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After 30 Years of AIDS, Treatment Gap Still Feeds the Epidemic August 20, 2011

Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Race.
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Roger’s note: when I make the point that virtually all social evils, from poverty to war to homelessness, etc., can be traced to capitalist economic relations, to put it mildly, I get funny looks.  But I stand by the assertion.  We have the tools to eradicate hunger, to end the AIDS epidemic, to provide clean water and adequate housing to every soul on earth.  I am constantly told the problem is “human nature.”  To that I say, “bullshit!”  The problem is the humongous concentrations of wealth and monopoly of resources that are the consequences of capitalist economic relations; and the problem is getting worse, not better.  It is in the very nature of capitalist economic relations to reproduce, like a cancer, its malignancy.  The rich get rich, the poor get poorer.  The sick get sicker.

Sunday 5 June 2011
by: Julianne Hing, Colorlines                 | News Analysis
 On the cusp of the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS, a new report from UNAIDS says there is reason to be hopeful that the global response to HIV and AIDS is having some positive impact. A record number of people—1.4 million—started treatment for HIV or AIDS in 2010, and the pace of new infections has slowed significantly. Between 2001 and 2009, new HIV infections declined by 25 percent around the world.

But according to the organization, an estimated 34 million people are living with HIV and nearly 30 million have died because of AIDS-related illnesses since the discovery of AIDS on June 5, 1981.

Today, with new advances in research, the most pressing issue for the communities that are seeing the fastest rates of new infection—that is, women and in the U.S., black neighborhoods—is equal access to treatment that can not only slow the rate of the virus’s growth in a person’s body but the spread of the disease to other people.

As Rod McCullom reported back in May, when the medical world reported the encouraging results of HPTN 052, which confirmed that early treatment could help curb the rate of HIV transmission:

“The prevention toolbox has just exploded,” says Phill Wilson, president and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute. “This study definitively ends the debate of prevention versus treatment. Prevention and treatment are inextricably connected: Treatment is prevention.”

“These data must serve as a clarion call to funders, policy makers, civil society and implementers,” Mitchell Warren, executive director of New York City-based AVAC, formerly known as the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, said in a statement. “If deployed effectively, efficiently and ethically, early initiation of treatment will be fundamental to turning the tide of the epidemic.”

“Access to treatment will transform the AIDS response in the next decade. We must invest in accelerating access and finding new treatment options,” said Michel Sidibé, the executive director of UNAIDS. “Antiretroviral therapy is a bigger game-changer than ever before—it not only stops people from dying, but also prevents transmission of HIV to women, men and children.”

Indeed, as Phil Wilson, the president of the Black AIDS Institute told McCullom: “We have the tools to end the AIDS epidemic.”

“The question is whether we have the political will and compassion to make the investment necessary to use them.”

Julianne Hing is a reporter and blogger for Colorines.com covering immigration, education, criminal justice, and occasionally fashion and pop culture. In 2009 Julianne was the recipient of USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism fellowship, which funded a reporting project on the impacts of criminal deportation on immigrant families. She has covered police brutality issues from Oakland to New Orleans and in the summer of 2010 reported for Colorlines from the courtroom where Oscar Grant’s killer, BART cop Johannes Mehserle, faced trial. Julianne became politically active in high school, and started organizing students in college around access and affordability issues. She earned her B.A. in social ecology at the University of California, Irvine, where she edited Jaded magazine, named 2007 Publication of the Year by Campus Progress. Julianne’s writing has appeared on AlterNet, Truthout, Hyphen Magazine’s blog, The American Prospect’s blog TAPPED and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog at The Atlantic, Racialicious, The Root and New America Media.

Julianne tweets at @juliannehing.

The problem with gay men today April 23, 2011

Posted by rogerhollander in Human Rights, LGBT.
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Saturday, Apr 23, 2011 18:01 ET

Outspoken activist Larry Kramer wants to know why this generation is so apathetic while he’s still so angry

By Thomas Rogers

The problem with gay men today

Wikipedia/David Shankbone
Larry Kramer

To say Larry Kramer is polarizing is like saying Rush Limbaugh is a little bit conservative. The Pulitzer-nominated playwright, screenwriter, author and activist has been one of the most controversial figures in American gay life over the past 30 years. He first incensed gay men in 1978 with “Faggots,” his eerily prescient novel that critiqued the gay community’s culture of promiscuity. And as a co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the founder of ACT UP, the influential AIDS activist group, he became one of the most strident and passionate voices in the early years of the AIDS crisis. While making countless enemies, most notably New York Mayor Ed Koch, he was one of the people most responsible for drawing attention to the disease.

Over the last decade and a half, as AIDS has transitioned from a death sentence to largely treatable and gay culture has transitioned from the margins to somewhere closer to the mainstream, Kramer has remained (almost) as angry as ever. In 2005, he published “The Tragedy of Today’s Gays,” a transcript of a speech in which he attacked the younger generation of gay men for their apathy over gay causes and accused them of condemning their “predecessors to nonexistence.”

Next week, Kramer’s politics will get another turn in the spotlight when his 1985 play, “The Normal Heart,” opens on Broadway for the very first time. The largely autobiographical story centers on a group of gay men in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and stars Joe Mantello as Ned Weeks, a Kramer-esque activist desperately trying to draw attention to the plague, alongside a cast that includes Ellen Barkin, Lee Pace and “The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons. The play remains a highly effective, moving work that brutally conveys the desperation and terror that accompanied the emergence of AIDS. But nowadays, it also doubles as a history lesson for people who grew up long after the first wave — a role that Kramer sees as vital.

Salon spoke to Larry Kramer in his New York apartment about the importance of “The Normal Heart,” iPhone’s Grindr app and the problem with young gay men.

I saw a preview of the play last night with a friend. I think many of the ideas in the play will seem exotic and a little dated to a lot of young gay men. 

Like what?

