What you will read in a David Horowitz column is the implied statement that the stance of the radical left was motivated by a desire to protect their right to have promiscuous sex. What you will NOT read in a David Horowitz column is an in-depth analysis of all the motivating factors that shaped the initial response to the gay movement.

What you will never read in a David Horowitz column is that in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, the religious right felt that the disease was God's retribution to gays. What you will never read in a David Horowitz column is that the anti-gay bias of the U.S. government did more to hasten the spread of the disease than the "gay radical left." What you will never read in a David Horowitz column is that the reason there was a need for a "politically correct" stance is that in this disease, the victims were perhaps more vilified by society than the disease itself.

-- Keven Vicknair

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It is astonishing that David Horowitz completely ignores the sharing of needles by IV drug users as a mode of transmission of HIV. In doing so, he undermines any point he was trying to make in his article. The truth is that HIV has spread due to needle sharing and to people of all persuasions having unprotected sex with people they do not know well enough to trust.

AIDS is a preventable disease. If African-American and Latino communities want to take action against HIV, they would be better served examining sex and drug-taking attitudes and behaviors within their own neighborhoods rather than pointing fingers of blame at urban gay communities.

-- Margot Corrigan

It's a shame Mr. Horowitz must resort to such brazen attacks to say what is relatively a minor point. Yes, the queer community did attempt to block some of the early efforts from public health officials to intervene. This fact is hardly hidden; Horowitz is not discovering some massive gay leftist conspiracy. Once again, with political and personal attacks he manages to offend those who might otherwise listen to him. I'm afraid that his never-ending quest for more open dialogue shall continue its current course: driving the left to rage and making the right feel smug and self-righteous. But perhaps that's what Horowitz wants after all.

--Allan Friedman

David Horowitz's venom toward the left undermines a sound and convincing argument. By weaving his own contempt for lefty politics, the "immorality" of sexual promiscuity, the "homosexual agenda" and his own radical past into an otherwise well-researched column on why efforts to prevent the AIDS virus went wrong, Horowitz betrays the virulence of his own views.

That's why reading Horowitz is so confounding. One can never separate his anger from his arguments, and because his hatred for the left is so embedded in his research -- in his very thought processes -- taking anything he says at face value is virtually impossible. It's depressing to contemplate how such a great mind became so vengeful.

--Jason Owens

My initial reaction to David Horowitz's commentary "The plague abettors" was of anger and thoughts that Mr. Horowitz has no idea what he is talking about. But as I kept reading, I realized, as I have known for some time now, that he is right. The PC rhetoric about AIDS is indeed what has fostered the spread of this disease to other communities, and we in the gay community have to face up to the fact that we had the power to stop the spread. Until the gay community stops dancing around the fact that we could have stopped this plague and take responsibility for our actions, this disease will never truly end. The guise of sexual liberation for what many gay men practice (promiscuity, multiple partners) is killing us. It is time to stop the PC lies and own up to our responsibilities to society.

-- Michael Burgreen

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