Our Best Scientific Minds Blame Gay People for AIDS?

There's no doubt that in order to solve the catastrophe of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. is going to need some of the best scientific minds to come together. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said as much, as he announced a team of scientists working in tandem with the federal government and authorities at BP to stop the massive flow of oil into the Gulf. Chu called this elite group "our best scientific minds."

There's just one problem. One of the names announced by Chu on this team of scientists includes Jonathan I. Katz. He's a professor of physics at Washington University, but that's hardly the extent of his reputation. See, according to the man himself, Katz is a proud homophobe — someone who thinks that gay people (he calls them "sodomites") are to blame for AIDS, and that gay people live an existence of "unnatural sexual desire."

Really, this is what qualifies for a superior scientific mind within the Obama administration? Because, frankly, this is what qualifies as one of the most offensive maneuvers the Obama administration has made in its less than two years in office.

John Aravosis at AmericaBLOG writes that there's little excuse for a "fierce advocate" of gay and lesbian rights to put his stamp of approval on a scientist with a track record like Katz. "We all want the government to do everything it can to stop the oil spill, but elevating an avowed homophobe, and giving him the imprimatur, and the stamp of legitimacy, of the Obama administration, is simply wrong," writes Aravosis.

CREDO Action, echoing Aravosis, has started a petition for folks to sign calling on the Obama administration to fire Katz. Sign it here, and send the President a direct message letting his administration know that the man they think is one of the best scientific minds in America is also one of the country's most ferocious (and proudest) homophobes. Just look at his own vile words for proof.

In an article that Katz wrote several years back, "In Defense of Homophobia," Katz went on record with some of the most anti-gay sentiments of any academic in history. Katz argued that the human body was not designed to engage in same-sex sexual acts (despite the fact that homosexuality has been around since the dawn of time, and in nearly every biological species), and that gay people are to blame for millions of innocent people dying from AIDS around the globe.

"There are many completely innocent victims (of AIDS), too," Katz wrote. "The icy road was lined with unsuspecting innocents, who never chose to ride a motorcycle. Guilt for their deaths is on the hands of the homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers who poisoned the blood supply. These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves."

Wow, Obama. Great stuff there. Maybe you should consider hiring Katz to join your team of speechwriters for your next campaign?

But Katz doesn't stop there.

"What of those cursed with unnatural sexual desires? Must they forever suppress these desires? Yes, but this is hardly a unique fate. Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married," Katz writes. "Morality requires them to suppress these desires, and most do not commit adultery, though they feel lust in their hearts. Almost everyone, at one time or another, covets another's property. They do not steal. Many people feel great anger or intense hatred at some time in their lives. They do not kill."

So comparing homosexuality to adultery, theft, and murder ... gets you honored and praised by the Obama administration and the Secretary of Energy?

Katz even had the gall to sign his article a "proud homophobe." That should be akin to calling yourself a proud racist, a proud Nazi, or a proud sexist.

But for the Obama administration, it's enough to garner you the title of "best scientific mind" in the country. Shameful.

Send the Obama administration a message that legitimizing someone like Katz doesn't hold up good science; it just affirms bigotry. Proud homophobes, if that's what they want to be called, should not be commended by the federal government under any circumstances.

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