Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence reportedly took issue with the fact that HIV/AIDS activists were speaking at the 1996 Republican Convention. He doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to HIV/AIDS. As part of his continued war against Planned Parenthood while he was in Congress, his state GOP-led legislature slashed funding to the clinics that often provide people with HIV tests for low or no cost. They also banned needle exchange programs statewide that would have supplied drug users with clean needles so they wouldn’t spread diseases. The result was an outbreak of HIV in Scott County, Indiana in just 65 days.
Pence has recently been at it again, claiming in an interview with ABC News that America has to be made “AIDS-free again,” apparently taking a page from his running mate Donald Trump’s catchy presidential campaign slogan. Pence argued that the only way to “cleanse” America from HIV and AIDS is to “put HIV-positive people through conversion therapy,” after which they would no longer be homosexuals, given that the disease would, according to the Vice Presidential candidate’s own vast medical experience, be “incapable of surviving” in a straight host.
“This has long ceased to be a question of if and became a question of when,” Pence told ABC News. “I’m not familiar with the official statistics, I must admit, but I’m told that the numbers of HIV-positive people are on the rise, meaning that it’s only a matter of time before we’re faced with a full-on epidemic. I’m no expert, by all means, but I do have common sense and we ought to start calling things what they really are. Modern medicine has obviously failed to come up with a peaceful solution for AIDS, which means that, unfortunately, it has become the job of the government to take care of this outbreak by any means necessary. And when I say that, I’m referring to the need to protect the healthy population of the country.”
Pence opined that America “has to act immediately” if it has any plans to stop the “general homosexualization” of American men “led by the liberals and feminists.” “That’s another reason why we must introduce mandatory conversion therapy for all males of all ages who are either hardcore gays or willing to experiment with other men,” Donald Trump’s running mate said. “AIDS has originated among homosexuals and, if I may say so myself, it is almost poetic that it should end with them as well. This is probably going to sound uncommon coming from a politician and a Republican one, at that, but I can’t help but feel all mushy inside when I think about what a glorious country we’ll have once we’re finally gay- and aids-free.”
“What then?” the interviewer asked Pence. “Well, I guess then it’s on to the lesbians. I hear they’re a bit easier to work with, you know, since they’re women and they’re not as physically strong as the men, I think our doctors will have a much easier time getting them to calm down. Let me tell you, with the men it’s risky; they’ll probably keep tearing up the restraints on the tables. While we’re on the subject, I just realized – we’ll probably end up having to pay a fortune for replacement straps and chains. Let me make a mental note to talk to Donald about that. But anyway, it will definitely be much easier with the girls,” he concluded.
