“An Open Letter To Gay Republicans”

Image via Wikipedia

From Asher Huey at The Huffington Post :

Dear gay Republicans,

Rick Santorum’s surge and near-win in Iowa should be a wake-up call: your party hates you.

Let’s put economic and other issues aside for a moment; we can have a spirited debate about the backward GOP approach to taxes, the environment, and foreign policy another time. I don’t understand how you can look beyond the fact that a major portion of your party’s fundamental beliefs are that you are not equal.

This isn’t a minor issue within your party. The Republican Party platform calls for amending the United States Constitution to discriminate against you. Party officials actually want to use our country’s foundational document, which grants and extends rights and freedoms to people, to limit yours. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

…Your party has, as one of its major leading presidential candidates, a person who doesn’t think you should be able to serve openly in the military, who doesn’t believe that you can create a loving family, who thinks that your committed relationships are destroying the moral fabric of America. Your party has thrown you in the deviant pile. Your party has labeled you a sexual predator. Your party is afraid of you and does not incorporate your voice or believe in your dignity.

Read the rest here.

Asher Huey: An Open Letter to Gay Republicans (huffingtonpost.com)
After My Own Heart (dgsma.wordpress.com)
Montana Split On Gay Marriage Rights (towleroad.com)
Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney Pressed About Support For Gay Rights During 2012 New Hampshire GOP Debate (huffingtonpost.com)
Friendly Fire: Don’t mistake comments on imaginary gay sons and friends for a softening of Rick Santorum’s anti-gay bigotry (pinkbananaworld.com)
Letter: Republican Party’s decline is sad (knoxnews.com)
The Perry Campaign Recycles Homophobia, and Angry Gay Republicans Recycle Outing (queerty.com)

“25 Things Montana Voters (And Media) Need To Know About Dennis Rehberg”

Jan3 by D Gregory Smith

Don Pogreba over at Intelligent Discontent, has an excellently ordered post about vital Rehberg activities that need to be noticed by voters- and covered by media (The media is, apparently and statistically, securely in the back pocket of Rehberg’s designer jeans):

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

I’ll admit that typically when I write about Montana’s sole representative in the House it’s to criticize him for not really doing anything. This year, however, no doubt inspired by his desire to move up an office, Rehberg has been a dynamo of activity. Unfortunately, most of it has been bad for Montana and the nation.

Back home, he’s made such poor business decisions that his net worth somehow dropped by over 50%, he’s claimed to struggle with the burden of being cash poor, he’s pursued a failed lawsuit against the City of Billings and its firefighters, and he’s managed to get Montana’s media to ignore many of his terrible decisions in Washington.

Honestly, guys, you need to do better. When Rehberg makes national news, you need to cover it.

While I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few Rehberg actions this year, these are simply 25 Things Montana Voters Should Know About Dennis Rehberg:

READ THEM HERE.

Rehberg Supports Raising Medicare Premiums (dgsma.wordpress.com)
MT Democrats: Rehberg’s Standing Against Jobs And Tax Relief (dgsma.wordpress.com)
Montana most-competitive Senate race as 2012 nears (politico.com)
Nonprofits triumph over House Republicans in 2012 budget battle (thehill.com)

“The Race To End AIDS”

Dec28 by D Gregory Smith

On Today’s Morning Edition from NPR, a story about HIV Treatment As Prevention:

2011 has been a momentous year in the 30-year-old AIDS pandemic.

The big breakthrough was the discovery that antiviral drugs can prevent someone who’s infected with HIV from passing the virus to others. It’s nearly 100 percent effective. That led President Obama to declare earlier this month that the U.S. will expand HIV treatment in hard-hit countries by 50 percent.

As recently as last year, many of those experts were saying that just giving more people with HIV more drugs would never work. “For every one person that was put on antiretroviral therapy or treatment, we would have two to three new infections identified,” Dr. Eric Goosby, U.S. Global AIDS coordinator, says.

It looked like a losing game, but not anymore.

The new research shows that antiviral drugs not only save the lives of infected people, they also stop people from spreading the virus and causing new infections, if the drugs can be given early enough after someone gets infected. The new strategy is called “treatment as prevention.”

