Category Archives: Activism

AIDS Activists Arrested At Rehberg’s Office

by D Gregory Smith

…for protesting the needle exchange ban “sneaked” into the Federal Funding Bill in December- despite scientific research which shows that it does not promote drug use, but does stem the progress of infectious disease.  From The Missoula Indy:

via wikipedia

A demonstration by AIDS activists Wednesday morning targeted Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana and other congressmen for their role in “sneaking in” a federal ban on clean needle exchange programs. Ten activists were arrested outside Rehberg’s office. Capitol Police put the total number of those arrested at 29; activist organizations say the number was actually 32.

The Huffington Post described the background of the demonstration:

“Rehberg was targeted for his role as chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee on health and human services, where he led the effort to ban funding for needle exchange programs, adding it to a House spending bill that funded the federal government through fiscal year 2012…

The ban was originally adopted in 1989 but was finally lifted by Congress in 2009. Republicans lawmakers quietly slipped the ban back into their spending bill in December of last year.”

In addition to Rehberg, activists targeted Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). There were also rallies in New York outside the offices of Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. The groups taking credit for the demonstrations were Housing Works, Health Global Access Project and Citiwide Harm Reduction.

Activists are against the ban because studies show that clean needle programs help curb the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, and reduce the rate of new HIV infections among injection drug users by as much as 80 percent. The Huffington Post article also notes that additional research shows “syringe exchange programs do not increase the numbers of injection drug users and can further reduce long-term healthcare costs for people with HIV or hepatitis C.”

Indy reporter Jessica Mayrer wrote a 2010 cover story about outreach workers across Montana working on HIV and hepatitis C prevention programs, and how drastic cuts to funding were affecting their efforts.

The false meme that is promoted is this: clean needles encourage drug use and do not prevent the spread of disease.
The truth is this: clean needles do not significantly increase drug use and do prevent the spread of disease.

The only logical conclusion is this: the lawmakers who promoted this ban want those who use needles to spread and to die of deadly disease.

They are not interested in public health, they are interested in shaming people with disease (addiction, Hep C, HIV). Completely and utterly irresponsible.

Related articles

The Call For Cebull To Step Down Gets Louder- Petition Edition

by D Gregory Smith

Thanks to the folks at the Montana Human Rights Network, there’s now a petition. From The Great Falls Tribune:

Seal of the United States Court of Appeals for...

Image via Wikipedia

Travis McAdam, executive director of the Montana Human Rights Network, said citizens from throughout Montana and across the country are flooding the organization’s phone lines and email inbox with angry calls for Cebull to be removed from his post as the state’s top federal judge.

“People are really angry and motivated and wanting to do something,” McAdam said Thursday.

The Montana Human Rights Network and other groups are now circulating online petitions calling for Cebull to resign.

“On February 20, the chief federal judge in Montana, Richard Cebull, forwarded an email to six individuals that included racist and misogynistic content. The content of this email dehumanizes people of color and women. People of color and women appearing before Judge Cebull will have valid concerns about his ability to treat them fairly,” the network petition reads in part.

“From the time story broke online (Wednesday) to this morning we had gotten dozens of emails through our website, and phone calls from people who are really wanting some way to register their real displeasure with the email the judge sent around and also really talking about ‘how can we lend our names to something to try to get the judge to resign?’” McAdams said.

The network also plans to file a formal ethics complaint with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The MHRN petition is here. 

UPDATE: CONGRESSIONAL TRI-CAUCUS CONDEMNS MONTANA JUDGE’S RACISM TOWARD OBAMA

Related articles

“Kill every last gay person”‏

by D Gregory Smith

Citibank and Barclays could save the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Uganda.

The Ugandan legislature could vote any day on a so-called “Kill the Gays” bill that could result in legalizing the death penalty for any LGBT person in the country. But Citibank and Barclays together have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Uganda and wield significant influence in the country, just as banking lobbyists wield influence with Congress in the US. If Citibank and Barclays speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill, Ugandan legislators will take notice in a hurry.

Collin Burton is a Citibank customer — he’s also gay. Collin started a petition on Change.org asking Citibank and Barclays to speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill. Click here to sign Collin’s petition right now.

Citibank and Barclays are both big supporters of LGBT rights for their own employees, yet they invest money with a government that is threatening to execute LGBT people. “I expect Citibank and Barclays to live up to the values of equality and fairness, not just list them on their websites,” Collin says.

If Citibank and Barclays speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill, Ugandan legislators will see that they are risking the business relationships that keep their government afloat.

Click here to sign Collin’s petition asking Citibank and Barclays to issue strong statements condemning Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill. The bill could come up for a vote any day, so swift action is essential.

Related articles

The AIDS Quilt 25 Years Later

by D Gregory Smith

And remember, people are still dying….

