In his earlier, satirical
Aesthete column in
Frank magazine Coren was by his own admission deliberately provocative. In response to a 1994 interview question about AIDS he responded:
- "Look, people are dying all over. When it was blacks in Africa dying of AIDS, no one gave a toss. Nobody gave a toss. Suddenly, it's middleclass men in California and everyone goes crazy about it. It's a double standard. I'm trying to provoke people into rethinking comfortable points of view."
In September 2006, Coren published an article in the
Toronto Sun, supporting the use of tactical nuclear strikes against Iran. TorontoSun.com - Michael Coren - We should nuke Iran This position was later retracted. TorontoSun.com - Michael Coren - How wrong can I be?
On the subject of AIDS Michael Coren has said that "While everything human must be done to find a cure for this plague, it is hard to deny that the majority of sufferers in North America contracted the disease through perverse sex. 95% of the world's AIDS population is in the developing world and lack even basic health care. Nobody cared very much about these men and women before AIDS was brought to North America and, frankly, nobody cares very much now." In keeping with this theme he wrote a column in 2006 titled "Why is AIDS so special?" in which he said "At its most simple, stop fornicating." "AIDS in the West is still overwhelmingly a threat to male homosexuals and intravenous drug users."
Coren wrote "According to the standard histories of the Holocaust, some eight percent of those killed in the camps were of the sodomite persuasion... Yet there may be a more opposite and fitting symbol of tribal identity for these poor oppressed people. If we are to believe the Cambridge History of the Second World War, and Gerber's surely definitive The Evolution and Structure of the Nazi Party, over twenty percent of the membership of the German National Socialists were practising pederasts...Surely our homosexualist brothers and sisters would be advised to abandon the pink triangle and opt for a tiny but telling swastika lapel pin instead." The gay Nazi claim has been disputed on a number of occasions.Moser, Bob. "Making Myths", "Southern Poverty Law Center", Montgomery, AL, Spring 2005. In an article which appeared in the Sun on May 22, 2007, Debate over sexual orientation dividing Christians, Michael Coren said "As for Jesus not condemning homosexuality, nor did He condemn bestiality and necrophilia."