HIV, Heroin, and Homosexuals

The continuing saga of the lectures...

The speaker today was some quaint old lady. I've pretty much forgotten any of her arguments because of one part of her speech. She claimed that the only way that the HIV virus can be transferred is by male homosexual activity and dirty needles used for mainlining heroin. Now before you object and mention blood transfusion, heterosexual sex, and various other methods of transferring bodily fluids, bear in mind that I'm well aware of all of these. But according to this speaker, there are only two methods of contracting AIDS. She continued on with her speech, while Noah, J, Spence and I kinda looked at each other with our jaws on the floor. So then during questions and answers, someone called her out on it, mentioning the AIDS epidemic sweeping Africa, and the notable lack of homosexual activity or heroin usage accompanying it. She replied by saying that she doesn't know what "those Africans" (her terminology, not mine) are doing, and we have no reliable sources of information over there. So then a girl got up and said that she had been on mission trips to Africa, and had seen first hand that AIDS is very real over there, even among, and that there is no homosexual activity or heroin. Plus, she knew heterosexual people with AIDS. She stood there with the microphone saying this, and when she finished, that quaint old lady looked the girl in the eyes and told her that what she had just said was not true, and that there is no way to contract AIDS without dirty needles or male homosexual activity. Noah got up and left at this point. I almost followed, but I wanted to see what would happen next. When she started talking about how the kids get AIDS because their parents are addicted to heroin, and it's passed that way. Then J and I left. As I said yesterday, I consider myself to be fairly conservative on most issues, but deliberately ignoring reality because it doesn't suit your agenda is stupid, illogical, and just insane. I really can't comprehend how this lady has managed to twist her own mind to believe the things that she does. Not only this, but she had the temerity and poor grace to tell a girl that she had not seen what she said she had seen. I have to stop, I'm getting upset again.