“So we suddenly are looking at a moment where we can treat our way out of the epidemic,” Goosby says. “That’s the turning point that we’re looking at.” Still, it’ll take decades to end AIDS, according to experts. But many say the world has to be much more aggressive about treating HIV.

But just the fact that this is being reported on and is being taken seriously is a big deal.

You can read and/or listen to the whole story here

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.: World AIDS Day 2011: Working to End the Pandemic (huffingtonpost.com)
UNC HIV Prevention Research Named Scientific Breakthrough Of The Year (medicalnewstoday.com)
Drugs that Prevent HIV Transmission Named ‘Breakthrough of 2011’ (livescience.com)

Remembering Fatal Homophobia

Dec23 by D Gregory Smith

In an excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times this morning, we are reminded that homophobia isn’t simple ignorance- in some parts of the world- as in the author’s Uganda- it’s fatal:

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The way I see it, homophobia — not homosexuality — is the toxic import. Thanks to the absurd ideas peddled by American fundamentalists, we are constantly forced to respond to the myth — debunked long ago by scientists — that homosexuality leads to pedophilia. For years, the Christian right in America has exported its doctrine to Africa, and, along with it, homophobia. In Uganda, American evangelical Christians even held workshops and met with key officials to preach their message of hate shortly before a bill to impose the death penalty for homosexual conduct was introduced in Uganda’s Parliament in 2009. Two years later, despite my denunciation of all forms of child exploitation, David Bahati, the legislator who introduced the bill, as well as Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem and other top government officials, still don’t seem to grasp that being gay doesn’t equate to being a pedophile.

Please read the rest here.

Americans must Heed the Cry of African LGBTI Victims (oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com)
Legislating Execution because of Identity: Homophobia in Uganda (campusblueprint.com)

LGBT Student Congressional Internships Available

Dec22 by D Gregory Smith

Shaping future political leaders is always important, shaping future LGBT political leaders is vital- it assures that the voices of LGBT persons will be involved in the political processes that have a direct impact on our lives.

If you are a student interested in political process, this could be you next summer:


	For college students, an internship is key to gaining experience, insight and perspective. And for those interested in politics, an internship on Capitol Hill is a privileged opportunity to connect with our nation’s leaders and learn firsthand about the federal legislative process.For LGBT young people, it’s also a chance to witness the impact LGBT members of Congress are having each day – and learn about the barriers they’ve overcome along the way.Last summer we launched the Victory Congressional Internship to develop the next generation of out public leaders. College students can apply for the Summer 2012 session until February 6, 2012. Hear about the experiences of our inaugural class of outstanding LGBT college students: Apply today for this intensive leadership program and an internship with an LGBT-friendly member of Congress.Not a college student or can’t participate this summer? Help spread the word about this incredible opportunity: Share on Facebook Retweet
Paid for and authorized by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute. Contributions or gifts are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. 1133 15th Street, NW, Suite 350, Washington, DC 20005

HIV 2fer: Early Treatment Works and Truvada Prevents

Dec20 by D Gregory Smith

Today’s HIV News shelf is crowded. Two stories on the HIV front involve good news about early HIV treatment and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis(PrEP) to reduce infection rates among high-risk persons.

A study (popularly known as the Setpoint Study) finds that people newly-infected with HIV-1 who immediately start anti-retroviral therapy are more likely to have beneficial medical outcomes than those who wait until CD4 counts fall below medically acceptable levels (currently 350-500 depending who you talk to).

“This is very welcome news,” said Frank J. Oldham, NAPWA President and CEO. “The study supplies scientific confirmation of something we at NAPWA have always believed: the closer we can come to bringing all people living with HIV into treatment, and the earlier they start treatment, the better. We already knew this is true for populations as a whole: more and earlier treatment means fewer new infections. Now we know that – on the whole – it’s also better for individuals already infected.”

The news on the HIV front just keeps getting better. The setpoint study follows on the heels of a groundbreaking study which provides proof of HIV treatment as prevention: HIV-infected persons on medication with undetectable viral levels are 96% less likely to pass on the virus.

It also accompanies Gilead’s application to offer Truvada as the first drug marketed to prevent HIV:

Gilead Sciences Inc. announced that it has submitted a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)for the approval of once-daily Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of HIV-1 infection among uninfected adults. Truvada was approved by the FDA in 2004 for the treatment of HIV-1 infection and is currently the most-prescribed antiretroviral treatment in the United States.

