The only thing wrong with this whole argument is that it doesn't touch
reality at any two contiguous points. I will not defend the notion that
the episode stated that all Americans felt that AIDS was a penalty from
god because it never said that. Ever. In any way, manner, shape or form.
The problem is that some people are so caught up in the current situation
that they lose all sense of perspective. Fact is, most people DID think
that the Black Death was a punishment from God, or the work of the devil,
as Franklin says. The Markabs had a similar belief. Nowhere was that
applied in dialogue to humans or the AIDS situation.

The whole point of the episode is NOT political; it says that if you
make a disease political on either side, you're gonna die. You have to
set aside all that crap and just Deal With The Problem. The only "side"
this episode took was in advocating compassion for those afflicted.

I have enough just dealing with what's actually *in* my series; don't
compound the problem by adding things that you saw only in your own head,
and which exist nowhere in dialogue or in the story. You are adding the
template of your own beliefs as an overlay, and seeing this story through
it. That ain't my problem. If you see this disease as political, that's
your lookout. This show says that ANY attempt to politicize a disease is
species-dangerous thinking. Period.

jms