Your attitude -- "the bastards deserve it" -- illustrates precisely why that won't work. Imagine turning yourself over to the tender mercies of someone who thought that way about you. I wouldn't volunteer to be locked away from the world by someone who exhibited contempt for me. Who knows whether I would ever be heard of again?

Re: Legally recognized gay unions and promiscuity:
What's marriage for, then? Sure, to protect the children, but old people marry, and there'll be no children from those unions. If there are other constraining circumstances, such as one would find in a legally binding arrangement, the parties have more of a stake in staying together and working on the relationship, with less to gain from promiscuous behavior. Gay men and lesbians have been denied this option. Are you saying it would make no difference, and upon what do you base this conclusion?

There's also a big difference between discouraging promiscuity (good) and denying consenting adults sexual expression (idiotic). If the law is stupid in its scope, then it encourages general contempt for social morality in the area in which the stupid law is exercised. The same contempt for law in general stemming from a stupid law can be witnessed by studying Prohibition.

Re: A gay men's disease:
I won't dispute your figures for North America. I suggest you click on another portion of the page you linked to, the "international statistics", and then tell me that the 50% of HIV infections that affect women worldwide are caused by gay men having sex with each other. UN Aids has published a very extensive document called The Gender and AIDS Almanac; I refer you to pages 8-15, in particular. Please note on page 10 that 4/5 of all the needle drug users world-wide are men, and that heterosexual sex is the chief means of infection for women, so, though Mary Fisher is in the minority in the States, worldwide she's about average.

Moral outrage will not prevent this disease, nor curb the spread of this disease, nor cure this disease. Education, treatment aimed at modifying risky behaviors, and research remain our only civilized options.

Regards--
Mary Anne