If the sNDA is approved, Truvada would be the first agent indicated for uninfected individuals to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV through sex, a prevention approach called PrEP. The sNDA is based on the results of two large placebo-controlled trials of Truvada as PrEP, sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Washington. Several other clinical studies support the use of Truvada for HIV risk reduction.

“The data from these large-scale clinical trials suggest that Truvada may have a role to play in meeting the urgent public health need to reduce new HIV infections,” said John C. Martin, PhD, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gilead Sciences. “Gilead is proud to have played a part in helping to define the use of Truvada as a potential new prevention tool and we commend the many institutions, investigators and study volunteers for their commitment to advancing this important area of research.”

Truvada is not currently labeled to reduce the risk of infection, it is labeled only for HIV treatment.

This could be an important step in slowing HIV. Around 50,000 people are still being infected with HIV every year in the U.S. according to the CDC. More than half of new infections (61%) occur among men who have sex with men, and nearly a quarter (23%) occur among women.

If Truvada can be given to high-risk persons (which includes negative partners in a sero-discordant relationship) and insurance companies will pay for it, it may, along with the groundswell of early treatment science, start a trend of slowing the progression of HIV in this country.

But only if we can get more high-risk people in for testing and treatment….

When was your last HIV test?

Early ART In Recently HIV-Infected Patients Preferable To Delayed Treatment (medicalnewstoday.com)
Tenofovir gel dropped from HIV prevention trial in women because it was not effective (eurekalert.org)
Wanted: Members For Montana’s HIV Community Planning Group (dgsma.wordpress.com)

ADAP Watch 12/19/11

Dec19 by D Gregory Smith

From NAPWA:

President Obama called for the end of AIDS on World AIDS Day. But achieving that in America requires more public sector funding than Congress has provided to date, and the political climate for more funding is brutal.

We could make a classic business Republican argument for more funds: the increases would be trivial in the context of a $3.5 trillion federal budget, and the rate of return on investment would be as high as it gets – reduced public sector health care costs in future years, and improved private sector productivity. It cost next to nothing (in context) this year, and it pays back big for years to come.

With recent additional federal money, ADAP waiting list numbers have come down some over the past month, but more than 4,000 Americans are still on wait lists. Ninety percent of them are in four Southern states, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia. All four are having financial difficulties in this economy, but the millions of dollars they would have to spend to eliminate their waiting lists are insignificant in multibillion dollar budgets, and spending the millions or not will not make their difficult positions materially any worse or any better.

Here are the latest numbers from our friends at NASTAD:

ADAP Crisis: How You Can Help (bilerico.com)
A.D.A.P What is it? (thispositivelife.wordpress.com)
Feds’ HIV Budget Rescues ADAP – But at a Price (bilerico.com)

ADAP Waiting List for 12/15/11

Dec17 by D Gregory Smith

The waiting list continues- up 59 persons in 2 weeks:

ADAP Wait List Passes 9,000 (bilerico.com)
A.D.A.P What is it? (thispositivelife.wordpress.com)
AIDS Drug Assistance Program Numbers, 11/03/11 (dgsma.wordpress.com)
Feds’ HIV Budget Rescues ADAP – But at a Price (bilerico.com)

After My Own Heart

Nov29 by D Gregory Smith

A.J. Otjen, University of Montana Professor and 2010 GOP Congressional Candidate has an Op-Ed in the Missoulian that flies in the face of the arguments by Treasure State Politics about LGBT rights (see previous post) and takes on the Montana GOP’s Notorious Platform Plank:

Image via Wikipedia

(The) Montana Supreme Court heard an appeal giving same-sex couples the protections that heterosexual couples enjoy. We should demand that our Republican leaders support this decision. But, the Montana Republican party platform says homosexual acts should remain illegal.

Apparently, the party that favors smaller, less intrusive government wants bigger, more intrusive government when it comes to our domestic arrangements. Three’s a crowd in the bedroom, folks.

Worse, the party line doesn’t fit with what most Republicans think. The latest Gallup poll says that 85 percent of Republicans want their candidates to focus on the economy, not social issues.

