Mary Fisher关于艾滋病的演讲由刀豆文库小编整理，希望给你工作、学习、生活带来方便，猜你可能喜欢“预防艾滋病的演讲稿”。
Mary Fisher关于艾滋病的演讲
Le than three months ago at platform hearings in Salt Lake City, I asked the Republican Party to
lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the iue of HIV and AIDS.I have come
tonight to bring our silence to an end.I bear a meage of challenge, not self congratulation.I want your attention, not your applause.I would never have asked to be HIV positive, but I believe that in all things there is a purpose;and I
stand before you and before the nation gladly.The reality of AIDS is brutally clear.Two hundred
thousand Americans are dead or dying.A million more are infected.Worldwide, forty million, sixty
million, or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years.But despite
science and research, White House meetings, and congreional hearings, despite good intentions
and bold initiatives, campaign slogans, and hopeful promises, it is—despite it all—the epidemic which is winning tonight.In the context of an election year, I ask you, here in this great hall, or listening in the quiet of your
home, to recognize that AIDS virus is not a political creature.It does not care whether you are
Democrat or Republican;it does not ask whether you are black or white, male or female, gay or straight, young or old.Tonight, I represent an AIDS community whose members have been reluctantly drafted from every
segment of American society.Though I am white and a mother, I am one with a black infant
struggling with tubes in a Philadelphia hospital.Though I am female and contracted this disease in
marriage and enjoy the warm support of my family, I am one with the lonely gay man sheltering a
flickering candle from the cold wind of his family’s rejection.This is not a distant threat.It is a present danger.The rate of infection is increasing fastest among
women and children.Largely unknown a decade ago, AIDS is the third leading killer of young
adult Americans today.But it won’t be third for long, because unlike other diseases, this one travels.Adolescents don’t give each other cancer or heart disease because they believe they are in love, but
HIV is different.And we have helped it along.We have killed each other with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence.We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long, because HIV asks only one
thing of those it attacks.Are you human? And this is the right question.Are you human? Because
people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being.They are human.They have not earned
www.daodoc.comcruelty, and they do not deserve meanne.They don’t benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts.Each of them is exactly what God made: a person;not evil, deserving of our judgment;not
victims, longing for our pity—people, ready for support and worthy of compaion.My call to you, my Party, is to take a public stand, no le compaionate than that of the President
and Mrs.Bush.They have embraced me and my family in memorable ways.In the place of
judgment, they have shown affection.In difficult moments, they have raised our spirits.In the
darkest hours, I have seen them reaching not only to me, but also to my parents, armed with that
stunning grief and special grace that comes only to parents who have themselves leaned too long over the bedside of a dying child.With the President’s leadership, much good has been done.Much of the good has gone unheralded，and as the President has insisted, much remains to be done.But we do the President’s cause no
good if we praise the American family but ignore a virus that destroys it.We must be consistent if we are to be believed.We cannot love justice and ignore prejudice, love
our children and fear to teach them.Whatever our role as parent or policymaker, we must act as
eloquently as we speak—else we have no integrity.My call to the nation is a plea for awarene.If
you believe you are safe, you are in danger.Because I was not hemophiliac, I was not at risk.Because I was not gay, I was not at risk.Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk.My father
has devoted much of his lifetime guarding against another holocaust.He is part of the generation
who heard Pastor Nemoellor come out of the Nazi death camps to say, “They came after the Jews，and I was not a Jew, so, I did not protest.They came after the trade unionists, and I was not a trade
unionist, so, I did not protest.Then they came after the Roman Catholics, and I was not a Roman
Catholic, so, I did not protest.Then they came after me, and there was no one left to protest.” The
leon history teaches is this: If you believe you are safe, you are at risk.If you do not see this killer
stalking your children, look again.There is no family or community, no race or religion, no place
left in America that is safe.Until we genuinely embrace this meage, we are a nation at risk.Tonight, HIV marches resolutely toward AIDS in more than a million American homes, littering its
pathway with the bodies of the young—young men, young women, young parents, and young
children.One of the families is mine.If it is true that HIV inevitably turns to AIDS, then my
children will inevitably turn to orphans.My family has been a rock of support.My 84-year-old
father, who has pursued the healing of the nations, will not accept the premise that he cannot heal
his daughter.My mother refuses to be broken.She still calls at midnight to tell wonderful jokes that
make me laugh.Sisters and friends, and my brother Phillip, whose birthday is today, all have helped
carry me over the hardest places.I am bleed, richly and deeply bleed, to have such a family.But not all of you… But not all of you have been so bleed.You are HIV positive, but dare not say
it.You have lost loved ones, but you dare not whisper the word AIDS.You weep silently.You
grieve alone.I have a meage for you.It is not you who should feel shame.It is we who tolerate
ignorance and practice prejudice, we who have taught you to fear.We must lift our shroud of
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silence, making it safe for you to reach out for compaion.It is our task to seek safety for our
children, not in quiet denial, but in effective action.Someday our children will be grown.My son Max, now four, will take the measure of his mother.My son Zachary, now two, will sort through his memories.I may not be here to hear their
judgments, but I know already what I hope they are.I want my children to know that their mother
was not a victim.She was a meenger.I do not want them to think, as I once did, that courage is the absence of fear.I want them to know
that courage is the strength to act wisely when most we are afraid.I want them to have the courage
to step forward when called by their nation or their Party and give leadership, no matter what the personal cost.I ask no more of you than I ask of myself or of my children.To the millions of you who are
grieving, who are frightened, who have suffered the ravages of AIDS firsthand: Have courage, and
you will find support.To the millions who are strong, I iue the plea: Set aside prejudice and
politics to make room for compaion and sound policy.To my children, I make this pledge: I will not give in, Zachary, because I draw my courage from
you.Your silly giggle gives me hope;your gentle prayers give me strength;and you, my child, give
me the reason to say to America, “You are at risk.” And I will not rest, Max, until I have done all I
can to make your world safe.I will seek a place where intimacy is not the prelude to suffering.I
will not hurry to leave you, my children, but when I go, I pray that you will not suffer shame on my account.To all within the sound of my voice, I appeal: Learn with me the leons of history and of grace, so
my children will not be afraid to say the word “AIDS” when I am gone.Then, their children and
yours may not need to whisper it at all.God ble the children, and God ble us all.Good night.
