Opinions
Hillary’s Arkansas HIV history = Nancy Reagan’s silence
A closer look at first lady’s record in early days of epidemic


Hillary Clinton recently criticized HIV disclosure laws, but she was silent when her husband signed one. (Photo by Gino Santa Maria; courtesy Bigstock)
It cannot be said that during her nine years as first lady of Arkansas that Hillary Clinton started a local conversation about AIDS — her advocacy had such a low-key volume that no one heard it.
Now that the dust-up over her grossly uninformed statement about Nancy Reagan starting a national discussion about AIDS has subsided, it’s relevant to examine her HIV record, such as it is, from her Little Rock years.
Remarkably, during the 1980s when their husbands held power and the AIDS epidemic created crises at every level of government, as thousands of gay men and others suffered and died, neither first lady left a paper trail of actions or statements addressing the grief, tremendous fear and stigma we lived with.
As a member of the ACT UP/Presidential Project from late 1991 to the November 1992 election, I kept thick files on Gov. Bill Clinton’s campaign and reporting on his HIV record. Nothing in my archive includes any reference to Hillary’s HIV record and online searches fail to locate any relevant source materials.
If she took action or spoke up prior to campaigning against George H. W. Bush, it went unreported or duly noted.
Hillary held no elective office while her husband served as governor but she was no shrinking violet when it came to injecting herself into public policy matters and state government, and fighting for causes she believed in.
In 1977, then-attorney general Bill Clinton endorsed modernization of the state’s homosexual and bestial anti-sodomy statute and as governor made no public comments calling for repeal of the law. Same goes for Hillary. When in 1991 courageous local Democratic politician Vic Snyder, who eventually served as a representative in Congress, attempted to erase the law from the books, neither Clinton offered him support.
Newspaper accounts from 1991 offer details on how police entrapped men cruising for sex at highway rest stops and other locations, and after they were arrested and charged under the sodomy law, their names and home addresses were published for all to read.
Arkansas’s sodomy statue was in effect until the Supreme Court struck down such laws across the land, but while it was on the books it was vigorously used by prosecutors against LGBT persons.
Compounding the stigma and fear of gays and our sexual relations, and the added burden of HIV transmission stemming from outrageous neglect of prevention and education programs, Gov. Clinton in November 1989 signed one of the worst criminal transmission laws in the nation.
The law made it a Class A felony for a poz person to have penetrative sex with another person without first disclosing their HIV status. If convicted, sentences required no less than six years and a maximum of 30 years in prison.
This law is still on the books and an unknown number of persons convicted under it currently are inmates in penitentiaries serving time.
Public records obtained from Arkansas prosecutors by advocates affiliated with Sero, a nonprofit of HIV poz folks and allies fighting stigma and injustice, while limited in scope because several prosecutors refused to release responsive records citing state sunshine law allowing officials to deny access to public records if the requester lives out of state.
The Sero organization is based in Pennsylvania.
Of caseloads made public for about a dozen persons, the average sentence meted out was 10 years and three people got 20 years while only one received six years in prison. I believe these cases represent a mere fraction of all convictions in Arkansas.
After extensive searching, I’ve come across nothing showing Hillary opposed the HIV criminalization law before her husband signed it or after going into effect.
Over the course of their final nine years of holding the reins of power in Little Rock and of widespread HIV and sodomy criminal enforcement, Hillary expended no political capital on us or our concerns.
Just how missing-in-action on AIDS were the Clintons up to September 1990?
An extended editorial at the time in Little Rock’s alternative weekly The Spectrum headlined “Time For An AIDS Policy” completely omits the Clintons, indicating they weren’t known for doing the right thing on HIV matters.
It noted: “The incidence of reported AIDS in Arkansas is up 158 percent over last year … by the end of September, there will be 147 cases on the books as compared to 57 this same time last year. … The Department of Health Services just completely cut Medicaid benefits to 10 of 13 Arkansans who take AZT … The Arkansas Department of Corrections simply failed to reapply for its grants that paid for a full-time AIDS education coordinator … Blacks in Arkansas have an alarmingly disproportionate incidence of AIDS; about 23 percent of AIDS cases are among blacks who make up 16.3 percent of the population.”
With primaries underway, the Clinton for President Committee in early March 1992 issued a one-page position paper on AIDS that is noteworthy because it lacks any compelling achievement on his part directly assisting people with AIDS or those at-risk.
