Anyone else who was around back in 1980 during the first AIDS crisis having deja vu now

[markpkessinger]

79. it also halted, for a time, progress on LGBT civil rights . . .

People forget that by 1980, quite a number of municipalities around the country had enacted LGBT civil rights bills, and such bills were under serious consideration in many parts of the country. To this then newly-out-of-the-closet 19-year old, progress, it seemed, was as inevitable as the tide. Then along came HIV/AIDS, and with it, an opportunity for a faded Miss America-cum-orange-juice-peddler to once again claim the spotlight. Almost overnight, all progress came to a halt, and many cities that had passed protections for LGBT civil rights began repealing them.

I learned a valuable lesson through all of that about the danger of allowing oneself to be seduced by a belief in the "inevitability of progress." It's a lesson I've often shared with younger LGBT folks, many of whom are far to willing to rest on that seductive but dangerous belief today.