It is reported that the slogan first appeared in public in the early 1990s, when Sebastian Bach, the former lead singer of the heavy metal band Skid Row, wore it on a t-shirt thrown to him by an audience member. The slogan caught on quickly as a catchy truism, a chant, or simply something written as graffiti. The slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" appeared during the early years of AIDS in the United States, when the disease was mainly diagnosed among male homosexuals and was almost invariably fatal. For a few years the misleading technical name for the disease was gay-related immune deficiency. During the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, mainstream newspapers labeled it a "gay plague". Causing AIDS įurther information: AIDS § Stigma, and Gay-related immune deficiencyĪn outgrowth of the discourse on homosexuality causing disasters argues that HIV/AIDS is divine punishment for homosexuality. In 2012, Chilean politician Ignacio Urrutia claimed that allowing homosexuals to serve in the Chilean military would cause Perú and Bolivia to invade and destroy his country. He later apologized and said, "I would never blame any human being except the terrorists". On the broadcast of the Christian television program The 700 Club, Falwell said, "You helped this happen". įollowing the September 2001 attacks, televangelist Jerry Falwell blamed "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way" for provoking the aggression of Islamic fundamentalists and causing God to withdraw his protection for America.
In 2020, various religious figures including Israeli rabbi Meir Mazuz have argued that the COVID-19 pandemic is divine retribution for same-sex activity or pride parades. Homosexuals have been blamed for hurricanes, including Isaac, Katrina, and Sandy. In the U.S., right-wing religious groups including the Westboro Baptist Church continue to claim that homosexuals are responsible for disasters. This discourse was revived by Anita Bryant in 1976 when she blamed homosexuals for droughts in California. This trope was common in early modern Christian literature homosexuals were blamed for earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues, invasions of Saracens, and field mice. The argument that homosexuals cause natural disasters has been around for more than a thousand years, even before Justinian blamed earthquakes on "unchecked homosexual behavior" in the sixth century. 1.11.3 Conflict with national identity or sovereigntyĪnti-gay activists claim that homosexuality goes against traditional family values, that homosexuality is a Trojan Horse, or that it destroys families and humankind through homosexual recruitment which will lead to the extinction of humanity.1.5 Homosexuality as a choice or lifestyle.