Thousands of homosexuals led by dying AIDS victims marched in three cities to call for more awareness of the new disease that has 'touched every one of us' and to denounce the government for ignoring the problem because it mostly affects gays.
San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein proclaimed May 2-8 'AIDS Awareness Week' and stressed during a news conference Monday that AIDS is transmitted through blood transfusions and certain kinds of sexual activity.
About 10,000 people, mostly gay men, gathered at the San Francisco Civic Center Monday night to demonstrate concern about the spread of the often-fatal disease, formally known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
The demonstrators heard speakers urge greater public awareness about the illness, which makes its victims susceptible to other ailments, including cancer.
'All of us have friends who are dying,' said one marcher. 'This has touched every one of us. We've got to be more responsible about our lives and more caring about our friends.'
In New York City, some 5,000 people, carrying candles and bearing banners for gay rights groups, marched about a mile through Manhattan streets to demand funds to battle the disease.
The marchers were led by about 10 men diagnosed as suffering from AIDS, carrying a black-and-white lettered banner that read: 'Fighting For Our Lives.'
The demonstrators gathered in Greenwich Village and walked to Federal Plaza, where speakers called on the federal government to provide funding for AIDS research.
At least 250 people held a candlelight vigil in front of the Houston City Hall to call for more research into the disease that has killed 520 of its known 1,300 victims in the United States.
About 2,000 demonstrators, carrying lighted candles, marched down Market Street from San Francisco's Castro District -- residential and shopping area for many of the city's estimated 25,000 homosexuals -- to the United Nations Plaza near city hall, where they joined an estimated 8,000 people who listened to speakers afflicted with AIDS tell their stories.
The purpose of the demonstration, the sponsoring Kaposi's Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation said, was to 'memorialize those who have died from AIDS, to show solidarity for those who have the disease and to demand that sufficient research funds be released to find the cause, the cure and methods of preventing AIDS.'
The ailment is an incurable virus that affects primarily homosexuals, hemophiliacs, Haitians and drug users.
'We are gay, we are blacks, we are IV drug users. We are the people who have AIDS,' said Ron Vachor, an organizer of the New York AIDS Network, charging that the federal government had neglected the problem because of discrimination against its sufferers.
The disease kills the body's defenses against infections. Male homosexuals are considered a high risk group with 70 percent of U.S. victims coming from the gay community.