Like the idea of promiscuity as a political statement and that it would be treasonous or controversial for gay men to tell other gay men not to have sex, or to have sex with a condom. What do you think young people should take away from the play?

It’s our history. We’re gay. This was part of our history. This was the most horrible thing the gay population ever lived through. And yet it also represented — later on, with ACT UP, and the getting of AIDS drugs — the most spectacular achievement the gay population ever had. We gays did that.

I don’t know why so many gay men don’t want to know their history. I don’t know why they turned their back on the older generation as if they don’t want to have anything to do with them. I would like us to get beyond that.

But do you really think that lack of interest in history is particular to this generation?

You tell me.

Well, I’m 27, and I know that my formative images of gay life had nothing to do with AIDS. Ellen came out of the closet when I was in junior high and “Will & Grace” made gayness seem like a consumer identity more than anything else. Gayness wasn’t really linked with sickness is my mind, and so those early AIDS battles, I think, seem very alien to a lot of young people’s experiences.

I don’t know. I could understand what you’re saying. Sometimes when I go to schools, kids say that they’re taught to be non-confrontational or non-participatory now, almost like it’s not cool to have opinions and express them, which is sad. I hope we’re coming out of all that.

You seem to have some anger at the young gay population.

No more than the old gay population. I’m an across-the-board person. We have responsibilities toward each other, as family, as brothers and sisters. We’re all in this together. ACT UP was the most moving experience I ever had in my life. We were sick and dying and that gave everything a special glow of importance, but it showed us what we were capable of if we did do it.

You’ve had a famously acrimonious relationship with former New York Mayor Ed Koch, whose inaction about AIDS you blame for the death of many of its victims. Does he still live in this building?

Fortunately, in the other elevator bank so we don’t have to see each other. We pass occasionally, both of us making a big point of ignoring one another. As you may know, I once ran into him where we get our mail. He bent to pet my dog and I yanked her away and said something like: “No, Molly, that’s the man who murdered all of Daddy’s friends.” When I first saw him in the lobby, I screamed at him: “We don’t want you here!” as loud as I could across the length of the lobby and I was told by my landlord that we would be evicted if I did it again. So I didn’t. I like my apartment too much.

Coming out of the play last night, my friend and I both felt a perverse nostalgia for those early AIDS years we never lived through. They were obviously utterly terrifying and filled with sadness, but there’s also something appealing about having this galvanizing issue to unite gay men. We don’t have that as much now.

There are these issues now. It’s just that you don’t think of them as galvanizing, mainly because they’re not so life and death. I cite marriage, although I’m sort of fed up with how long it’s taken and I think we’ve gone about it the wrong way. I’m 76, and my partner is 64. I’ll obviously die before he does, and the way the laws are written it’s very hard to leave him anything of substance compared to what I have to leave. It all goes to taxes because we’re not legally federally married and that’s not fair, that’s just not fair. You don’t care about it at your age, but I care about it at mine, and there are a lot of older gays who should care about it as well. That should be a galvanizing issue. Anything that keeps us from being unequal should be galvanizing. I want what they have. I do. And everybody should. But again, people don’t think that way.

What has frustrated you about the move toward gay marriage in the country?

Just that it’s taken forever. I don’t think we should have taken the state by state approach because it just makes it go on, and then you have to re-sue and defend. Things need to go to the Supreme Court as fast as possible. There were ways it could have gone to the Supreme Court a lot earlier. If we lose at the Supreme Court, which everyone was afraid of, you just come back again. These [state] marriage we have don’t amount to anything. They’re feel-good marriages. They make relationships stronger and all that, but they don’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of anything legal or financial. You still need to pay federal taxes and you don’t get any of these benefits the government pays you if you’re heterosexually married.

The play suggests that one of the reasons there was so much meaningless sex in the gay community in the 1980s was because there was no gay marriage. Now that state marriages exist, do you think there’s been a cultural shift away from that meaningless sexual culture?

I think there’s still an awful lot of meaningless sex going on and the infection figures are still much too high and going up, so obviously there’s still too much careless sex going on. I don’t want to come out of this sounding like this prude. I never said don’t have sex, but what’s so hard about using rubbers? It doesn’t seem to require much intelligence to figure that one out. I don’t have much sympathy for people who seroconvert now, who know about AIDS. I don’t care if you were on drugs or whether you were out of it in the heat of passion or whatever. Your cock is a lethal instrument. It can murder people.

Are you familiar with Grindr, the iPhone gay sex app?

What?

It’s an iPhone application that shows you how far away other gay men are, so you can have sex with them.

No. I’d be happy to use it now if I thought it would do anything. I get horny just like anybody else, and David [Webster, Kramer's partner] and I have been together a long time, so our relationship is now something else. I joined Daddyhunt or Manhunt and all those things, and posted my pictures, and filled out my questionnaire. And I got absolutely no response from anyone and it led me to wonder: What do older men do? It’s very sad that suddenly there’s no way to partake in all of this.

The interesting thing about Grindr is that it creates this map of your surroundings that’s really catered to gay men. You can log into it in your apartment and suddenly there are 100 people around you looking to hook up.

It sounds wonderful. I’m not against sex, I’m against being irresponsible. We have bodies and we should enjoy them, but we shouldn’t treat each other as things. That’s what it came to be in the [1970s] height of Fire Island [the gay party mecca], and I guess you could say the same about this Grindr thing.

It seems like the intense over-the-top party culture that Fire Island embodies — the kitschy nightclubs and circuit parties — are in the process of disappearing. I honestly don’t think they appeal to young gay people in the way they used to.

They were very drug-induced escapes. You really had to power your body for an enormous number of hours with an enormous amount of help. Someone said something interesting recently to me about why people did so many drugs in the 1970s: “It’s because it made it less painful, less difficult, less arduous, the life we led outside of the gay world.” Fire Island itself was and still is enormously competitive. You’re bartering with your body. Maybe people are more content with the sex online. I don’t know. I don’t see the gay world anymore. I don’t see it visually on the streets like we used to see it. I don’t know where it is. Do you?

