To the editor:
It seems to me it's high time we take a closer look at Magic Johnson. I know we have a shortage of heroes in America at the present time, but must we elevate a self-acknowledged, unrepentant, promiscuous womanizer to the task force on AIDS, to the portals of the White House to lecture the president of the United States on his failure to put AIDS above all other health problems?No matter that heart problems cause more than 15 times the deaths that AIDS does; that cancer causes over 10 times as many. Forget it. To cure AIDS is the big thing, according to Johnson and all those who lionize him.
Never mind that it could be checked simply by abstinence, by leading decent lives - and perhaps eliminated; that no disease in history has so little justification for its spread.
No one is asking, or even expecting, Johnson to do any great moralizing, but at the very least, it seems to me, he could somewhere along the line have said something like, "Look what infidelity cost me." But no. He just goes around the country, wined and dined, cautioning us to be careful, and now telling the president he has been negligent in not putting the problem if AIDS before everything else.
And here, too, President Bush should hardly have taken such lecturing so docilely. Of course, it's election year and one must be careful and not alienate the black vote. But even so, our president could at least have called his attention to the more serious health problems we are faced with; and, while not ignoring AIDS, put it and Johnson in their proper places.
Reid J. Sloan
Salt Lake City