The Washington Times National Weekly Edition, September 7, 1997
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COMMENTARY, page 31

HEY KIDS, DON'T SMOKE, TAKE UP A DEADLIER LIFESTYLE...(excerpt)

by Reed Irvine and Joe Goulden of Accuracy In Media

Hilary Clinton recently criticized films that encourage young people to smoke...

...The first lady has performed a useful service in scolding the entertainment industry for encouraging young people to adopt a habit that may shave a dozen years off their lives. But she could perform an even greater service if she would lean on them to quit encouraging young people, even children, to contemplate adopting a lifestyle that statistics show is far more deadly than smoking.

There are reports that more television sitcoms this year are going to include homosexual characters and themes. You can rest assured that none of them will portray homosexuality in an unfavorable light. This is part of the drive to get more people, especially young people, to look with favor upon this lifestyle, which robs men of three time as many years as smoking.

According to a story in the Washington Times of August 21, this drive has now extended down even to kindergarten in public schools in Provincetown, Mass.

Homosexual sex is the largest single cause of AIDS among American men. In 1995 there were 43,000 deaths from AIDS, of which 72 percent were between the ages of 25 and 44. Deaths from AIDS are less than 28 percent of the deaths from lung cancer, but because AIDS victims die so young, the years of potential life lost from AIDS are 24 percent greater than the loss from lung cancer deaths. The loss from AIDS averages over 35 years per death, according to figures provided by the National Center for Health Statistics.

This is not a figure that the government calculates or publishes regularly. Indeed, when Donna Shalala, the secretary for health and human services, was asked recently if her department had done any research comparing the years of potential life lost caused by smoking and the homosexual lifestyle, her answer was a curt and emphatic, no! The message was clear: This is not a subject Miss Shalala is interesting in studying or publicizing.

Like smoking, AIDS is almost entirely the result of a lifestyle choice. Many young lives that will be snuffed out over 35 years prematurely could be saved if there were a campaign to make that lifestyle unacceptable to vulnerable youngsters. Miss Shalala could start by publishing and discussing the statistics. Mrs. Clinton could help by showing those statistics to her friends in Hollywood to convince them that encouraging homosexual conduct is an even greater threat to long life than Joe Camel ever was.