San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, July 14, 2000
Jordan Robertson, Chronicle Staff Writer

And, says Wilson Cruz, it's a vitally important role. Gay men have become far too complacent about an epidemic he says is far from over.

Cruz, who will host the 14th annual AIDS Walk San Francisco on Sunday, says people are deluded if they believe that AIDS is less threatening just because there have been breakthroughs in treatment.

"I just don't think that we can sit back and be indifferent about HIV just because there are drugs that can sustain our life," said Cruz, 26, reached recently at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he is teaching a playwriting class.

"Although people with HIV and AIDS aren't dying in the numbers they were 10 or 15 years ago, these drugs are not easy drugs to live on," he said. "They affect the way you live in daily life and for some people they don't work. So it's not over. It's still an emergency."

He's alarmed that a recent study found that the rate of HIV infection has doubled in San Francisco in the past year. The study, by the University of California at San Francisco AIDS Research Institute, attributed the rise to the increasingly prevalent belief that those medications are so effective that HIV is no longer life-threatening.

HIV is transmitted from an infected person to a non-infected person most readily through the exchange of bodily fluids, including during unprotected sexual intercourse. Cruz expressed dismay at findings that gay men are using protection less often and are more blase in their attitudes toward safe sex.

"I don't understand that mentality," he said. "No, you may not die today or tomorrow, but it will affect your life." A spokesman for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which sponsors the AIDS walk, said those attitudes, and the numbers the study cited, make this year's event especially important -- and timely.

"It's remembering that this epidemic is not over," said Redge Norton, the foundation's media relations associate. "We can't put down our guard and forget about it -- we have to remind people that HIV is still out there and it is still deadly."

Norton said Cruz is the right host for this year's AIDS Walk because of his continued public support of the gay community.

The actor came out to his parents and friends at 19, just before he came out publicly. He did so, he said recently, because he "couldn't live a lie."

On "My So-Called Life," which lasted just five months on ABC in 1994, he portrayed Ricky, the gay best friend of the show's star, Angela, played by Claire Danes. The show included plots that had him being ostracized by other teens and kicked out of his home before being taken in by his teacher.

Cruz also has had roles in the Broadway musical "Rent" and on the TV drama "Party of Five."

Last year, he exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony with his partner Anthony Lopez, 32.

"He's a strong community activist and he consistently stands up for people with HIV and AIDS," Norton said.

EXPECTING 30,000 WALKERS

At the AIDS Walk, Cruz will co-host the opening ceremonies with Gillian Anderson of "The X Files." More than 30,000 people are expected to participate in the 10-kilometer walk, which begins and ends at Golden Gate Park's Sharon Meadow.

The event has raised more than $32.8 million for HIV/AIDS services over the past 13 years, according to AIDS Foundation statistics. With the help of 27,000 walkers and 300,000 pledges last year, the foundation raised more than $3.75 million, which it distributed among 37 Bay Area HIV/AIDS agencies.

Norton said that some of the apathy about AIDS may be developing because the disease is more hidden than when it first devastated San Francisco's gay male community in the early '80s. In those days, when the disease's cause was still unknown and treatments hadn't been developed, it was common to see people with visible signs of the disease on the streets of San Francisco.

"I'm only 30, I'm not 40 or 50, but I can't even remember the last time I walked down the Castro and saw someone with a (Kaposi's sarcoma) legion or wasting syndrome," Norton said. "It's easier to forget about it when you don't have that visual reminder."

Norton said the apathy that some gay men seem to feel about safe sex may be due to a sort of "epidemic fatigue" within the community, the result of enduring disease and tragedy for 20 years.

Cruz believes that length of the epidemic -- and the more recent developments -- should prompt a different response. "If anything, we should be more demanding about finding a cure," he said. "The knowledge is out there."

AIDS WALK S.F.

9 a.m. participant sign-in, 9:30 a.m. aerobic warm-up, 9:45 a.m. opening ceremonies, 10:30 a.m. walk kickoff, 12:30 p.m. post- walk celebration Sunday at Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park. (415) 392-9255.

E-mail Jordan Robertson at robertsonj@sfgate.com.
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