during this week of all-reagan-all-the-time, i've kept silent. everybody deserves respect, especially during their funeral period, and it is appropriate that they are accorded that formality.

but, this week of wake has been a bit long for those of us, particularly in the gay community, who know how much he decimated our lives, our people, our community. the one place in all the news this week where i've seen true reminescene of that anger has been in the gay press where there have been all kinds of reminders of just how much he did to make sure that we were killed off and allowed to die as a new fatal disease ravaged our people. this wasn't just a lack of knowledge or science in hiv/aids; this was a concerted effort to ignore this growing threat because of the 'they deserve what they get' attitude by him and his administration.
so for all of my gay brethren that i'll never meet because they died before my time, particularly here in san francisco; for all my gay brethren who currently have hiv/aids and are putting up with its daily personal destruction of their body; for all my gay brethren who have lucked out and don't have hiv/aids but who live in fear or panic or ocd-related trips of the possibility of getting hiv/aids; for all my gay brethren who have lived through the worst two week so of their lives as they wait to find out if they're negative or positive; for all my gay brethren that can't bear the burden of its effect of our world and our personal lives and who hide away from the world or leave it; for all my gay brethren i'll never meet; for all my gay brethren who died in the 80's and 90's and today; for all of my gay brethren who had to learn to take care of themselves when everyone abandoned them; for all of them, and for me, i am still angry and still remember and cannot be silent any longer while he is deified as a saint to all people. he is not a saint, his administration allowed our community to die off, and they have our years and years of blood on their hands.