Well, I think it’s less visible, and a lot of that has to do with the Internet. Gay ghettos are emptying out. There are fewer gay bars than there were before. And I think young gay people are more comfortable inhabiting the straight world and straight environments. I also think people have more straight friends.

Well, I’m glad I’m not your age anymore. Being gay was so much fun. And there were so many of us to have fun with — just being part of a very, very visible world where you saw people all the time and you socialized. I don’t see it now. I know they’re here. I know they’re in this building, but I don’t even know them as gay, even though I know they’re gay.

I am a gay person before I’m anything else. I’m a gay person before I’m a white person, before I’m a Jew, before I’m a writer, before I’m American, anything. That is my most identifying characteristic and I don’t find many people who would say that. The polls say the same thing: People do not identify themselves as gay. And that’s too bad. In fact, it’s tragic. It will prevent us from ever having what we deserve, I believe.

  • Thomas Rogers is Salon’s Deputy Arts Editor.

The Vienna Declaration: A Global Call to Action for Science-Based Drug Policy July 2, 2010

Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Health.
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The following announcement is sent to you by the Canadian Harm Reduction Network
http://www.canadianharmreduction.com
Please visit our website, check it out and support us by becoming a member. The web address for the Vienna Declaration is http://www.viennadeclaration.com/.Please sign on, and urge your colleagues and friends to do so as well.

In lead up to XVIII International AIDS Conference, scientists and other leaders call for reform of international drug policy and urge others to sign-on

28 June 2010 [Vienna, Austria] – The International AIDS Society, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS today launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration, a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. The Vienna Declaration is the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010), the biennial meeting of more than 20,000 HIV professionals, taking place in Vienna, Austria from 18 to 23 July 2010.

The Vienna Declaration describes the known harms of conventional “war on drugs” approaches and states: “The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed. … Reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfill human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.”

The Vienna Declaration calls on governments and international organizations, including the United Nations, to take a number of steps, including:

  • Undertake a transparent review the effectiveness of current drug policies;
  • Implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the harms stemming from illicit drug use;
  • Scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options;
  • Abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and
  • Unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the drug treatment and harm reduction measures endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations.

The Declaration also calls for the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

To sign the Vienna Declaration, please visit the official website at http://www.viennadeclaration.com/.  There you will find the full text of the declaration in Chinese, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, along with a list of authors. The two-page declaration references 28 reports, describing the scientific evidence documenting the effectiveness of public health approaches to drug policy and the negative consequences of approaches that criminalize drug users.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  
Please circulate widely . . .

ACLU Sues USAID: Are We Exporting US Taxpayer Funded Religion? February 19, 2010

Posted by rogerhollander in Africa, Civil Liberties, Health, Religion, Uncategorized.
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(Roger’s note: a must read on the topic of  religion and society: Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion.”  Most highly recommended.)
 
Published on Friday, February 19, 2010 by RH Reality Checkby Amie Newman
The ACLU has waited long enough.On Thursday, February 18th, they filed a lawsuit against USAID for refusing to comply with their Freedom of Information Act requests from July and September 2009, for documents related to USAID-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs abroad. The ACLU has patiently awaited documents that may help shed light on an audit completed last year suggesting USAID is dispersing money, unconstitutionally, for religiously-based HIV prevention programs. 

The report, filed by the Office of Inspector General, surveyed 9 out of the 10 faith-based organizations using USAID funds and stated clearly that USAID-awarded funds were being used for religious activities. 

For example, USAID monies fund abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for African youth that include “Biblical stories and religious messages.”  What do these look like?

One curriculum, used for HIV/AIDS prevention education, includes an optional psalm for self-reflection: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.”

The take-away concept the curriculum sums up: “God has a plan for sex and this plan will help you and protect you from harm.” 

While it is important to recognize cultural mores when crafting curricula, these messages do more harm than good. Rates of HIV and AIDS throughout Africa vary greatly but sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by AIDS than anywhere else in the world. Religious messages that reinforce harmful cultural and social constructs are far from useful – if God has a plan for sex, how does this help young people protect themselves against HIV and AIDS – especially young women who more often than not are not, in developing nations, the final arbiters when it comes to protecting themselves against HIV or pregnancy. 

The ACLU, in its complaint, calls these USAID funded programs “an unconstitutional expenditure of federal tax dollars” through PEPFAR (the program President Bush created to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic – President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and notes that, by definition, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs withhold life-saving information on contraception and condoms. 

“In the face of a growing global HIV/AIDS crisis, USAID is not only violating basic constitutional principles by promoting government-funded religious activities, it is unconscionably putting young people’s health and lives at risk,” said Rose Saxe, staff attorney with the ACLU AIDS Project. 

USAID regulations related to the dispursement of funds for faith-based organizations are clear:

Organizations that receive direct financial assistance from USAID under any USAID program may not engage in inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytization, as part of the programs or services directly funded with direct financial assistance from USAID. If an organization conducts such activities, the activities must be offered separately, in time or location, from the programs or services funded with direct financial assistance from USAID, and participation must be voluntary for beneficiaries of the programs or services funded with such assistance.

The ACLU also notes, in its complaint against USAID, that the Office of Inspector General’s report found that the government agency “has a history of unconstitionally funding religious abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in developing countries.”

In African nations, in particular, using U.S. government funds to craft and disseminate HIV/AIDS prevention programs that include strong religious messages — and let’s be honest, we’re talking about strong fundamentalist Christian messages which reinforce strict gender roles on women and do not acknowledge the range of gender and sexual identities — seems particularly terrifying given the more recent reports of escalating violence and threats in the form of anti-gay bills, in Uganda, Rwanda and other African nations, that clearly arose from the intimate relationships between religious fundamentalists in the U.S. and these African nations. 

