Category Archives: Current events

Voting For HIV

by D Gregory Smith

I am a member of NAPWA, the National Association of People With AIDS/HIV.  As a member, I receive their monthly email newsletter, which has a lot of information regarding HIV, tips for self-care, advocacy and political activism. Frank Oldham, the President and CEO had a column this month that really put some things in perspective for me.

It’s been a pretty interesting election year. NAPWA, as a 501(c)(3) charitable corporation, is not permitted to support or oppose individual candidates or political parties, so we can’t name names – but we can share our general observation that some of this year’s candidates would be pretty grand entertainment if there weren’t a real chance they might get elected.

It’s also been one of the nastiest campaign seasons in recent memory, and a lot of us just want it to end and go away. Here are some reasons to get to the polls and vote anyway.

· Defend the Health Care Reform Act.

Imagine a world where insurance companies can’t ask about preexisting conditions and use our answers to deny us coverage or cover us differently! We’ll have to wait until 2014 for full implementation of that, but it’s in the new law, and candidates who will defend the law against attempts to repeal it outright or amend it out of existence deserve our support. So do incumbent candidates who knew they were risking their seats but voted for the bill anyway; they took a big risk for us.

· The next Congress will – or won’t – fund implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

The Obama Administration’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) seeks to reduce the number of new HIV infections, increase access to care and optimize health outcomes, and reduce HIV-related health disparities. All of which is very good news for people living with HIV. It doesn’t mean much, though, if Congressional funding priorities are being set by folks who think anyone who doesn’t look like them is not the “real America.” Simply by being HIV-positive, we don’t look like them. We don’t want a Congress full of elected representatives chanting, “We shouldn’t be spending money on NHAS, ‘they’ wouldn’t have HIV if ‘they’ hadn’t been doing bad things.”

· The next Congress will set the agenda for young people’s HIV-awareness and prevention education.

We’ve seen the lack of results from abstinence-only curricula. Even the current Congress is gradually moving from ideology-driven abstinence-only approaches to evidence-based, frank sex education, and it is saving the lives of our young people. We don’t want to go back.

· There are critical HIV funding needs right now.

State AIDS Drugs Assistance Programs (ADAPs) are in crisis because of the recession which started in 2008. Programs for HIV-positive people with multiple medical or life issues – homelessness, addiction, mental illness – are also finding funds harder and harder to come by. Find out where your candidates stand on HIV services, and vote for those who support funding for them.

The votes of people living with HIV/AIDS are needed now more than ever before! As the leader of NAPWA and an African-American gay man living with AIDS, I know that so much progress and the fruits of hard-fought battles for our health care, protecting Ryan White Care Act services, and our rights as American citizens are at risk right now!

So let’s be sure to know our candidates and choose well. Next issue (November 5), we’ll look at the election results. Win or lose, we’ll all feel better if we did our research and voted our values.

“We Used To Feel Like You”

by D Gregory Smith

“Don’t give up
Cause your life is like a book-
All you got to do is turn the page.
There are friends yet to meet,
There are songs to be sung
There are beautiful sunsets
And battles are won.
There’s love to be found if you just stick around
Don’t give up- your life has just begun.”

Amen.

Buy it here.

Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case That Made History

by D Gregory Smith

On the heels of Yesterday’s Spirit Day (wearing purple in honor of LGBT teens who have committed suicide and expressing solidarity with others who struggle) I watched Bullied.

If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend it.

If you’d like to own this movie, you can do so for free through Teaching Tolerance.
And to maybe do some good, pass this on to an educator in your community….

It Gets Better

by D Gregory Smith

Our kids need to know that life changes (relatively) quickly when you’re a teenager. Dan Savage’s campaign is helping, I think. There are a lot of encouraging messages coming from a huge variety of people, and Gene Robinson’s is one of the best.
A question to the adults out there: What would you tell your 13 year-old self?


Three Stories You Should Know About- And One You Already Knew

by D Gregory Smith

Jamee Greer over at 4 and 20 Blackbirds reports on 3 stories you need to know:

  1. This weekend in Serbia, a gay pride celebration was disrupted by almost 6000 rioters throwing molotov cocktails, stun grenades and bricks – and chanting slogans like “death to homosexuals!”
  2. New York State gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, told a gathering of Orthodox Jewish leaders in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Sunday that children are being “brainwashed” into believing homosexuality was acceptable and normal.
  3. Another gay teen has taken their life, this time in Norman, Oklahoma. The 19 year old had attended a City Council public hearing earlier in the week which included discussion on the receipt of a mayoral proclamation recognizing October as Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender History Month in Norman. The proclamation was approved 7-1, after three hours of graphic, homophobic testimony.
  4. And, just to keep sayin‘, The Montana Republican Party Platform is still crying for the criminalization of gays.

The barbarians are at the gates….


Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck

by D Gregory Smith

Hysterical. It usually is when a person’s own words are played back in a realistic context…

Tell Montana’s GOP: Get Criminalization of Homosexuality Out of Party Platform

by D Gregory Smith

Change.org has a petition. Sign it here.

This Is Important!

by D Gregory Smith

Also published on The Bilerico Project

It took almost three months, but the story about the hateful Montana GOP platform plank seeking the criminalization of gays has gone national.

The Associated Press ran a story over the weekend that was picked up by The Boston Globe, The Chicago Sun-Times, NPR, and there was even a story on a Montana NBC affiliate station. And more newspapers, I’m told, will be running the story in the next few days.

Why is this important? I’ll tell you why.

It’s important because this is happening all the time. People in charge are doing things that most of the masses would not approve, crossing their fingers and hoping it will go unnoticed. It’s happening when the Christianist agenda, even when unconstitutional, gets pushed into public policy through the side door. And this time they got caught.

It’s important because most Montana Republicans didn’t even know of the plank’s existence, and many are outraged at the discovery. This is just the kind of sneaky right-wing evangelical behavior that erodes our rights- even if it is happening in rural America.

It’s important because behind the scenes there were tireless individuals who wouldn’t let this go. There were people who realized that this platform plank had an impact on the freedom of all Americans, and they kept the legs under this story. They shared the story on Facebook, they sent it to their friends and local news organizations, they wrote letters and made phone calls. There were even allies in the media, the GOP – maybe unsurprisingly not the Log Cabin Republicans, conservatives and local human rights organizations that knew this was important – not just for gay people, but for everyone.

It’s important because it shows hard work, perseverance and a reasonable sense of moral outrage pays off. There’s a realization that activism still works, that sitting on our collective asses and bitching to each other doesn’t.

And that, my friends, is a victory.

PS,  Read this if you think we should rest on our laurels…

Update: Change.org now has a petition for the Montana GOP leadership to take the hate out of their platform.

Sign it. All the cool kids are doing it.

NBC Speaks

by D Gregory Smith

….about the Montana GOP Platform plank that wants to criminalize gays-at least on a Montana station. Still waiting for Brian Williams and CNN.

Check it out here

And Jay Stevens on Left In The West has an excellent analysis here.


Is It The Apocalypse?

by D Gregory Smith

I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but it’s been 2 1/2 months since I started harping about the hateful Montana GOP plank.
There’s been some press here and there, and I thought, “maybe with the mid-term elections looming, this might become an issue.”

Sigh.

I was about to give up hope, but now, Republican State Sen. John Brueggeman (R-Polson) is speaking out.
You heard me.

Brueggeman’s record isn’t so hot on human rights, but it’s a start.  CLICK HERE for the story.

Update: CHA-CHING! Huffington Post story here.

Oh, and the sarcasm is just genetic. Irish, mostly….