Archive for HIV/AIDS
The Public Health Peril in Oklahoma’s Anti-Abortion Obsession
Nan Hunter has just run a good summary of recent legislation in Oklahoma that, taken as a whole, is designed to prevent women from having abortions altogether. The state’s determination shows that, Roe v. Wade not to the contrary, there’s plenty that states can do to restrict what the Court has declared to be part [...]
Promise and Caution: Assessing the New HIV Vaccine
It’s all over the news this morning: The U.S. Army (partnered with the Thai Ministry of Public Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) has shown a modest, but statistically significant, protective effect from a vaccine against HIV.
Here are the details. The trial, which used a vaccine that is a combination of [...]
Bubbling Under
For reasons probably too psychoanalytically complex to unravel, I was once obsessed with the Billboard HOT 100 chart. And I was almost as obsessed with another chart, known only to savants, called “Bubbling Under,” which listed the next ten or sometimes twenty songs that didn’t quite make the grade. These songs were Kathy Griffin, D-List [...]
I’m Not Sick, Mr. President
Here’s Obama’s response to Brian Williams’s question about whether proponents of gay marriage have a friend in the White House:
Translation: No.
Instead, we get the boilerplate about civil unions, benefits — and “the right to visit each other in hospitals”?? After the show, I half-expected an episode of “L.A. Law.” How very late 80’s of you, [...]
Marriage Bans and HIV
This is interesting:
“In a new study conducted by economists at Emory University, it has been found that banning same-sex marriage raises the U.S. HIV infection rate by four cases per 100,000 people. Using data from the General Social Survey, a popular research tool that has gauged American public opinion for over four decades, Hugo Mialon [...]
Andrew Sullivan’s “Familiar Feeling” — and a Qualified Defense of Obama
Well, we’re not even four months into the Obama Administration and already the LGBT community is frustrated at the pace of developments. And, really, who can blame us, after the betrayals of the Clinton Administration and the hostility of his successor who-must-not-be-named? Here’s Andrew Sullivan, in a sobering and angry piece on the Atlantic website [...]
Equality Forum: Picking up an Important Piece on Health Services
On the day after Equality Forum’s week-long stampede finished trampling me, I’m able to stagger back to my computer and pick up a piece from last Saturday’s collaborative programming that I didn’t want to leave behind. (Tomorrow I hope to be able to post on the National Equality Rally that took place on Sunday.)
One of [...]
Equality Forum Day 4 (Part 1): Politics 101 (Domestic)
How important is bipartisanship in pursuing full equality for the LGBT community? Is it better to work on the state law level, or to push for national policy changes? How are our issues connected to larger issues? And what will be the questions facing the community ten years from now?
Moderator Patrick Guerriero used these open-ended [...]
Equality Forum Day 2 (Part 2): The Persistent Problem
You’ve got an accomplished, racially diverse panel; appropriately, since this was the National Racial Panel, the “closer” on Tuesday evening. H. Alexander Robinson has done national-level AIDS policy work, and is now Executive Director and CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition, which describes itself as the only national Black, gay civil rights organization. Juanita [...]
Equality Forum Day 1: From VIP Kickoff to the Margins
Imagine this life: You’re not safe at school. The very sight of you makes people uncomfortable, sometimes angry. Your family disowns you, but no one else will adopt you or take you in for foster care. Without mooring, and unsure of your own identity, you turn to drugs and alcohol, perhaps landing in jail. You [...]