SAN FRANCISCO: Bathhouse Ban Should Stick
A San Francisco Chronicle editorial states that the Community United for Gay Sexual Privacy's campaign to overturn rules banning private rooms in gay sex clubs and mandating club staff to discourage unsafe sex is "absurd" and "defies reason in a city" that has seen 25,976 HIV-positive residents since the early 1980s, 17,814 of whom have died. The editorial argues, "At a time when there is disturbing evidence of an upsurge in dangerous sex practices among some gays, loosening bathhouse rules would be the wrong message to send by a city that has seen so much suffering and death because of AIDS. If the measure makes the ballot, San Francisco should vote it down as a common-sense matter of public health" (San Francisco Chronicle, 5/6).
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