They have shown me the way

From The Washington Post:

Vigils, curbside HIV screening, public forums with District teens and a demonstration across from the White House are planned for today and this weekend to mark World AIDS Day in the city with the worst rate of infection in the United States.

The events, which began earlier in the week with a town hall meeting at Howard University, follow a report on the extent of HIV and AIDS in the city. The accounting by the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration showed "a modern epidemic" that touches thousands of residents in every part of the city. The statistics were the first ever amassed on HIV rates in the District.

The most vocal gathering is expected to lead to arrests as health advocates and HIV-positive activists protest in Lafayette Square this afternoon, the eve of the official day of commemoration. According to an organizer, demonstrators would be draped in red tape to symbolize the bureaucracy that is hindering an effective response to the disease on local, national and global levels.

Other than the spouses/partners of cheating husbands/boyfriends and those who received blood or blood products containing the virus before the nation's blood supply was effectively screened (a very small percentage of the total) virtually everyone who has contracted the disease since the early 1980s has done so because they engaged in voluntary behavior in full knowledge of the risks.

In that spirit I want to be able to drink a quart of scotch and a twelve-pack of beer every day. I want to eat 6000 calories of junk food every day. I want to smoke three packs of cigarettes every day. And I want to get no exercise other than walking to the refrigerator, liquor cabinet or bathroom as needed. This is the lifestyle I choose to live and I have wanted to live this way for as long as I can remember so I believe I was born this way.

Therefore I DEMAND that the government spend however many billions of dollars it has to spend to fund the medical research to allow me to live my preferred lifestyle without any medical consequences whatsoever!

Anyone who does not agree to this is a bigot and is attempting to commit genocide and is probably a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan. I demand that churches who preach against the "sins" of "drunkenness" and "gluttony" and "indolence" be forced to change their medieval attitudes and that so called diet and exercise gurus like Richard Simmons be prosecuted for hate speech.