ABSTRACT
Few groups in America today are so vividly and consistently disenfranchised as those persons who are HIV positive or living with AIDS. Theirs is a life of progressive physical deterioration endured within a social climate of fear and hostility. Not only is death, at present, inevitable, but so too is eventual loss of job and job-related health benefits, and rejection by the noninfected community, including many public schools and health care providers (Franzini, 1993). Infected persons are avoided for fear of contamination and rejected for their association with a stigmatized disease (Weitz, 1990). Although infected individuals are more likely now than in the early years of the epidemic to take legal steps against discrimination, the battles are costly to their health, their finances, and their personal comfort (Gostin & Curran, 1987; Terl, 1992). In short, persons who are HIV positive or have AIDS are in every sense of the word a marginalized group who are denied access to the resources of society at a time when economic, medical, and psychological resources are essential.
