AIDS Action and the Human Rights Campaign have become the first two national organizations to oppose the nomination of James W. Holsinger Jr. as Surgeon General of the United States. Other organizations have expressed concern and are sifting through the public record in order to shape their own position on the nomination.

“We are extremely disappointed with this nomination and we will be writing to Senators [Ted] Kennedy [D-Mass.] and [Mike] Enzi [R-Wyo.], the chairman and ranking member of the committee, opposing the nomination,” said Ronald Johnson, deputy director of AIDS Action, the Washington voice of local AIDS organizations.

“We feel this is another distressing signal and message that this administration, this president does not either understand or take seriously the domestic epidemic. To appoint someone who has a track record of being anti-gay is just not acceptable,” said Johnson, pointing out that the HIV epidemic in the U.S. continues to disproportionately affect gay men.

Surgeon Generals C. Everett Koop, David Thatcher and Jocelyn Elders all played prominent roles in responding to HIV in earlier administrations. Johnson said the next surgeon general must continue that tradition. The position has been filled on an acting basis since last summer.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said “Dr. Holsinger has a record that is unworthy of America’s doctors. His writings suggest a scientific view rooted in anti-gay beliefs that are incompatible with the job of serving the medical health of all Americans. It is essential that America’s top doctor value sound science over anti-gay ideology.”