IT IS difficult to know which is more troubling and dangerous: Ian Page’s active vilification of homosexuals (The NDL Letters, May 18), or the fact that The Northern Daily Leader sees fit to print such hate speech in its pages.

Who will accept responsibility for the bullying, bashings, self-harm and suicides that result from spreading such lies about homosexuals and the spread of HIV?

The best that can be said for this sad situation is that such barbaric attitudes can be exposed to the light of day and soundly debunked.

It was scientists and doctors who discovered HIV, worked out how it is spread, how to prevent it and who invented medicine to treat it.

Politically and religiously motivated deniers of science have contributed nothing whatsoever to controlling the spread of HIV, and in fact have made matters much worse, by convincing many heterosexuals and married couples that they are somehow “immune” from infection.

The number one propagator of HIV is unsafe sexual practice. 

Infection rates among heterosexual and homosexual populations are equal — the virus doesn’t know who is gay and who isn’t, or who is married and who isn’t.

Not even the bonds of matrimony will protect a partner whose spouse is infected.

Indeed, HIV spreads fastest when religious institutions instruct their believers not to use condoms, which are the most effective preventative measure, short of total abstinence.

HIV also spreads fast when scientifically ignorant deniers like former South African president Thabo Mbeki decree that AIDS is not caused by a virus.

His legacy to his nation was the highest infection rate in the world, with the vast majority being infections between heterosexual partners, passed on to their children.

There are many difficult medical, social and environmental problems facing us today. 

Modern science and medicine offer a range of viable solutions. Politically and religiously motivated hate speech offers none.