Mary Fisher

1992 RNC Address

"I have come tonight to bring our silence to an end. I bear a message 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."

"Despite science and research, White House meetings, and congressional hearings, despite good intentions and bold initiatives, campaign slogans, and hopeful promises, it is -- despite it all -- the epidemic which is winning tonight."

"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."

"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."

"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 cruelty, and they do not deserve meanness. 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 compassion."

Text and Audio of Address