 

 

http://www.aidsquilt.org

Pride Foundation: Big Plans for Montana

by D Gregory Smith

By Caitlin Copple, Montana Regional Development Organizer, Pride Foundation

During new Executive Director Kris Hermanns’ inaugural visit to Montana, the state’s Leadership Action Team volunteers convened at a retreat center in Red Lodge January 28 to assess the first year of Pride Foundation’s regional expansion in Montana and to help set the course for 2012.

“The Montana retreat recognized, created and harnessed some of the most encouraging energy I’ve been a part of in a long time,” said volunteer and monthly donor Greg Smith of Bozeman. “There is a unity of purpose and vision among us that’s palpable, and we are absolutely committed to LGBTQ equality in Montana.”

Added volunteer and donor Mary Stranahan of Arlee: “It was a good whirlwind of networking and making connections across the state, and I am very glad to have met Kris.”

Among the highlights were the notable increase in the number of LGBTQ events around the state, feeling more connected as a statewide community, giving away more money than ever, and feeling like we are working to create a better world through social change.  Wishes from team members included the need for more political and legal change, more visibility to reach people outside the “choir” of progressive and LGBTQ activists, and to diversify in fundraising strategies.

LAT Members with Pride Foundation's Amy White

The team, which functions much like a statewide board, decided to split into three subcommittees focusing on fundraising, visibility and communications, and leadership development.  The fundraising committee, co-chaired by Aaron Browning of Billings and Ginny Furshong of Helena, will focus on major donor and monthly giving development and donor retention, as well as connecting with Montana’s many “expats” who have left the state for either coast but remaining committed to social justice here.

The communications committee will develop Montana-specific “talking points” about the impact of Pride Foundation and its grantees in Montana, and work to present to businesses and service clubs.

The leadership development committee will focus on power-building by providing capacity building and technical assistance to grantee organizations and allies, as well as providing greater volunteer support to grantees, especially those focused on advocacy and education.

“Volunteering with and donating to Pride Foundation means being a part of something bigger than myself without losing my individual identity – or my voice,” explains LAT member and monthly donor Greg Smith of Bozeman. “In fact, Pride Foundation amplifies my voice because it is the vehicle for change in the Pacific Northwest for all LGBTQ persons and our allies, urbanand rural. Pride Foundation’s investment in my home state of Montana couldn’t be clearer- it’s professional, it’s consistent and it’s becoming stronger every day.”

Moving forward, the Leadership Action Team plans to meet quarterly in person and monthly in subcommittees.  If you have feedback or suggestions for how Pride Foundation can better serve your community, please contact Caitlin@pridefoundation.org or one of your local LAT members.

Related articles

Catholic Progressives: Speak Up!

by D Gregory Smith

From my friends over at New Ways Ministry:

From a Kensington.Patch.com article on marriage equality in Maryland entitled “O’Malley’s same-sex marriage bill to provide more religious protections” comes this quote which serves as a reminder that  Catholic progressives need to speak up to their civil and church leaders:

” ‘I’m getting some people that are calling me to say they don’t support it, and they’re coming from churches, mainly the Catholic Church,’ said Delegate James W. Hubbard (D-Prince George’s County), a bill supporter and member of the Health and Government Operations Committee and chair of the Public Health and Long-Term Care subcommittee.

” ‘I listen to everybody, and I’ve been here 20 years. Those who really get wound up on these things are the ones who call. The people who support these things don’t call,’ he said.”

Point taken. As ridiculously hard as it is sometimes, it’s heartening to remember that the Roman Catholic Church is not the official far right- it’s got a progressive side, too. And plenty of people who go to mass regularly identify as “liberal”. Not to mention the rich history of dissent that has, arguably, saved the church’s bacon on more than one occasion (see: Catherine of Siena).

Reminder: don’t let the right-wing hijack your churches. When any institution moves too far to one side, it not only becomes unbalanced, it begins to convince itself that it’s supposed to be leaning that way.

Related articles

Waiting For Equality

by D Gregory Smith
By Amy White on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 9:00 pm

The Big Vote: Pride Foundation's Kris Hermanns and Doug Exworthy surrounded by marriage equality supporters

Hundreds of marriage equality supporters, some driving for hours to get to Olympia, filled the Washington State Senate Gallery Wednesday night to witness the critical Senate vote that brings Washington closer to marriage equality. Supporters were not disappointed. The bill passed in the Senate 28-21.

“This is a huge win and historic day for all Washingtonians,” said Kris Hermanns, Pride Foundation’s Executive Director. “This has been a long-time coming and reflects decades of hard work and courageous leadership. Yet, we know that this is just the first step towards recognizing the full equality, humanity, and dignity of LGBTQ people and families in our state. We have much more work in the coming months to ensure that today’s vote creates permanent equality. ”

Though the bill is expected to pass in the House, and Governor Gregoire has committed to signing the bill, opponents of marriage equality – supported heavily by out of state organizations – are expected to collect enough signatures to force an anti-equality initiative for the November ballot that would seek to reverse the Marriage Equality bill.

