It’s politically incorrect to point it out, but AIDS was a sexually transmitted disease from Africa which, once it made it into the gay population, spread like wildfire. Given this, I wonder if Ebola can be transmitted via semen prior to symptom presentation. If so, a gay guy from Africa, landing in SF, could have a week or two (or three) to spread it around, and each contact would then get their own week or two (or three). Yowza.
Without a travel ban, I’d say the gay community is teetering on the edge of annihilation, and not just politically, though politically too. Let Ebola catch on there, and it will undo nearly every gain they’ve made in the last five decades, because at it’s heart, homophobia is really just a deeply imbued disgust reflex that has only been knocked back by an extended period of reduced risk of injury or death from illness.
This is wishful thinking. AIDS didn’t stop the gays, why would Ebola?
It may, it may not – the point was it has the potential. If it acquires a mutation in Africa, and a more transmissible variant makes it into the US and begins to spread, it will have an effect. AIDS, for all the hype, was easily containable, and it still had some effect on gays and on the population’s perceptions of them. If something like AIDS shows up, is much more transmissible, and kills in weeks, you’ll see some movement.
What I would guarantee is a pandemic will hit at some point in the future, substantially reduce their numbers, and poison the entire populace against them again. Homophobia was an innate urge. People didn’t sit down, look at a spreadsheet, and say, “I’m going to be grossed out by gays tomorrow.” That was imbued, likely through disease exposure in our past, IMO. I expect that is a periodic selective pressure we see, and it would seem from a cursory read of history, we are due for another such go around soon.