HIV and AIDS prevention messages must impart life-saving information to young people. If the United States is, with one hand, attempting to address the continuing spread of HIV and AIDS in developing nations by providing government funds for prevention education and on the other hand disseminating powerful religious messages that only foster harmful gender and sexuality constructs that stand in the way of healthy behaviors and prevention, we’re constantly taking one step forward and two steps back. 

U.S. taxpayers need to know how our money is being spent. The ACLU is doing its part to push for transparency:

“The United States government cannot be in the business of exporting religiously infused abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that we know fail to give young people the information they need to stay healthy,” said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “It is essential that the government provide all of the information it has about these programs so that the public has a full accounting of how taxpayer dollars are being spent.”

Amie Newman is Managing Editor of RH Reality Check.

Obama Breaks (Another) Campaign Promise: on AIDS May 9, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Barack Obama, Health.
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Published on Saturday, May 9, 2009 by OneWorld.net

WASHINGTON  – U.S. President Barack Obama’s failure to lift a federal funding ban on syringe exchange — a policy that allows intravenous drug users to swap used needles for clean ones — is a blow to AIDS-prevention efforts, says a global health group.

 

[AIDS activists rally in support of US President Barack Obama in Washington, DC., last November. President Obama's failure to lift a federal funding ban on syringe exchange -- a policy that allows intravenous drug users to swap used needles for clean ones -- is a blow to AIDS-prevention efforts, says a global health group. (AFP/Paul J. Richards)]AIDS activists rally in support of US President Barack Obama in Washington, DC., last November. President Obama’s failure to lift a federal funding ban on syringe exchange — a policy that allows intravenous drug users to swap used needles for clean ones — is a blow to AIDS-prevention efforts, says a global health group.(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

Although Obama pledged on the campaign trail to overturn the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange, he refrained from doing so in his proposed 2010 budget. “Providing clean syringes is proven to be one of the most effective public health interventions since the polio vaccine,” said Jennifer Flynn, managing director of Health Global Access Project (GAP). “It is clear that it works, but yet, we now have to wait for Congress to act to have the freedom to use every possible resource to make it widely available.” (See Health GAP’s full statement below.)
 

Overall, U.S. health advocates were extremely disappointed by the health provisions in the president’s 2010 budget, unveiled yesterday. “Our analysis of the information provided by the White House today show that the president’s FY10 global health budget essentially flat-lines support for global health and ignores the president’s campaign promises to fully fund PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and to provide a fair-share contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB [tuberculosis], and Malaria,” said Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. “This proposal is even worse than we had feared,” added Christine Lubinski, director of the Center for Global Health Policy. “With this spending request, Obama has broken his campaign promise to provide 1 billion dollars a year in new money for global AIDS, and he has overlooked the growing threat of tuberculosis.”

Just after Obama’s election, AIDS activists spoke of high hopes for a renewed U.S. commitment to fighting the disease. Last month, however, a U.S. health care foundation said Obama’s first official plan to fight domestic HIV/AIDS “falls far short” of what is needed to confront the growing epidemic. The $45 million media campaign, launched in early April, aims to raise awareness about domestic HIV/AIDS over the next five years. “If this proposal is any indication of how President Obama and his Administration intend to address the AIDS epidemic domestically or globally, we are deeply disappointed,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

* * *

PRESIDENT BREAKS ANOTHER CAMPAIGN PROMISE

From: Health Global Access Project (GAP)

Federal Ban on Funding for Syringe Exchange Remains in Budget

Washington, DC — President Obama’s budget does not follow through on one of his key campaign commitments – to lift the ban on federal funding for syringe access. Before and since taking office, President Obama has repeatedly asserted his support for syringe exchange programs. This latest disappointment comes on the heels of a newly announced six-year global health initiative that would actually reduce spending on global AIDS by $6.6 billion.

“Providing clean syringes is proven to be one of the most effective public health interventions since the polio vaccine. It is clear that it works, but yet, we now have to wait for Congress to act to have the freedom to use every possible resource to make it widely available,” said Jennifer Flynn, Managing Director of Health GAP. Flynn lost a family member in 2005 to hepatitis C contracted from sharing used syringes. “If needle exchange programs were around when my cousin was injecting heroin, he would be alive today. President Obama could have done something simple to save lives. Now Congress needs to take action,” she continued.

Jeff Crowley, national AIDS czar, said that the “President doesn’t think policy should be done in the budget process.” However, the federal ban on funding syringe exchange is housed in each annual appropriations bill, and must be removed from there to allow federal funds to go to these lifesaving programs. Removing the language would allow syringe exchange to be included in the HIV prevention toolkit, and as a result, HIV infections would be reduced. Crowley continued to say that syringe access will be discussed during the National AIDS Strategy. When asked for the time frame of this plan, he said that they are working on it as we speak and did not commit to a final due date. “When you are dealing with the containing the spread of a deadly virus, and you know something works, you don’t need to wait for a “strategy” as well. Taking your time to develop a National AIDS Strategy is no excuse for NOT implementing lifesaving public policy now. Furthermore by NOT taking action, President Obama did set policy on this issue. The right thing to do is to remove the ban in the budget so that we can discuss using federal funds for this lifesaving program,” said Kaytee Riek, Director of Organizing for Health GAP.

The federal ban on syringe access does not formally apply to programs outside of the United States, but under the previous administration, the ban became policy for foreign aid funding as well. That has meant that countries receiving funding from US-supported programs fighting AIDS could not use it to pay for syringe access programs.

“It is sad that my President broke his campaign promise by leaving the funding ban in the budget. Congress must now act and lift the funding ban when they take up the budget next week.” said Jose DeMarco, Health GAP Board member, long-time member of ACT UP Philadelphia and founder of Proyecto Sol Filadelphia.