It reads: “As chairman of the National Governor’s Association, he formed the first working group of governors to develop a policy on AIDS … In 1986, under Governor Clinton’s leadership, the Arkansas State Board of Education adoption a resolution calling for the ‘development of AIDS educations skills … to be integrated into the Health Education Course Content Guide’. “
Granted, a panel and a resolution connected to Bill during the first five years of the plague are something, they’re exceedingly underwhelming and pitiful and force me to wonder where was Hillary and did she do a damn thing about HIV in Little Rock?
In her apology after her erroneous Nancy Reagan comment generated pain, Hillary wrote:
“I’ve always tried to do my part in the fight against this disease, and the stigma and pain that accompanies it. At the 1992 Democratic National Convention, when my husband accepted the nomination for president, we marked a break with the past by having two HIV-positive speakers — the first time that ever happened at a national convention.”
Echoes of Bill’s 1992 campaign AIDS position paper — long on platitudes, short on substance. Given how abysmal her HIV Arkansas record is, Hillary’s apology omitting anything she may have done prior to the presidential campaign is quite telling.
A four-page policy assessment paper from the Arkansas Gay and Lesbian Task Force in February 1992 to the Human Rights Campaign about the state’s AIDS legislation and response to the epidemic offers more on the issue.
On top of the bad laws, sodomy arrests and prosecutions and lack of initiative from the Clintons, the task force shed light regarding no state funds appropriated for AIDS: “[O]nly federal money was spent here until 1991 [when three HIV educators for community-based organizations for the entire state were hired] . . . $30,000 in 1992 was money to be used for testing and counseling that the federal government quit sending and it came from the Governor’s Emergency Release Fund.”
Most galling, Hillary said: “We should call on states to reform outdated and stigmatizing HIV criminalization laws.”
If only Bill hadn’t signed Arkansas’s criminalization law she would have one less state to call on to amend, maybe even repeal, these lock-’em-up laws.
What’s needed now, just as we’ve weighed Mrs. Reagan’s HIV resume, is to apply the same degree of accountability to Mrs. Clinton especially during her Little Rock years.
Michael Petrelis is a longtime San Francisco-based blogger focused on AIDS and LGBT issues.
Opinions
WorldPride begins — let’s hope it ends well
D.C. events kick off despite boycotts, Trump attacks

As WorldPride begins with Trans Pride on May 17,, we can only hope when it is over on June 9t we will all be raving about its success.
When D.C. first got designated as host city in November 2022, after Taiwan didn’t work out, there were initial estimates of 2.5 to 3 million people showing up in D.C. to party and celebrate. We talked about this 50th anniversary of Pride as celebrating five decades of advocacy, visibility, and unity, for the LGBTQ community in Washington, D.C., honoring the past, celebrating the present, and inspiring the future.
Anticipation was greatly tempered when Trump, the felon, racist, anti-trans homophobe, liar, and all-around SOB, won the election in November 2024. Then the planning became more difficult and stressful. But here we are and the excitement is palpable. The signs are up around D.C. and Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been so great for the LGBTQ community, is walking a tightrope to keep D.C. afloat, never knowing what the felon in the White House will do next. To her credit, she is doing an amazing job keeping him at bay. But his vicious anti-trans positions, and his general homophobia, have put a cloud over WorldPride. His immigration policies have led countries around the world to tell their citizens to be very wary if they come to the United States. It is projected as foreign tourists stay away, the United States could lose $12.5 billion this year.
Despite all that, the people at Capital Pride Alliance, who are running WorldPride, have done a commendable job of putting together a program for everyone. From the Human Rights Conference, to the parade, to the festival, where Cynthia Erivo will perform. Shakira will be doing the opening concert at Nat’s stadium, and there are more superstars at the dance party at the RFK site, that should be the site of the new Commanders domed stadium by 2030.
But let us never forget all this is taking place at a time when the United States has a president who is creating havoc in the world and embarrassing us even among our allies. He is a liar and a grifter, a man who thinks nothing of putting people’s lives in danger whether it is sending people illegally to prisons in El Salvador, or creating a culture so nasty, a trans person takes their life in their hands just walking down the street.
He surrounds himself with people like Stephen Miller who wants to suspend habeas corpus, and his Nazi sympathizing co-president, Elon Musk, who just got Trump to invite a bunch of racist South Africans to move here. It’s going on while we have a Secretary of HHS, RFK, Jr., who takes his grandchildren swimming in a polluted creek, and tells others to risk their children’s lives by avoiding vaccines. A president who has cut $800 million in grants from NIH meant to do research to save lives in the LGBTQ community, along with cutting grants and programs that have worked successfully to save people in Africa from dying of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and polio. This is what we are dealing with. Like it or not, this is the backdrop to WorldPride 2025.
