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On World AIDS Day, a recent interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci is circulating, in which he expresses concern about homophobic lawmakers turning back the clock when it comes to fair and equal treatment of the LGBTQ+ community, calling the extreme right's antigay attitude as bad as he's ever seen.
“It's reverting back to the way it was 40 years ago, which is terrible. We certainly have got to do something about that and push back against that," Fauci says, with Advocate pointing out that Republicans in Congress are working to strip funding for AIDS research and housing, and holding back reauthorization, after 20 years, of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), George W. Bush and Fauci's signature program.
Encouraging the gay community to organize their efforts to protect their rights, much like they did in the 80s, Fauci added, "We also need to tap experienced activists that are still around and are close friends of mine like Peter Staley, Mark Harrington, and Gregg Gonsalves. We've got to be very, very, very aggressive in pushing back on this nonsense.”