The State Department has instructed employees and grantees not to use government funds to commemorate World AIDS Day. It is now Trump Administration policy “to refrain from messaging on any commemorative days, including World AIDS Day,” the directive said.

Employees and grantees may still “tout the work” being done “to counter this dangerous disease and other infectious diseases around the world,” and are free to attend events related to the “day.” However, they should not “publicly promot[e] World AIDS Day through any communication channels, including social media, media engagements, speeches or other public-facing messaging.”

Good. It’s about time, but the move is guaranteed to trigger the Trump Deranged and angry progressives, who will say this proves that the President and his followers are homophobic, transphobic, all sorts of -phobic. “World AIDS Day” was yet another sop to the constantly aggrieved gay community, one that has hung on since the first Bush Administration even as AIDS became almost never fatal.

Is there an reason why AIDS victims deserve special attention in 2025 as opposed to those who perish from any other disease or medical condition? No, of course not. But now the “day” is part of the virtue-signalling celebration of non-heterosexual sex, so it is sacrosanct.

(World AIDS Day is also on December 1, my birthday. I have things I’d prefer to think about on that day, thanks. Several close friends have died of AIDS, and I don’t need the Feds telling me what day to remember them. I do miss you Jeffrey, Thorne, Dallas, yes, even youTom…)

Nobody would have noticed if World AIDS Day went on as usual, whereas the new policy is guaranteed to be used as another “Get Trump” whomping stick. Nevertheless, these special interest “days” are obnoxious and divisive. (I discussed the blight of commemorative months and days in October.)The President is gutsy to address the problem, even if it isn’t a big problem. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” (#33) is clearly not among his rationalizations.