Yet, if we give in to this horror, we make it even worse. WorldPride is a way we say to people here in the United States, and those around the world, we in the LGBTQ community are never going back into the closet. We are proud, we are smart, and we are valuable. We make the world a better place, and we will continue to do so despite the pig who occasionally sits in the Oval Office when he is not out golfing or grifting. We can never allow the gay Republicans who make excuses for him, the gay Secretary of the Treasury who has yet to speak out for his community, to go unchallenged. Their silence hurts us as much as the felon sitting in the Oval Office because as the Blade wrote, they are traitors. It is unfortunate, but once again the slogan silence = death has never been more real.
So, speak up, speak out, never stay quiet. Let the world know you are here, and you care. Your life is important and fuck them if they don’t understand that or value it.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Let love and compassion guide our response to Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis
Former president is diminished, but he and family deserve love and prayers

When I heard Joe Biden had serious prostate cancer, I felt immediate compassion for him and his family. I am a prostate cancer survivor myself. Then I heard how Trump, and some of his MAGA Republicans, responded and was amazed at how they are able to constantly sink to new lows. Trump’s son posted on X “What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another cover-up???” Clearly, they will never give up on being vile human beings.
The equally disgusting Joe Scarborough had on a doctor who declared he positively knows Biden must have known about his cancer years ago, although he knows nothing about the case. The reality, coming from many specialists, is at this time only Biden’s doctors know when he was diagnosed, and whether he even had regular PSA tests done, and when. Based on the latest research, the American Urological Association (AUA) age guidelines are that they do not recommend routine PSA screening for men 70 or older. This is because prostate cancer is normally very slow growing, and if you were to be diagnosed after 70, you will likely die of something else. Then you had the felon in the White House talking about “stage nine” cancer. Is he really so dumb? Guess he is as he tries to prove it nearly every time he opens his mouth. Talk about diminished.
Now is Biden diminished from what he was years ago? It is clear he is. Should the people around him have tried to hide that in order to have him run again, no! But the-then president’s hiding health issues is nothing new. Wilson was severely impaired and it is said his wife Edith ran the country for his last year in office. The same was said about Nancy Reagan when they hid Reagan’s Alzheimer’s. Kennedy hid his Addison’s disease and other infirmities, and Trump hid how sick he was from COVID, when being helicoptered to the hospital. Is it wrong to hide these things from the American public, yes, but clearly not unusual. Actually, the media is often complicit in this, which many said they were in Biden’s case. Then you have a guy like Jake Tapper who is happy to be complicit, so he can now write a book about it and make loads of money. Very sad.
I think the time has come in the case of Joe Biden, for us to just offer him and his family some love and prayers, and the hope he will be able to manage his cancer and live a long life. Then turn the page and deal with the things that will matter more to the lives of the American people today.
Those are the things the felon in the White House, and his Nazi sympathizing co-president, along with the MAGA Congress, are trying to do to them. Things like taking away their healthcare, and thereby also causing the closure of some rural hospitals. Things like the mass firings of federal workers, including thousands of veterans. Things like making it harder for our veterans to access their healthcare by cutting services at the Veterans hospitals. Things like increasing costs for groceries, and other items, due to the felon’s ineffective use of tariffs. Things like seeing college costs go up, as foreign students who pay the full fare at most schools, are sent home or denied visas. Things like making it harder to file for social security by closing so many offices, and pretending to lower drug prices, but not really doing it. Things like cutting research looking for cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, MS, HIV/AIDS, and a host of other diseases, which will hurt people for decades to come. Things like creating havoc in the world, and bowing down to dictators. Things like walking away from our allies and making the world a less safe place for all of us, including abandoning Ukraine, and cozying up to his friend Putin. I always believed Putin has some dirt on him. Trump said Zelenskyy would be responsible for WW III. But it’s Trump who will be, if it happens. Then we must put a focus on the idiot who is secretary of HHS, RFK Jr., and whether he will allow the flu and covid vaccines, being readied for the fall, to be available in a timely manner. Will he continue to disparage all vaccines, and by doing so, cause deaths here, and around the world. Things like abandoning the fight against climate change and thereby screwing the planet and future generations.
