said she was moved to avoid further embarrassment over the selection of Jerry Thacker."

Thacker, a marketing consultant in Pennsylvania, tested positive in 1986 for HIV following a blood donation. After additional blood tests, Thacker discovered that his wife and daughter were both also infected. His wife had apparently contracted HIV from a blood transfusion during her third pregnancy.

Founder of the marketing consultant firm Right Ideas, Thacker then started the not-for-profit Scepter Institute to educate Christians about HIV/AIDS. Through the foundation, Thacker speaks to churches and organizations on AIDS policies, the realities of the disease, and the importance of abstinence and fidelity.

Todd Hertz, assistant online editor for Christianity Today, talked to Thacker this week about his nomination, Ware's resignation from the advisory committee, and the political forces that have endangered HIV/AIDS activism.

Why did you remove your name as a nominee to the AIDS panel?

The AIDS panel is made up of 35 individuals who ostensibly have the obligation of crafting recommendations for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to help eliminate, fight, and alleviate the pain from this disease.

Upon closer examination, however, you find this panel has gradually become a political thing. When I saw this, I questioned whether or not my effectiveness on that panel would be worth the time investment.

As someone who is HIV infected and has a wife and daughter who are infected, I'm very conscious of my own time, limitations, and commitments. I'm here to be savory salt and brilliant light in a dying world, and I don't want to sit on a panel that's just going to pass the political ping-pong ball back and forth to gain political advantage.

What is your interpretation of what happened after your nomination to the panel?

The primary tactic used by gay radicals is intimidation. They're going to be in your face and they're going to be noisy.

They heard that I was from Bob Jones [University], a conservative, and a Christian. They surmised that I would call homosexuality a sin, and the knee-jerk reaction was, "That makes him antigay, a homophobe, and a real problem for us. Let's brand him, scare him, and go on down the road." Anybody who crosses them will get that same treatment.

I'm really saddened by the fact that the media, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, did not do their homework. Without knowing anything about me, or that I've never had a bad experience with a gay person in my speeches to half a million people, or the fact that I'm not antigay but very much anti-HIV, these folks picked up the diatribe written by the gay radicals and ran it as fact. To me, this shows their predisposition to that viewpoint.

next page... |  1 of 3

share this page

February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47