Gay New York Democrats Seek To Undo Only Redeemable Part Of Anthony Fauci’s Legacy

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Gay New York Democrats Seek To Undo Only Redeemable Part Of Anthony Fauci’s Legacy

Two openly gay New York Democrats are pushing to overturn a decades-old restriction on bathhouses enacted during the AIDS crisis — a policy that, ironically, was tied to the very public-health emergency that helped jumpstart the embattled immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci’s career.

Democrat state Sen. Erik Bottcher of New York and Democratic Assemblymember Tony Simone recently introduced the Public Health Modernization Act. This bill would scrap New York’s 1985 restriction on adult bathhouses and require the state Department of Health to establish rules allowing them to operate legally, according to the Advocate.

In October 1985, the New York State Public Health Council amended the sanitary code to prohibit bathhouses, adult saunas, and similar establishments from permitting high-risk sexual activity on their premises, characterizing these venues as a threat to public health.

The regulation was enforced primarily by city health inspectors and ultimately contributed to the closure or transformation of New York City’s gay bathhouse spaces, according to the New York Times.

The current lawmakers argue the policy is outdated because HIV prevention and treatment have changed dramatically since the height of the AIDS epidemic. (RELATED: You Won’t Believe The Latest Argument Letitia James Made To Save New York’s Body Armor Ban)

“The science has changed. Prevention has changed. Our laws need to keep pace when the facts on the ground change,” Bottcher told the Advocate.

But the history surrounding the legislation offers an unusual reminder of one of the more consequential chapters of Fauci’s career — his early work investigating the AIDS epidemic and his willingness to enter gay bathhouses and bars to understand how HIV was spreading.

According to 2021 reporting by the Advocate, Fauci told NPR that he visited bathhouses in New York’s Greenwich Village during the early years of the epidemic.

He explained how he wanted to understand why the disease was spreading so rapidly among otherwise healthy gay men and how he saw firsthand the breeding ground that was these sex rooms.

“The epidemiologist in me went, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is a perfect setup for an explosion of a sexually transmitted disease,’” Fauci said, according to Advocate.

Despite the recent backlash he has faced from Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rick Scott of Florida, and from the general public, over his July 29 Senate hearing, Fauci has generally been liked and trusted by members of the Democratic Party. (RELATED: You Won’t Believe Simple Questions Anthony Fauci Refuses To Answer)

In January 2022, confidence in Fauci and his ability to provide trustworthy information was at 88 percent among Democrats, the Annenberg Public Policy Center reported.

That makes the New York proposal an especially curious development. One of the most controversial public-health figures of the modern era was once willing to enter these establishments precisely because he believed that understanding what happened inside them was essential to combating a deadly disease.

Now, decades later, New York lawmakers are arguing that the government should formally allow them to operate again.

Bottcher and Simone contend that the 1985 restrictions were emergency measures that should not remain permanent after the public-health circumstances that produced them have changed.

“The premise in the 1980s was that closing bathhouses would reduce HIV transmission,” Bottcher said, according to the Advocate. “We live in a completely different public health landscape today.”

According to the Advocate, the proposed legislation would not simply throw open the doors and leave the establishments unregulated. Instead, the New York Department of Health would have 180 days after enactment to establish licensing and operating rules.

However, New York already allows public baths and spas to operate, but its health regulations bar them from offering private spaces, such as the rooms found in bathhouses, when those spaces are intended for sexual activity.

According to the Advocate, Fauci said his visits to bathhouses and gay bars helped him understand the environment in which HIV was spreading. He described seeing what he considered a “great insight into the explosiveness of the outbreak of the sexually transmitted disease.”(RELATED: Dr. Anthony Fauci Suffered Pulmonary Infarction Months After Taking Vaccine, Hid From Public)