These are the things the American public really needs to know about, and care about. It may have been wrong to hide Biden’s being diminished, but he is no longer in office, and he no longer impacts people’s lives on a daily basis. The felon in the WH does, and that is where the focus must be.

A first generation American from Queens, N.Y., Kameny was a decorated WWII veteran. With a prodigious 148 I.Q., he earned a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. In 1957 he was recruited by the Army Map Service, a pioneering agency in space exploration.
In 1953 in the wake of McCarthyism, President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450 that prohibited homosexuals from military or civilian employment. Having nothing to do with workplace conduct, the Army learned that Kameny might be a homosexual. When confronted, he equivocated and was terminated. Unlike then thousands of other homosexuals terminated from government employment, Kameny fought back.
He took on the military and Civil Service Commission including being the first openly gay man to file an appeal about gay rights to the U.S. Supreme Court. He helped co-found and chair the Mattachine Society of Washington, the first gay rights organization in the nation’s capital.
He wrote letters to, among others, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He founded and chaired the Eastern Conference of Homophile Organization, the nation’s first regional gay organization.
In the 1960s homosexuality, even with a consenting adult in the privacy of one’s bedroom was criminal. The police entrapped and extorted gay men. The American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental illness. A bar could lose its license if there was more than one homosexual in their establishment. Homosexuals were considered dangerous, deviant and demented.
Kameny coined the phrase “Gay Is Good.” He organized picketing called Annual Reminders each July 4 from 1965 to 1969 at Independence Hall. The picketers were the first to call for gay equality. The 1965 Annual Reminder had 39 activists making it then the largest demonstration for gay rights. In the mid-1960s the country had an estimated 300 gay and lesbian activists.
He published a newsletter that became the Washington Blade, now the nation’s oldest LGBTQ weekly newspaper. Kameny and Barbara Gittings, the mother of the movement that demonstrated for the right to be heard at the 1971 American Psychiatric Association meeting. Their panel at the 1972 meeting with a masked psychiatrist using a pseudonym and voice modulator was so impactful that the APA created a panel to determine if homosexuality as a mental illness was based on science or discrimination. In 1973, that classification was removed.
He advised gays and lesbians who were the subject of discharge from federal government service. He identified test cases and referred them to the ACLU, Lambda Legal and other counsel. Slowly, but surely those cases began a process for LGBTQ equality.
His efforts led D.C. to be the first city to overturn its sodomy criminal laws. He helped found the first national LGBTQ organization, the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations. His efforts laid the groundwork for HRC and National LGBTQ Task Force.
After Stonewall in June 1969, he chaired a meeting of NY, Philadelphia and D.C. activists that authorized and helped organize to help remember Stonewall the first New York Pride Parade. He believed that Stonewall could be the movement’s Boston Tea Party. He marched in that 1970 parade holding a picket emblazoned with “Gay Is Good.”
He was the first out person to run for Congress as the D.C. delegate. Money left over from his campaign was used to fund the first gay rights television commercial. In July 1975, he was the first to be advised by the Civil Service Commission that it would eliminate homosexuality as a basis for not hiring or for firing a federal civilian employee. In 1977, he attended the White House’s first meeting with gays and lesbians.
Kameny died on Oct. 11, 2011, National Coming Out Day. He lived to see marriage equality approved in several states. He attended the signing by President Obama of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which enabled gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Kameny is buried in the Congressional Cemetery. On his tombstone is inscribed “Gay Is Good.” Over 70,000 of his documents are in the Library of Congress and picket signs from the pioneering demonstrations are housed in the Smithsonian Institution.
On May 21 LGBTQ national organizations gather in front of the Supreme Court. One hundred activists will each hold a candle for his 100th birthday. Fifteen national leaders will engage in picketing similar to the 1965 picketing at the White House and Independence Hall. They will honor Frank Kameny; celebrate the 10th anniversary of marriage equality (Obergefell v Hodges, 2015); and push back on those who would attempt to render us invisible, deny our history and undermine our equality. We will remember the nation’s loss when it fired a Harvard Ph.D. in astronomy because of his status as a homosexual. History repeats itself. This month the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the federal government to terminate transgender servicemembers solely because of their sexual orientation. How far we have come. How much farther we have to travel.
Malcolm Lazin is the national chair, Kameny 100. He is the executive director, LGBT History Month and executive producer of three LGBTQ documentaries including Gay Pioneers. He was an adjunct professor of LGBT History and Rights at New College of Florida. www.kameny100.org.