Your support will be needed to ensure that Washington becomes the 7th state to allow loving and committed same-sex couples can marry. In the coming months, there will be lots of opportunities to get involved.

Right now, you can make sure you and your friends are following Pride Foundation page on Facebook and Twitter. You can sign-up to the Washington United for Marriage Campaign to share your story on why you support marriage equality. You can also join us for Lobby Day on February 16 in Olympia. Lobby Day will be the chance to thank legislators for their ongoing support and to gain further allies for the equality movement. Contact Christina at christina@pridefoundation.org to get involved today.

Making Change: (L-R) Kris Hermanns, Rep. Jamie Pedersen, Sen. Ed Murray, Doug Exworthy

Together we make make marriage equality magic!

Related articles

AIDS: “The Unnecessary Epidemic”

by D Gregory Smith

This eloquent, excellent article is from The National Association Of People With AIDS/HIV (NAPWA) newsletter, Positive Voice. It outlines many of the challenges we face as a country- including homophobia, stigma, and stinginess- in getting HIV under control:

This is an exciting time for all of us who live with HIV or are affected by it. Theoretical models predicted for years that treatment-as-prevention could work, and the last year confirmed it. In the elegantly designed HPTN 052 trial, results showed that serodiscordant heterosexual couples had a drastically reduced risk of infection for the HIV-negative partner when the positive partner was receiving effective treatment with antiretroviral drugs.British Columbia didn’t wait for trial results. For several years, the province has aggressively sought to find and treat as many HIV-infected people as possible, and the numbers of AIDS deaths and new HIV infections are now coming down. Dr. Julio Montaner, father of the B.C. program, remarked recently that the falling number of (known) new infections was not the result of less testing, or of safer sex. That leaves only one plausible explanation: reduced community viral load.

So we can end this epidemic. It’s time to start calling it The Unnecessary Epidemic.

As NAPWA President and CEO told us in the previous issue of Positive Voice, ending the epidemic will take resources, resources, resources. Resources for high-impact prevention programs. Resources for treatment and support services for all who need them. Resources to fix an unfair health care system.

But it’s also going to take more than resources. It will take changes in public attitudes. Twenty percent of Americans living with HIV don’t know it. Some of them don’t because prevention and testing programs haven’t reached them. Other don’t because having HIV can be so stigmatizing that they would really rather die slowly than know their status.

So let’s look at some public drivers of HIV stigma, and then look at the consequences.

The evils of “second-hand sodomy”

On the site Conservapedia.com – think of it as Wikipedia for the “right”-minded – Americans for Truth (!) president Peter LaBarbera writes, Why isn’t there a concerted government effort – akin to the current anti-smoking campaigns – to reign in homosexual promiscuity – beginning with closing down all sex businesses (bathhouses) that facilitate homosexual perversion? (Of course, we favor closing down straight prostitution businesses as well.) We know that bisexual behavior (men on the “down low”) help spread dangerous diseases to the general population: how many deaths and illnesses have to result from “second-hand sodomy” before authorities take corrective action?

Translation: it’s all the gays’ fault. If we could just shut down all gay sex, the epidemic would go away. Never mind that a majority of African Americans living with HIV are women, in numbers that could not possibly be accounted for by some partners’ “down low” adventures, and HIV in Africa was a heterosexual disease from day one. LaBarbera is saying that sex he disapproves of is perversion, perversion leads to disease, and “second-hand disease” is tantamount to murder.

Just as bizarrely, Dr. Peter Duesberg continues to contend that HIV is harmless and AIDS is caused by gay sex and drug use. Somehow, we just don’t think most of the African American women living with AIDS have been having gay sex and sniffing poppers…. And never mind the experience of people with HIV who were on the ropes in 1996, when drug cocktails based on protease inhibitors were just coming into use, and eight weeks after we started our new drug regimens our viral loads were down, our T cells were up, and our dermatologists were telling us we didn’t have to come back anymore for our every-two-weeks appointment to zap new KS lesions. Practical lesson: control the HIV and the AIDS symptoms go away. Conclusion: the virus causes the symptoms. Discussion over, Dr. D.

Not victim-free expressions of opinion

We can laugh at these extreme opinions, but publishing them is not a victimless crime. Duesberg’s opinions delayed wide use of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in South Africa for years, and people died. The shame about non-majority sexual orientation spread by Conservapedia and others keeps people who know they should get tested from doing so and having to live with a positive result. Using criminal law as a (failed) tool to prevent new infections drives infected people and injection drug users underground, where prevention and treatment services can’t reach them.

