he end of 1990, 100,813 Americans had died of AIDS, almost twice as many as died in the war in Vietnam (Goldenberg & Wolfe, 1995, p. 7). The GMHC also continued to grow. The organization had helped to build an increasing awareness of the disease, which was also raised by high-profile cases, such as the death of Rock Hudson and the efforts of teenager Ryan White. By the winter of 1999, according to Volunteer, the organization's newsletter, 105,482 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in New York City alone, and 66,893 had died from it (p. 15).
Kramer himself worked to heighten awareness. His play, The Normal Heart, opened at New York City's Public Theater in the spring of 1985 in an acclaimed production. It was a dramatized account of the founding of GMHC, the early days of understanding of the disease, the public hatred and discrimination toward homosexuality, and the political obstacles that the group had to fight in order to become established. Kramer (1985) says, early in the play, "Health is a political issue. Everyone's entitled to good medical care . . . [but] there aren't any organizations strong enough to be useful . . . Nobody with a brain gets involved in gay politics" (p. 24). In the introduction to his later followup to The Normal Heart, The Destiny of Me, Kramer (1995) writes, "When I wrote The Normal Heart, . . . I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve and there was no amount of anything that could repress my hell-or-high-water determination to see that play produced, to hear my words screamed out in a theater, and to hope I'd change the world" (p. 2).
The current mission statement of GMHC reads:
Gay Men's Health Crisis is a not-for-profit, volunteer-supported, community-based organization committed to national leadership in the fight against AIDS. Our mission is to reduce the spread of HIV disease; help people with HIV maintain and improve their health and independence; and keep the prevention, treatme...