Leadership Begins at Home! CHAMP and Allies Crank Up the Pressure for a National AIDS Strategy with a Zap at the USCA

By Josh Thomas

AIDS activists turned up the heat on U.S. presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to respond to the escalating domestic epidemic with a silent protest at the closing plenary of the United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in September.

Prior to the protest, both campaigns sent letters to the conference detailing their HIV/AIDS policy positions. In addition to issuing a statement, the McCain campaign dispatched Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) to make a public appearance at USCA.

Conference participants expressed indignation when Representative Diaz-Balart portrayed McCain as the candidate of change and compassion in remarks before a plenary addressing HIV among gay men and MSM, a community that carries a disproportionate burden of HIV cases in the U.S.

Recognizing that McCain had yet to endorse the call for a comprehensive National AIDS Strategy, activists from CHAMP, GMHC and several other HIV/AIDS organizations demanded that both the Democratic and Republican candidates demonstrate leadership by supporting a coordinated, accountable and outcomes-oriented response to the domestic epidemic.

When Diaz-Balart approached the podium, more than 35 women and men in the audience stood up, turned their backs to him, and held up signs declaring that "Leadership Begins at Home" and calling for a National AIDS Strategy in the next administration. Faced with these demands, Diaz-Balart advised the audience that there will be a national AIDS plan. Though his flippant declaration fell short of an endorsement, he nevertheless became the first Republican member of Congress to publicly support the idea of a national AIDS plan.

The silent protest continued as Paul Kawata, Executive Director of the National Minority AIDS Council, read a prepared statement from the McCain campaign. The brief letter did little more than pledge cost-containment measures for healthcare and didn‘t pledge to develop a national AIDS plan, which provoked a spontaneous outburst of outrage from the audience. McCain's message contrasted sharply with the Obama campaign's statement presented the day before. Obama called for aggressive federal action for increased HIV prevention and treatment and committed his administration to a National AIDS Strategy.

Later in the plenary, speaker and actor Wilson Cruz – an avowed AIDS activist – thanked the audience for insisting that both candidates address AIDS. Cruz invited the activists to again rise with their signs, declaring "this is my integrity" to acknowledge how the public showing of solidarity within the AIDS movement supports his – and by extension everyone's – efforts to demand government accountability to confront the epidemic.

Though it's unclear whether the zap at USCA influenced the McCain campaign's HIV/AIDS policy positions, on October 1st the Senator McCain officially responded to the AIDS community's demands by endorsing the call for a National AIDS Strategy in a Washington Blade interview.