WHERE WOULD THEY GET THAT IDEA?:

A Warning, From Gays to Gays (Richard Cohen, February 17, 2005, Washington Post)

Much of life's wisdom is contained in a single piece of dialogue in George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan": the exchange between the Inquisitor and the Chaplain during the trial of Joan of Arc. The Inquisitor orders the Chaplain to sit down. When the Chaplain indignantly refuses, the Inquisitor says, "If you will not sit, you must stand." To that, the Chaplain says, "I will not stand," and flings himself into his seat. Often, as Shaw knew, the best reason to do something is that someone else doesn't want you to do it.

Tragically, this juvenile reasoning partially accounts for the apparent upsurge in HIV infections among gay males -- and the emergence of a virulent new strain that has health officials plenty worried. Simply put, it is the determination of some gays -- a minority, but a substantial one -- to disregard all the rules for safe sex because being gay, they think, means you don't have to follow any rules at all.

Even for Richard Cohen this essay betrays a profound lack of self-knowledge and incomprehension of humankind.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 17, 2005 7:59 AM