Fridae

Jerry Thacker, a conservative Christian activist appointed by US President George Bush to sit on the country's AIDS advisory panel has withdrawn his name before being sworn in next week.

According to an Associate Press report quoting administration officials, Thacker has signalled that he would not accept the appointment after news of his appointment unleashed a firestorm of controversy in the nation's capital. Gay and AIDS activists have expressed outrage over Thacker's characterisation of AIDS as the "gay plague," along with other anti-homosexual statements.

Thacker, who claims he contracted the AIDS virus after his wife was infected through a blood transfusion in 1986, is widely known for his "homosexuality a 'death style'" comment. He is also a long-time proponent of "reparative therapy" that insists homosexuality can be "cured" thorough Christian faith.

While neither confirming nor denying the withdrawal, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has issued a stern rebuke of Thacker's statements distancing the President from some of Thacker's extreme views about gay people and AIDS.

"The views that he holds are far, far removed from what the president believes," Fleischer said. "The president has a total opposite view... The president's view is that people with AIDS need to be treated with care, compassion."

However like the Bush administration, he aggressively promotes abstinence from sex as the way to prevent HIV infection. "For the unmarried, the only truly 'safe sex' is not to have sex," Thacker has written.

David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, applauded the news that Thacker would not join the panel but said Bush administration AIDS policies still fall far short.

"Their single-minded focus on abstinence as the only mechanism for preventing the transmission of HIV is unrealistic, not based on science and could cause enormous harm. This administration continues to approach AIDS and HIV from an ideological point of view rather than a science-based point of view."