© 2009 OneWorld.net

Benedict XVI on Aids and Condoms April 6, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Religion.
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Joseph S. O’Leary

http://josephsoleary.typepad.com, March 29, 2009

UPDATE: My thoughts are in The Irish Times April 1: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0401/1224243794437.html

Hans Kung has spoken out strongly, claiming the John Paul II and Benedict XVI will be remembered as among the chief culprits for the spread of Aids: http://dieunousaimechretiensetgay.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/04/02/derives-et-esperance.html

(This article also notes how the Vatican is now packing the ranks of the hierarchy worldwide with extreme reactionaries. If there is to be a reform of the Church, it is more and more clear that an overturning of many of these appointments will be necessary. Perhaps concerned Catholics should start to draw up proscription lists of obstructionist Cardinals and Bishops — Caffarra, Bagnasco, Ruini, Castrillon Hoyos, Medina Estevez, Cañizares, Cardoso Sobrinho, Rouco Varela, Ranjith, Burke, Martino, DiNardo, Pell, Pujats, Grocholewski, Meisner, Haas, Okogie, … the list would be very long. The laity and clergy, who have been increasingly shut out of appointment processes, should be allowed to reclaim their voice by having a say in which hierarchs have to go. There are many calls for the resignation of Benedict XVI: http://www.golias-editions.fr/spip.php?article2749. He is apparently unpopular even with those who elected him, if this report has any credibility: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/04/01/cardinals_and_bishops_have_run_away_from_the_pope_like_the_apostles_in_gethsemane_says_leading_catholic_magazine.)

A scapegoat must be found for recent Vatican debacles, and the lot has fallen on Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, the rather sympathetic press officer of the Pope. Prediction: His replacement will do a worse job of cushioning the Church against papal gaffes. For these gaffes are not gaffes at all; they represent the settled views and method of communication of Joseph Ratzinger for the last four decades. This will not change

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/popes-press-spokesman-to-resign.html 

http://www.kreuz.net/article.8913.html

***

The ‘broken kettle’ argument is frequently referred to by psychoanalysts, and it goes something like this:

‘The kettle I lent you was broken when you gave it back.’ ‘No, it was in perfect condition when I returned it; you never lent me a kettle anyway; and it was already broken when you lent it to me.’

Reading Catholic defenses of the Vatican stance on condoms, I discern the same revealing paralogism:

‘Your teaching is causing mass deaths in Africa.’ ‘No, our teaching is the only teaching that is effective against Aids; even if condoms are more effective, they cannot be tolerated in any case because we see them as intrinsically evil; no one is dying because of our teaching, because it has no influence.’

One thing is clear, in any case. The famous words intrinsice inhonestum of Paul VI in Humanae Vitae are being applied with a vengeance to the use of condoms, even to the point of a quasi-Manichean view of these friendly implements as being the very embodiment of Evil.

The Vatican considers condoms to be so evil that they cannot be used even to save the millions of lives threatened by Aids. Moreover, the Vatican also claims that condoms are not effective against Aids but actually worsen the problem.

http://tv.repubblica.it/mondo/aids-preservativi-non-servono/30667?video

http://jp.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=100582

http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_df88ai.htm

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_20031201_family-values-safe-sex-trujillo_en.html

http://www.wf-f.org/Lopez-Trujillooncondoms.html

http://www.zenit.org/article-8666?l=english

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=6641

http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/hivaids/bishopsopposecondoms.asp

There are, however, sane bishops who support the use of condoms:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/03/pope_condoms_and_aids.html

http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/hivaids/bishopssupportcondoms.asp

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/04/10/why-the-pope-is-wrong-about-condoms.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/bishop-says-condoms-sometimes-needed.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29404-2005Jan22.html

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/2009/03/this-is-not-bishop-who-says-condoms-are.html

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-this-example-of-dissent-i-find-hope.html

http://www.golias-editions.fr/spip.php?article2734

Deeply impressive is the humane and dialogal approach of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?l=JP&hl=ja&v=lkIoGAKf0cg&eurl=http://fathertlistenstotheworld.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMKHUSyyf94

Defenders of the intransigent Vatican stand cite the Philippines as a country where abstinence has worked in curbing Aids. But this Filipino voice suggests that this may be an ideological idealization:

http://filipinovoices.com/benedict-condemns-millions-to-die-of-hivaids

A petition may be sent to the Vatican: http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition/98.php?cl_taf_sign=7141c1859f7afd4ccda82fa4a08f01be

Here are some other protests:

1. Popular:

http://www.derwesten.de/nachrichten/nachrichten/2009/3/18/news-114744837/detail.html

http://namitembo.blogspot.com/2009/03/popes-willful-cultural-deafness.html

http://links.org.au/node/521

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/protests-in-paris-over-popes-condom.html

http://www.france24.com/en/20090322-youths-clash-notre-dame-condom-protest-pope-benedict-paris-protest

http://benoit-catho-homo.skynetblogs.be/post/6827485/ca-devait-arriver

http://jp.truveo.com/Pope%E2%80%99s-condom-stand-challenged/id/3481014947

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/vatican-to-receive-condoms-by-post.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,615820,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5976192.ece

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/03/sezioni/esteri/benedetto-xvi-32/mappe-25mar/mappe-25mar.html

http://www.dignityusa.org/press/gay-catholic-groups-condemn-pope%E2%80%99s-statements-africa-condom-use

2. From Governments and Politicians:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/5015580/Vatican-in-new-row-over-attempts-to-alter-Pope-Benedict-XVIs-Aids-comments.html

http://www.la-croix.com/afp.static/pages/090326192208.y4trhl15.htm

http://www.la-croix.com/afp.static/pages/090329125553.b0srx1ye.htm

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/03/sezioni/esteri/benedetto-xvi-32/scontro-belgio/scontro-belgio.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/04/belgium-to-lodge-condom-complaint.html

http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2009/03/18/pour-alain-juppe-le-pape-vit-dans-une-situation-d-autisme-total_1169447_3212.html

http://www.afriquemagazine.com/article/article.asp?id_article=1168340203125

http://www.lastampa.it/redazione/cmsSezioni/esteri/200903articoli/42029girata.asp

3. From Health Agencies:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/03/the_pope_and_condoms_1.html (an important critique of the much touted remarks of Edward C. Green — hat tip to Michael Bayly. I note that Green actually supports the distribution of condoms, though finding it unsuccessful in Africa because of specific, contingent features of African sexual culture. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html; also: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2989.)

