WHAT would life be without its little ironies? On the eve of the so-called World AIDS Day, the health authorities warned that cases of AIDS in Britain are set to increase by 40 per cent over the next few years.

What was the Government's response to this warning? Why, to reduce the age of homosexual consent to 16, which will mean that juveniles are more likely to contract the disease.

As an exercise this morning, I invite you to compare and contrast the ways in which we discuss two deadly diseases. AIDS sufferers are referred to as "victims" and treated like martyrs. It is suggested that there is something almost noble about having AIDS which is glamorised rather as the 19th Century Bohemian artists glamorised TB.

All the statistics show that, unless you are a promiscuous homosexual and/or someone who injects illegal drugs with shared needles, you are most unlikely to catch AIDS. If you do catch AIDS, therefore, it is very largely your own responsibility - a consequence of that demoralisation of morality which we now refer to as "lifestyle".

But there is another deadly disease called lung cancer. Those who suffer from this disease are not feted as heroes. As in the case of AIDS, whether you develop lung cancer is also largely a matter of "lifestyle". If you inhale cigarette smoke for a period of years, then you have a good chance of developing lung cancer, if you don't smoke and have never smoked, your chances of getting this disease are very slight.

But whereas promiscuous homosexuals with AIDS attract great public sympathy as "victims", those with lung cancer are lectured by the Government, the glossy magazines and on innumerable television documentaries about the evils of smoking.

I wonder why there is not the same culture of acceptance for smokers that exists for those who practise buggery? Red ribbons for buggers, but no one suggests brown ribbons for smokers.

The "pink pound" is reckoned to be a good thing. What about all the "brown pounds" that smokers contribute in taxes to pay for the NHS? Millions of pounds are spent on the treatment of AIDS by new and expensive drugs. By contrast, some sufferers from lung cancer have been told by hospitals that they will not be treated at all unless they give up smoking.

A cynic might suggest that at least smokers pay for their lung cancer treatment in advance through the tax they have paid on their cigarettes. While the deadly game of promiscuous homosexuality is celebrated as chic and regarded by the metropolitan culture as sophisticated, smoking is regarded by the same amoral elite as just about the worst sin you could commit - worse even than fox-hunting or wearing a fur coat.

The number of public places where smoking is banned has increased at the same time that greater tolerance is demanded for homosexual acts in parks and lavatories.

I cannot understand why there is this widespread approval of the gay lifestyle, while smokers are condemned as anti-social wasters of public money.

Well, perhaps I can understand this prejudice a little. Promiscuous homosexuality suits the mind-set of the age. It is regarded as risque and cheerfully rebellious against outmoded authority. But smoking is associated with the big tobacco companies who are despised as fat cat capitalists and robber barons.

As a practitioner of neither of these pastimes, I have no axe to grind; I merely draw attention to the selective attitude towards the concept of personal responsibility.

Words, as they say, are funny things: odd that the smoker puffs while a rude name for a homosexual is "fag".

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