It will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win general elections if party leaders try to block the Supreme Court ruling or this troubling clause stays in the Republican state platform. Almost two-thirds of independents supported legalizing same-sex marriage in a 2010 Gallup poll.

Anecdotal evidence from online posts shows thousands of voters saying they would vote Republican except for the GOP’s rigid stance on gay issues.

Almost one-third of Republicans supported legalizing same-sex marriage in the 2010 Gallup poll. Over 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds support legalizing same-sex marriage, up 16 percentage points from 2010. This “overwhelming” number in favor of marriage equality “makes the trend toward growing acceptance both clear and unstoppable,” says Jon Walker at Firedoglake. (emphases mine)

I am delighted and cautiously optimistic.

Of course I want her to be a bellwether, and having A.J. Otjen singing “The Times, They Are A-Changing” (with statistics) might be the wake-up call the Montana GOP needs. But will they hear it?

The Tea-Party Christianists seem to have a loud voice, if not large numbers- and the fact that this plank was “sneaked in” past the majority of delegates- as some maintain- doesn’t leave me with a helluva lot of faith in the process.

I want to believe it. I do. I like what she’s singin’, God bless her. It’s rational, reasonable, and backed by scientific data.

But I know a few people who’ll run to unplug the speakers as fast as they can. Especially because it’s rational, reasonable and backed by scientific data.

Sigh.

Stay tuned- and read the whole piece here.

ACLU Asks Montana Supreme Court to Grant Legal Protection to Same Sex Couples (dgsma.wordpress.com)
In Which I Am Insulted, But Not Named (dgsma.wordpress.com)

New STD Rates “Shockingly High”

Nov17 by D Gregory Smith

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Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its 2010 sexually transmitted disease (STD) surveillance data. This annual report of statistics and trends for the three reportable sexually transmitted diseases in the United States shows that STDs rates in this country are still shockingly high, particularly in communities of color and among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM).

“This new data shows a persistence of the same trends that we have been seeing for years—that MSM and communities of color are continuing to bear a disproportionate share of the STDs in this country,” said William Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “We should also not lose sight of a number of new additional studies this past year on the link between STDs and acquiring HIV. The 2010 STD data released today shows that we need to look closely at further investments in STD prevention as a means to prevent HIV as well,” continued Smith.

While the 2010 data shows that overall rates for syphilis went down compared to 2009, the first decrease in in ten years, rates among Hispanics went up just over nine percent in the last year and MSM still account for two-thirds of the syphilis in this country. In addition, black men continue to have the highest rates of syphilis in the U.S., with young (20-24) black MSM seeing an increase of syphilis of a shocking 135 percent between 2006 and 2010. Co-infection of those with syphilis and HIV also continues; between 25-54 percent of those with primary or secondary syphilis were also HIV positive.

“The good news is that there was a drop of 8.5 percent in the rate of black men diagnosed with either primary or secondary syphilis in 2010 compared to the year prior,” said Smith. “While too early to definitely assess the cause for this drop, there has been a distinct appeal for several years now to help address the explosion of syphilis among black men, particularly among young black MSM, and we must keep up efforts to prevent increasing rates of STDs and HIV among this group,” concluded Smith.

Rates for Chlamydia continued to increase over the last year, as they have for twenty years. This is in part due to increased testing which is increasingly identifying positive cases, of which there were more than 1.3 million reported in 2010. Black women continue to have the highest rates for Chlamydia, as well as gonorrhea. While there was only a small increase in the overall rates of gonorrhea, the rates of gonorrhea in Hispanics went up 12 percent compared to 2009.

Across all three diseases, communities of color and young people overall continue to be most affected, though even for all ages of whites, increases were seen for all three diseases in 2010. Among whites in 2010, rates of chlamydia increased by 7.5 percent, 9.2 percent for gonorrhea, and 3.6 percent for syphilis in 2010 compared to 2009.

Smith concluded, “We hope the unacceptably high rates of STDs in this country continue to be clarion call for securing the sexual health of all people. This means that state and federal investments in STD prevention remain a critical need in these times of tight budgets and that as healthcare reform continues to move ahead, that partners in every sector ensure that the safety net for these services continues to exist.”

The full 2010 STD surveillance data can be found on the CDC website at: http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats10/default.htm.