How the Grinch stole your needle exchange

The 2013 federal budget just passed reinstates the former ban on federal funding for one of the most targeted, cost-effective HIV programs ever conceived: injection needle exchanges. The ban was one of many prices, just before Christmas, for passing any budget at all. The underlying thinking may have had something in common with Conservapedia’s panacea of outlawing gay sex: just say “there ought to be a law,” whether it’s a matter law can deal with effectively or not. It can’t, and we wonder whether many members of Congress demanding the ban knew that. Certainly those with competent health policy staffers did.

Naming stigma – and praising constructive action

As a community of people who live with HIV or serve those who do, we have a responsibility to call out stigma wherever we see – HIV stigma, homophobia, unease with transgendered people, the cruel expectation that people trapped in sex work or drug use are in control and should just go cold turkey and quit. This is more important than any quarrels we may have among ourselves about PrEP, condoms, or whether to concentrate on developing a preventive or therapeutic vaccine first (scientific accident will decide that for us).

 To join the National Association Of People with AIDS/HIV, click here.
Related articles

Janus, Chaz, Hillary, The Military, Barack, Science And HIV

by D Gregory Smith
Français : Demi-statère de Rome, tête de Janus...

Image via Wikipedia

(Also Published on LGBTQNation)
Janus was the Roman God of Thresholds, of transition, of beginnings and ending. He is often depicted with two faces, one for looking forward and one for looking back. January, the beginning month of the new year is named for Janus, and so, it’s natural that humans take this time to look back- and look forward- at the approach of the New Year.

As I take a look back, I’m very grateful for some amazing things that have happened this year in the U.S.- things that I never thought would happen in my lifetime- including:

All good stuff.

But what I am finding amazing is the conspicuous absence or light mentions in the LGBT media about the dramatic advances in HIV treatment and prevention in the “best of” roundups this year. A year when there have arguably been more advances in treatment, prevention and scientific breakthroughs than in any other year in the 30 since AIDS was discovered. A year when top government officials committed time, money and policy to ending this disease. A year when Science magazine called the HPTN 052 Study the scientific breakthrough of the year.

It’s puzzling.

Are we getting complacent about HIV? Are we in denial about the very real danger it still poses to our community? Do people understand that having HIV is difficult- creating financial, medical, emotional and social problems that can be devastating for people, families and communities?

It seems so.

I am, like I said, grateful for all the things listed above. I am grateful for Chaz and trans representation. I am grateful for relationship rcognition. I am grateful for advances in employment nondiscrimination. I am grateful that my government is taking LGBT rights seriously. I am especially grateful that the elected administration of this land is treating HIV like it should be treated- as a disease, a viral infection- and not as some Divine Punishment inflicted on the sexually and socially repugnant dregs of society. That is a big deal.

In fact it’s huge.

So why did we miss it?

Related articles

Petition: Cardinal George Should Resign For Comparing Gays To The KKK

by D Gregory Smith

I admit it- I’m a petition signer. I like adding my voice to others to make a point about something I believe in. There’s strength in numbers, and it usually only takes a minute.

I signed this petition on Change.org as a gay man, a formerly active priest and as someone deeply concerned about the message that this sends to Catholics around the world about LGBT humans. It’s patently untrue and more than patently screwed up.

Background (from the petition site):

Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George foolishly compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. He has crossed so far over the line of basic decency that he couldn’t see it with a pair of binoculars. George’s over-the-top remarks were extreme to the point where they shredded his credibility and permanently damaged his ability to serve as a respected voice of reason.  

This outrageous comparison of the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan was so degrading and hurtful that apologizing will not be sufficient. George’s only road to redemption is handing in his resignation. If he has a shred of dignity and a shard of class he will immediately step down.  George’s offensive remarks came during a dispute over the scheduled starting time of the annual gay pride parade in June. The event was originally set to begin at 10am, but a priest bitterly complained that the starting time would interfere with morning services.  

In an interview with Fox News in Chicago, Cardinal George said: “Well, I go with the pastor. I mean, he’s telling us that they won’t be able to have Church services on Sunday, if that’s the case. You know, you don’t want the Gay Liberation Movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism. So, I think if that’s what’s happening, and I don’t know that it is, but I would respect the local pastor’s, you know, position on that. Then I think that’s a matter of concern for all of us.”

Such backward and bigoted remarks cannot stand. We must stand up, speak out and fight back against the intolerance displayed by Cardinal George. If we don’t take a stand when we are compared to the KKK – when will we? The time to act is now by demanding that George immediately leave his post.

Now I’m really not so naive to think that the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago will look at a few thousand signatures and immediately resign his post, but it may give him something to think about the next time he opens his archepiscopal mouth to make ignorant comparisons. People expect more tolerance and compassion from the spiritual leader of a million people- at least I do- so I signed it. Because I also think Jesus would have expected better, too.
Oh, and have a very Merry Christmas. Because it’s still all about love and redemption- even when the leaders don’t represent.
Related articles