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/world-health-assembly-pope-benedict.html

http://data.unaids.org/pub/BaseDocument/2009/20090318_position_paper_condoms_en.pdf

http://www.thebody.com/content/art51035.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,613871,00.html

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=19561

http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKLR110752._CH_.2420

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/cameroon/5007124/Anger-as-Pope-Benedict-XVI-says-condoms-make-Aids-worse.html

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/Pope39s-criticism-of-condoms-has.5097019.jp

http://www.golias-editions.fr/spip.php?article2739

http://www.derwesten.de/nachrichten/waz/2009/3/18/news-114788913/detail.html

4. From US Bloggers:

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/03/follow-up-benedict-on-condoms-dreher-on.html

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/03/shakin-rattlin-rollin-american-catholic.html

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/03/condoms-cause-aids-cruel-twisted-logic.html

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/03/benedict-bush-and-condoms-in-africa.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017328.php

http://judiphilly.blogspot.com/2009/03/cartoon-of-day_19.html

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2009/03/popes-message-of-ignorance-in-africa.html

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2009/03/pope-accused-of-distorting-scientific.html

http://creativeadvance.blogspot.com/2009/03/popes-condom-quandary-facebook-groups.html

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-culture-of-life-is-really-culture.html

http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/condom-papa-the-pope-blinded-by-the-fantasy-of-abstinence/

http://ftmackinc.newsvine.com/_news/2009/03/20/2572762-the-pope-aids-the-common-american-religious-charlatan

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2975

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2928

http://blogs.nyu.edu/fas/dri/aidwatch/2009/03/whose_worse_the_pope_or_the_co.html

5. From Europe:

http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/2009/03/vatican-is-not-pro-life.

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Is-Pope39s-stance-on-condoms.5092167.jp

http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=20724

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/bishop-claims-aids-virus-can-penetrate.html

http://www.golias-editions.fr/spip.php?article2740

http://dieunousaimechretiensetgay.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/03/30/offensive-contre-le-preservatif.html

http://dieunousaimechretiensetgay.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/03/26/rejet-du-realisme.html

http://dieunousaimechretiensetgay.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/03/24/agression-fasciste.html

http://dieunousaimechretiensetgay.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/03/21/eglise-africaine-criminelle.html

http://benoit-catho-homo.skynetblogs.be/post/6819176/agir-de-facon-responsable

http://donfrancobarbero.blogspot.com/2009/03/caro-papa.html

http://donfrancobarbero.blogspot.com/2009/03/caro-cardinal-bagnasco.html

http://www.notiziegay.com/?p=26235

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/437/462057/text/

A number of Catholic defenders of the Pope cite Uganda as an example of a successful condom-free policy: http://anneminard.com/2009/03/18/day-54-pope-benedict-xvi-condoms-and-aids/

http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/2009/03/pope-still-cath.php

However, this cannot be right, since the famous ABC policy means “Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms.” See: http://www.thebody.com/content/art9249.html

Other defenders (or enablers):

http://www.journalducameroun.com/article.php?aid=1008

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTNlNDc1MmMwNDM0OTEzMjQ4NDc0ZGUyOWYxNmEzN2E=

http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/benedict-cameroon-tale-two-trips

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/04/african-cardinal-says-popes-remarks.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/04/french-bishops-rally-to-popes-defence.html

http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090325_1.htm

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20090329a2.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0325/1224243368629.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0326/1224243450529.html

http://www.zenit.org/article-25430?l=english

http://www.zenit.org/article-25511?l=english

http://www.zenit.org/article-25485?l=english

http://www.zenit.org/article-25491?l=english

http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/03/is-the-pope-more-than-just-another-pretty-smart-theologian.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article5955647.ece

http://www.spectator.co.uk/faithbased/3466376/questioning-the-will-of-god.thtml

http://www.catholicpillowfight.com/blog759.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/george_pitcher/blog/2009/03/18/why_the_pope_is_right_about_condoms

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/03/18/the_pope_condoms_and_the_aids_mafia

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/03/20/the_popes_worst_enemies_are_catholics

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/03/sezioni/esteri/benedetto-xvi-32/risposta-avvenire/risposta-avvenire.html

http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2009/03/stats-never-lie-media-usually-do.html

http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-condom-lies.html

http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2009/03/many-questions.html

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/03/sezioni/esteri/benedetto-xvi-32/risposta/risposta.html

http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/2009/03/mgr-fort-soutient-benoit-xvi.html

http://www.golias-editions.fr/spip.php?article2738

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1337637?eng=y

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1337717?eng=y

http://e-deo.info/archives/7134

http://e-deo.info/archives/7197

http://e-deo.info/archives/7155

http://e-deo.info/archives/7144

http://e-deo.info/archives/7382

http://e-deo.info/archives/7489

http://e-deo.info/archives/7459

http://e-deo.info/archives/7445

http://eucharistiemisericor.free.fr/index.php?page=1903091_phrase

http://luigicrespi.clandestinoweb.com/2009/03/ratzingher-non-mi-piace-ma-sullafrica-ha-ragione/

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/03/popes-message-is-not-problem.html

http://politischunpolitisches.blogspot.com/2009/03/der-gummi-papst.html

http://debatte.welt.de/kommentare/118555/das+lachen+des+papstes

http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=1237227649921

http://www.benoitjaiconfianceentoi.org/Benoit-XVI-et-le-Sida-petit.html

http://www.imgpress.it/notizia.asp?idnotizia=41146&idsezione=4 From this piece one learns that writers in Avvenire, a review associated with the Italian bishops, sees the attacks on the Pope as due to a massive concerted plan in which “the little hand of international Freemasonry” is to be found. And this plot is directed not against the Pope’s views on condoms but against the teaching on social justice that he proclaimed in Africa. This comes from Massimo Introvigne, a controversial student of cults, who claims that modern scriptural exegesis is the work of Satan. So much wackiness among the Pope’s defenders..

http://paparatzinger2-blograffaella.blogspot.com/2009/03/e-tempo-che-la-santa-sede-richiami-il.html

http://www.kreuz.net/article.8919.html

http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/04/the-arrogant-gene-the-autobiography-of-richard-dawkins.html

The Pope on AIDS March 27, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Religion.
Tags: , , , , , ,
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 David Dismore, longstanding Los Angeles community activist, essayist, feminist and more.

