AmericanRhetoric.com

Mary Fisher:
“A Whisper of AIDS”

delivered
19
August
1992,
Republican National Convention, Houston,
TX

AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED:
Text
version below
transcribed
directly
from
audio

Less than
three months ago at platform hearings in
Salt Lake City, I asked the Republican
Party
to
lift
the shroud of silence which
has been draped over the issue of HIV and AIDS. I
have come tonight to bring our silence to an end. I bear a message of challenge, not selfcongratulation.
I want your attention, not your applause.

I would never have asked to be HIV positive, but I believe that
in all
things there is a purpose.
and I stand before you and before the nation gladly. The reality of AIDS is brutally clear. Two
hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying. A
million more are infected.
Worldwide, forty
million, sixty million, or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years.
But despite science and research, White House meetings, and congressional hearings, despite
good intentions and bold initiatives, campaign slogans, and hopeful promises, it is despite
it
all
the
epidemic which is
winning tonight.

In
the context of an election
year,
I ask you, here in this great
hall, or listening in the quiet of
your home, to recognize that AIDS virus is not a political creature. It does not
care whether
you are Democrat or Republican. it does not ask whether you are black or white, male or
female, gay or straight, young or old.

Tonight, I represent an
AIDS community whose members have been reluctantly drafted from
every segment of American society. Though I am white and a mother, I am one with a black
infant struggling with
tubes in a Philadelphia hospital. Though
I am female and contracted this
disease in
marriage and enjoy the warm support of my family, I am one with
the lonely gay
man
sheltering a flickering candle from the cold wind of his family’s rejection.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Copyright Status: Restricted, seek permission.
Page
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This is not a distant
threat. It is a present danger. The rate of infection is increasing fastest
among women and children. Largely unknown a
decade ago, AIDS is the third leading killer of
young adult Americans today. But
it won’t be third for long, because unlike other diseases,
this one travels. Adolescents don’t give each other cancer or heart disease because they
believe they are in love, but
HIV is different. and we have helped
it along.
We have killed each
other with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence.

We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot
hide there long, because HIV asks only
one thing of those it attacks. Are you
human? And this is the right question. Are you
human?
Because people with HIV have not
entered some alien state of being. They are human. They
have not earned cruelty, and they do not deserve meanness. They don’t benefit from being
isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is
exactly what
God made: a person. not evil,
deserving of our judgment. not
victims, longing for our pity people,
ready for support and
worthy of compassion.

My call
to you, my Party, is to
take a public stand, no
less compassionate than
that of the
President and Mrs. Bush. They have embraced me and my family in
memorable ways. In the
place of judgment, they have shown affection. In difficult
moments, they have raised our
spirits. In
the darkest
hours, I
have seen them reaching not only to
me, but also to
my
parents, armed with
that stunning grief and special grace that comes only to parents who
have themselves leaned too long over the bedside of a dying child.

With
the President’s leadership, much good has been done. Much of the good has gone
unheralded, and as the President has insisted,
much
remains to be done.
But we do the
President’s cause no good if we praise the American family but ignore a virus that destroys it.

We must be consistent
if we are to
be believed.
We cannot love justice and ignore prejudice,
love our children and fear to
teach
them. Whatever our role as parent or policymaker, we
must act as eloquently as we speak else
we have no integrity. My call to the nation is a plea
for awareness. If you believe you are safe, you
are in danger. Because I was not hemophiliac,
I was not at risk. Because I was not gay, I was not at risk. Because I did not
inject drugs,
I
was not at risk.

My father has devoted much of his lifetime guarding against another holocaust. He is part of
the generation who heard Pastor Nemoellor come out of the Nazi death camps to say,

“They came after the Jews, and I was not a Jew, so, I did not protest. They came after the
trade unionists, and I was not a trade unionist,
so, I did not protest. Then
they came after the
Roman Catholics, and I was not a Roman Catholic, so, I did not protest. Then
they came after
me, and there was no one left
to protest.”

The The
lesson history teaches is this: If you
believe you are safe, you are at risk. If you do
not
see this killer stalking your children, look again. There is no
family or community, no race
or religion, no place left
in America that is safe.
Until we genuinely embrace this message, we
are a nation at
risk.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Copyright Status: Restricted, seek permission.
Page
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Tonight, HIV marches resolutely toward AIDS in more than a million
American homes, littering
its pathway with the bodies of the young young
men, young women, young parents, and
young children. One of the families is mine.
If it
is true that
HIV inevitably turns to AIDS, then
my children will inevitably turn
to orphans. My family has been a rock of support.

My 84yearold
father, who
has pursued the healing of the nations, will
not accept
the premise
that
he cannot heal
his daughter. My mother refuses to be broken. She still calls at midnight
to tell wonderful jokes that
make me laugh. Sisters and friends, and my brother Phillip, whose
birthday is today, all
have helped carry me over the hardest places. I am blessed, richly and
deeply blessed, to
have such a family.

But
not all of you But
not all of you
have been so blessed. You are HIV positive, but
dare
not
say it. You have lost loved ones, but you dare not whisper the word AIDS. You weep
silently. You grieve alone.
I
have a message for you.

It
is not you who should feel
shame. It is we we
who tolerate ignorance and practice
prejudice, we who
have taught
you
to fear.
We must
lift our shroud of silence, making it safe
for you to
reach out
for compassion. It is our task to
seek safety for our children, not
in quiet
denial, but in effective action.

Someday our children will be grown. My son Max, now
four, will
take the measure of his
mother. My son Zachary, now
two, will sort through his memories. I may not be here to
hear
their judgments, but I know already what I hope they are. I want my children
to know that
their mother was not a victim. She was a messenger.
I do
not want
them to think, as I once
did, that courage is the absence of fear. I want
them to
know
that
courage is the strength
to
act wisely when
most we are afraid.
I want
them to
have the courage to step forward when
called by their nation or their Party and give leadership,
no matter what the personal cost.

I ask no
more of you
than
I ask of myself or of
my children. To
the millions of you who are
grieving, who are frightened, who have suffered the ravages of AIDS firsthand: Have courage,
and you will find support. To
the millions who are strong,
I
issue the plea:
Set aside prejudice
and politics to make room for compassion and sound policy.

To my children, I make this pledge: I will not give in, Zachary, because I draw my courage
from you. Your silly giggle gives me hope. your gentle prayers give me strength. and you, my
child, give me the reason
to say to
America, "You are at risk."
And I will
not rest, Max, until I
have done all I can
to make your world safe. I will seek a place where intimacy is not
the
prelude to suffering. I will
not
hurry to leave you, my children, but when I go, I pray that
you
will
not
suffer shame on my account.

To all within
the sound of my voice, I appeal: Learn with
me the lessons of history and of
grace, so
my children will
not be afraid to say the word "AIDS" when I am gone.
Then, their
children and yours may not need to whisper it at all.

God bless the children, and God bless us all. Good night.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Copyright Status: Restricted, seek permission.
Page
3