Vigil and violence
Dear Editor:
It was a Saturday night (July 23) and the hustle and bustle of people going to and from gay bars having a good time was met with this reminder that even here in heart of the gay ghetto you are not safe.
A call for love, peace and nonviolence was heard at Halsted and Roscoe as people of faith gathered in the 7-Eleven parking lot. It was, for them, a time of prayer to ask God for an end to violence in Boystown. However, they realized that the violence is man-made, and rightly concluded the solution will be man-made.
The reminder may be bad for business for the late-night bars, but it has become painfully obvious that the patrons of these watering holes must be reminded to be safe as they journey to and from these nightspots.
After the anti-violence prayer service, at 3 a.m., a large group of 10 people was reportedly fighting near a Boystown intersection at Belmont and Sheffield, and a cab driver notified police after a man robbed and maced him at 6:19 a.m. in the 1000 block of West Belmont the morning of July 24.
We have called community meetings, now our religious communities are starting to speak out. The way forward is not seeking solutions in isolation from each other, but rather opening lines of communication with each other.
Violence in our community, whether it is a hate crime or same-sex violence, will disappear only if it is deprived of the passive support by many in our community too afraid to speak out.
We all know about the silence that can be caused when it interferes with the fun we are having, or the effect it will have on businesses. Now is the time for the Northalsted Business Alliance to publically join in this call for an end to the violence. A violence-free Boystown will be very good for business, and that will be very good for the residents of the area.
Fear of ostracism for speaking truthfully about the current situation cannot, and should not, be part of our concern.
Let's come together as a community and seriously begin to deal with this critical situation by bringing all our creativity and good business sense to the table. Now is not the time to be politically correct, or pointing the finger at each other. We can no longer afford these petty divisions.
The solution cannot happen without serious involvement from all quarters of our community, and this includes the business community.
Our religious community, in my opinion, has done the right thing by sounding the alarm in the heart of the Boystown with this call to prayer.
Joe Murray
Rainbow Sash Movement
iPrEx rebuttal
Dear Editor:
In the June 6 article, "Forum explores Truvada's use in fighting HIV" Dr. Robert Grant was reported as saying that AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) was "working to discredit the [iPrEx] trial results." This is patently false.
AHF is opposed to the granting of FDA approval of Truvada for prevention based on a single study among gay men, iPrEx, which showed only 44 percent effectiveness, not the 90 percent the article stated. The 90-percent figure eliminates half the men who got no benefit because they did not take the drug as instructed. Shooting the messengerAHFdoes not address the very serious concerns raised by, among others, the American Public Health Association.
As far as Dr. Grant referring to AHF as "a large corporation," AHF is the nation's largest provider of HIV care, which we have doneregardless of ability to payfor 25 years.
Sincerely,
Michael Weinstein
President
AIDS Healthcare Foundation