Private e-mail, March 25, 2009

(Roger’s note: Although I disagree with the final sentence, to wit, that we now have a progressive president, I post this because it is a well-written and erudite condemnation of the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy with respect to it positon on AIDS and sexuality)
     I suppose you heard the Pope’s totally
outrageous remarks about AIDS a few days
ago. Even for him – and the bar is set pretty
high here – this was unusually bizarre, and
to discourage condom use while visiting a
continent that’s the epicenter of the epi-
demic was incredibly insensitive as well.

     Pretending abstinence until marriage (age
25 for men, 23 for women) is the solution to
AIDS is like declaring that winning the lottery
is the solution to poverty. (Works great for
some, but hardly a realistic plan for elimi-
nating the problem overall.)

     Condoms, like seat belts, are no absolute
guarantee of safety, but they do reduce risk,
save lives, and ought to be used (though
rarely, if ever, will both be needed at the
same time …)

     Of course, can you really expect gems of
wisdom on sexuality from the C.E.O. of an
organization which arbitrarily bars the female
half of humanity from any and all positions of
authority? Or is composed of men who have
either (a) “successfully” fought and repressed
every normal sexual urge their entire lives, and
have never experienced so much as a moment
of erotic pleasure, real or imaginary, or (b)
associate only shame, guilt and failure with
whatever sexual experiences they have had,
no matter how natural and acceptable they
might be to most people, or (c) are sociopaths
who have never felt so much as a twinge of
remorse over using the power and prestige
of their collar to exploit the weakest, youngest
and most devout members of their flock, safe
in the knowledge that even if they’re exposed,
their bosses will do nothing more than give
them a stern lecture and a plane ticket to a
new location stocked with fresh prey, while
unleashing the toughest lawyers money can
buy on anyone who has the courage to
speak out about their victimization and
ask for some compensation to treat a
lifetime of trauma.

     Hearing the Vatican give advice on sex
is like a peek into that fabled asylum run by
the inmates, or listening to a lecture on effi-
ciency from the Board of A.I.G. Fortunately,
U.S. members of his church stopped listen-
ing to the hired help’s ravings on sex years
ago, and hopefully the rest of the world will
follow suit and minimize the damage still
being done. But, the fact that his remarks
are being met with either amusement or
outrage at a time when more and more
Americans are identifying themselves as
affiliated with no organized religion is an
excellent sign for the future, and those
two facts pleasantly combined to make
my Equinox celebration happier than usual
this year !

     Keep up the great e-mails – even with a
Progressive Administration in the White
House, there’s still plenty of work to do !

Condom Papa: The Pope Blinded By The Fantasy of Abstinence March 18, 2009

Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Religion.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 comment so far

condom-papa-20090318-97

by Daniel Vojir   www.opednews.com, March 18, 2009

Late again. The Vatican always comments on things so late in the game that you wonder why it bothers at all. Any important statement by the Vatican on AIDS should have been made in 1982 or at the latest in 1984. Then again, what can you expect from a spiritual guide that apologizes to Galilleo for putting him under house arrest (because of his solar-centric theory) 400 years after the fact? The Vatican also dragged its heals during the Holocaust at the cost of a great many lives. When John XXIII, Paul VI and John-Paul I uttered words about change, all the prelates recoiled in horror! (Note: the death of John-Paul is still questioned to this day). Now it comments on something killing people by the millions trying to prove prevention techniques are not effective:
By The Associated Press
03.17.2009 12:33pm EDT

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa. Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease. “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,”- the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”-

Some priests and nuns working with victims of the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa question the church’s opposition to condoms.

The pope also said that he intends to make an appeal for “international solidarity”- for Africa in the face of the global economic downturn.

Since Africa has lately become what the Americas were back in the 16th century, the Church espouses abstinence and “legitimacy” (Roman Catholic marriage) to burgeoning countries with big, healthy, Catholic convert populations. Might it be that Benedict wants to get a sizable share of the continent before Rick Warren goes for the gold (South Africa)? Maybe. So what if people die because their country’s prevention programs were not good. The moral righteousness of the Roman Catholic Church must be maintained. It’s picking itself up from child abuse scandals, dusting itself off, and standing proudly erect for morality. A rather warped morality, but a morality nonetheless.


This morality comes from an arch-conservative mind that started out in life as a Hitler Youth and wound up (before the papacy) becoming the prefect of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition (wikipedia) Isn’t it ironic that a German Hitler Youth should become head of the Inquisition?

What theologian and scholar Hans Kung wrote about the papacy of John-Paul II would be doubly applicable to the current one:

A mediocre, rigid, and more conservative episcopate will be the lasting legacy of this papacy.

He could also have said avaricious, hidebound, narrow minded and fascist. Perhaps Kung’s most famous quote applies to Benedict as well:

“There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.”

I seriously doubt that Benedict will initiate any serious dialogue with anyone who goes up against his stance on condoms and abstinence.  

Just a thought.

 

 

http://thedevilanddanvojir.blogspot.com

Dan Vojir is a San Francisco writer and raconteur. His latest attempt is “Sacred Cows Make the Best Hamburger – How to becaome a lion and devour the Christian Right.”

