Neither vice president Dick Cheney nor challenger John Edwards broke new ground in the responses they offered to questions on same sex relationships and AIDS during their televised debate on October 5.
AIDS advocates were disappointed that Edwards did not use the opportunity to point out differences between the two sets of candidates.
Late in the debate, moderator Gwen Ifill recalled Cheney's comments four years ago on same sex unions and that 'Freedom means freedom for everybody.' She asked him to square that with the administration's support for a constitutional amendment that would ban same sex unions.
The vice president reiterated his support for that statement saying, 'It's really no one else's business.' He also saw 'whether or not government should sanction or approve or give some sort of authorization to those relationships as...a separate issue.'
Cheney again said his 'preference' was for leaving the issue of marriage to the states. With regard to the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) he said, the President 'sets policy for this administration and I support the President.'
Edwards first used his time to talk about tax policy and then praise the Cheney family and their lesbian daughter Mary. He addressed the question by beginning, 'I believe that marriage is between a man and a women, and so does John Kerry.' He also expressed support for 'partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples' and 'we should not use the Constitution to divide this country.'
Ifill asked Edwards, 'Aren't you trying to have it both ways?'
No, Edwards replied, reiterating his support for treating gay and lesbian couples 'respectfully' while reserving marriage to between a man and a woman.
Among the four major candidates for national office, Cheney is the only one who has not said that the term marriage should be reserved exclusively for a man and a woman.
Ifill asked the men to talk about the government's role in fighting AIDS, 'And not AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country where black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts.'
Cheney spent much of his time speaking of what the administration has done internationally. He said, 'I was not aware that it was that severe an epidemic' among black women. He touted education, public awareness and research and concluded, 'Obviously we need to do more of that.'
At least he did not specifically support abstinence only programs of prevention.
Edwards also stressed the international side and pledged to double international spending. Domestically he switched it back to the 'bigger question' of '45 million Americans without health care coverage,' and did not address the question.
'The current regime has been pathetic to say the least,' said Chicago advocate Jim Pinkett. 'But I was extremely disappointed in Sunny Boy's essentially incoherent and rambling response...I was hoping the trial lawyer would have skewered BushCo for its flat funding of Ryan White, for its ghastly CDC puppet show, for the $20 million ADAP band aid, but no, we got a bunch of mush.'
AIDS advocates who had gathered to watch the debate in Washington, DC said the Kerry/Edwards campaign had been given talking point responses to address the question that Ifill asked. They either did not make it through to the candidate, or more likely, a decision was made that there was nothing to be gained politically by directly addressing the question and the time could better be used to restate their position on health care coverage for the uninsured.
The irony is that for minority women, those who are most likely not be have private or public health insurance coverage, the best way to gain that coverage is by being diagnosed with AIDS. Current public programs do a significantly better job of providing health coverage to people with HIV than they do for people suffering from most other diseases.
