I lost my first friend to AIDS a few months ago. I'm making a quilt in his memory for presentation to the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project in Washington, D.C.

The facts and figures cited by the writer of a letter entitled "Aids is primarily a homosexual disease" (Aug. 20 Herald, Page B4) concerning aids are correct, her remedy is partially correct and her conclusion is wrong.

Last February I attended a dinner engagement with my religious group (Coalition of Women on Religion) in central Seattle. Our guest speaker was Rita Nakashima Brock, a scholar and theologian from Hamline Univeristy, Minn. She had just returned from Thailand where she reported on the devastating toll AIDS was inflicting on girl prostitutes (some younger than 12) and their male customers, who then infect their wives and lovers. Many villages have only a few young girls left because most are dead from AIDS.

AIDS is an opportunistic virus that has killed nearly everyone with whom it has come in contact. AIDS is not a homosexual disease. Throughout most of the world, AIDS is a heterosexual disease that is primarily spread by promiscous sexual behavior.

The only effective way to contain this disease is through monogamous sexual relationships between consenting adults, bonded through marriage or domestic partnership.

Sheila L Richardson