Time Mag Columnist: Obama Is “Very Rational-Sounding Sort Of Bigot” December 22, 2008

Posted by rogerhollander in Barack Obama, Human Rights.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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rick_warren_1218

Pastor Rick Warren
Chip Somodevilla / Getty

The Problem for Gays with Rick Warren — and

Obama

By John Cloud Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

 TIME MAGAZINE

 

 

 

About three years ago, a reporter at Fortune asked Rick Warren, the successful pastor whom the President-elect has asked to pray at his Inauguration, about homosexuality. “I’m no homophobic guy,” Warren said. His proof? He has dined with gays; he has a church “full of people who are caring for gays who are dying of AIDS”; he believes that “in the hierarchy of evil … homosexuality is not the worst sin.” So gays get to eat — sometimes even with Rick Warren! Then they get to die of AIDS — possibly under the care of Rick Warren’s congregants. And when they go to hell, they won’t be quite as far down in Satan’s pit as other evildoers.

But Warren did have a message of hope for gays: they can magically become heterosexuals. (He didn’t explain how, but I suspect he thinks praying really hard would do it, as if most of us who grew up gay and evangelical hadn’t tried that every night as teenagers.) Homosexuality, Pastor Warren explained in the virtually content-free language of the dogmatist, is “not the natural way.” And then he went right for the ick factor, the way middle-school boys do: “Certain body parts are meant to fit together.”

More recently, Warren told Beliefnet that he thinks allowing a gay couple to marry is similar to allowing “a brother and sister to be together and call that marriage.” He then helpfully added that he’s also “opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage.” The reporter, who may have been a little surprised, asked, “Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?” “Oh, I do,” Warren immediately answered. I wish the reporter had asked the next logical follow-up: If gays are like child-sex offenders, shouldn’t we incarcerate them?

Rick Warren may occasionally sound more open-minded than Jerry Falwell, another plump Evangelical who once played a prominent role in U.S. politics. But he’s not. Gays and lesbians are angry that Barack Obama has honored Warren, but they shouldn’t be surprised. Obama has proved himself repeatedly to be a very tolerant, very rational-sounding sort of bigot. He is far too careful and measured a man to say anything about body parts fitting together or marriage being reserved for the nonpedophilic, but all the same, he opposes equality for gay people when it comes to the basic recognition of their relationships. He did throughout his campaign, one that featured appearances by Donnie McClurkin, a Christian entertainer who preaches that homosexuals can become heterosexuals.

Obama reminds me a little bit of Richard Russell Jr., the longtime Senator from Georgia who — as historian Robert Caro has noted — cultivated a reputation as a thoughtful, tolerant politician even as he defended inequality and segregation for decades. Obama gave a wonderfully Russellian defense of Warren on Thursday at a press conference. Americans, he said, need to “come together” even when they disagree on social issues. “That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about,” he said. Russell would often use the same tactic to deflect criticism of his civil rights record. It was a distraction, Russell said, from the important business of the day uniting all Americans. Obama also said today that he is a “fierce advocate for equality” for gays, which is — given his opposition to equal marriage rights — simply a lie. It recalls the time Russell said, “I’m as interested in the Negro people of my state as anyone in the Senate. I love them.”

Many gays I know gave money to Obama, which mystified me. The favored explanation was that he doesn’t “really” believe gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry; he just has to say that in order to win. People seemed to feel that once he had won, he would find a way — in his contemplative style — to help convince Americans that gay people really do deserve basic equality. Instead, he has found a way to insult gay people deeply.

In California, some gay activists are planning to put marriage on the 2010 ballot so that Proposition 8 — which (thanks partly to Warren’s support) passed last month, banning marriage equality in the state — can be undone. Gays will need to reach older, religious, and African-American voters in order to overturn Prop. 8 (those three groups all voted disproportionately for it). If gays hoped that President Obama would help, they may want to reconsider.

The only piece of good news is that Obama loves to raise money, and he won’t want significant gay donors to stop organizing fundraisers for him. Having picked Warren to pray at the Inauguration and Republican Robert Gates to stay on at the Department of Defense (where Gates will likely continue the policy of investigating gay service members — a policy he has the legal power to end with the stroke of a pen), Obama will now have to do something nice for the gays. Today, the Washington Times brings news that some retired military leaders are supporting William White, an openly gay man who is chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, to be Secretary of the Navy. That would be cool. But I’m not getting my hopes up.

Expand AIDS Testing December 16, 2008

Posted by rogerhollander in Health.
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1 comment so far

hiv-testingA health-care worker at the South Brooklyn Health Center administers rapid HIV testing. (Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

www.truthout.org

15 December 2008

by: The San Francisco Chronicle | Editorial

At the dawn of the AIDS scourge over two decades ago, there was a fear factor about testing for the disease-causing virus.

    There were worries of government tracking, no treatments to follow a potentially fatal diagnosis and the outcast stigma of the disease. These what-if doubts hamstrung a valuable tool in containing a epidemic that has killed more than 25 million worldwide and infected another 33 million.

    But now the landscape has changed. A patient diagnosed with the AIDS virus can be treated with life-extending drugs, which carry the added plus of limiting transmission. An informed patient will be less likely to pass on the virus, transmitted by needles, blood and bodily fluids.

    That’s why it makes sense for AIDS screening to be a routine part of medical exams. Catch it early, and everyone from patients to partners benefits.

    This commonsense idea already has traction in California where health insurers are now obliged to cover testing under a law signed in October. San Francisco public-health doctors switched from written consent for AIDS screening to oral request, a speeded-up process that boosted testing and turned up more AIDS-positive patients for treatment.

    But these policies aren’t in place everywhere. Nationwide, it’s estimated there are a million people with the AIDS virus, and a quarter don’t know it. It’s this second number – some 250,000 men and women, mostly black and urban – that’s especially troubling and challenging.

    It’s time to push for a federal policy – and serious Washington money – to make testing work. Setting the right example here will also help in the global fight to curb the AIDS epidemic.

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