Conspiracy theorist taken down after claiming Jonathan Van Ness was 'celebrating' being HIV positive

A Conservative conspiracy theorist is being criticised online after he posted an offensive tweet accusing “liberals” of “celebrating getting aids” following Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness revealing how he came to terms with the condition.

In a recent profile of Van Ness in the Guardian, he spoke candidly about his diagnosis.

Mark Dice, Conservative pundit and author took to Twitter and wrote the following: “Liberals are now celebrating getting AIDS.”

The tweet appeared to be in response to the overwhelming messages of support directed at Van Ness, who wants to have a “meaningful” conversation around AIDs.

Actress Patricia Arquette was one of the first to condemn Dice, calling his tweet “stupid and heartless.”

I will use this stupid and heartless tweet or yours which is devoid of any humanity and use it as a honey trap to see all the fake religious mindless people I can mute and block. Thanks for sweeping them up like trash for me into one pile.

And in case her position was unclear, Arquette added:

Others took to Twitter to verbally eviscerate him.

People are telling Mark he's missing the point...

And pointed out the obvious...

HIV is a virus, whereas AIDS is a condition. In short, HIV is an infection you can catch and spread to other people, whereas AIDS is a condition that develops in people who have been infected with HIV.

In the Guardian piece, Van Ness spoke about living with the condition, and his desire to de-stigmatise it.

It occurred to me: what if everything I’ve ever been through was preparing me for this moment – to be strong enough to share this, and to share it on my own terms.

Part of that for me is to process what’s happened, but the bigger part is that I wanted to do something to move the conversation forward in a meaningful way around HIV/Aids, and what it is to live with HIV, and to humanise and normalise a lot of the things I talk about.

More: This photo of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in Rome has inspired a lot of jokes

More: Gavin Williamson roasted after saying children shouldn't 'bunk off school' for climate protests