Hate: The Tired American Response to Exposure

The Threats, Name-Calling, and Intimidation Behind the Wine Wars and the Reality of Freelance Journalism

My first foray into the public eye as a writer was in 1996, the year Insight Books, an imprint of Hachette and one of the largest publishing houses in the world, published my book “AIDS and HIV-Related Diseases.” It was an honor, but it was also the culmination of years spent trying to understand how a viral disease had become a referendum on who deserved to live. Much of the hate, isolation, and cruelty I documented was not new to me. I had lived through the HIV-related deaths of people I knew. I had watched the indifference of our body politic.

Fear and homophobia became inseparable. Warped interpretations of Christian scripture hardened into pejorative legislation, and the spotlight on LGBTQ people had never been brighter. In that light, two things grew simultaneously: a movement demanding equality and a hatred determined to crush it. The growing awareness that more aggressive HIV research and public health interventions could have saved lives was a hard pill for many to swallow.

Ove…