By working with the Catholic Church in order to craft the contraception mandate in such a way that the Catholic Church would not bitch about it, the Obama Administration may have shot itself in the foot, because guess what? The Catholic Church is bitching about it.
If we are fighting HIV, we need to join hands no matter whether we are straight, gay, sex workers, whatever…but with no discrimination. This is high time we tell the US government they should respect all human rights – whether you are a sex worker, straight, gay, disabled. We are all equal.
The definition of criminal offenses, the selective implementation of the law, and the resulting stereotypes generate a self-enforcing loop of discrimination and exclusion to the detriment of all. The exclusion of so many legitimate voices from this year’s AIDS conference is just one example.
A federal judge in Colorado shows he's open to the argument that employers should be able to dock your insurance benefits because they oppose contraception. If conservatives successfully open this door, expect more attacks on workers' religious freedom.
The head of Exodus International, an umbrella group for ex-gay ministries around the world, recently said that conversion therapy does not work and that there is, in fact, no "cure" for homosexuality. While this seems like a step in the right direction, the organization still says that any sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong. So, now what?
An anti-choice Democrat running for the Kansas House of Representatives isn’t really “news” in Kansas, but a Democratic candidate who speaks at local Tea Party rallies, is openly hostile to President Obama, and acts as a community leader in propagating the extreme anti-choice myth of black genocide?? Kansas, meet your Democratic Party candidate for Wichita’s 89th House District…Peggy Elliott.
We will only be able to get people into treatment early, and retain them in treatment, if we finally move from rhetoric to real action on HIV and human rights.
No Global Fund, no international forums will be able to save us from our own trouble until we, ourselves, get to work, until we start to mobilize, until we take our destiny into our hands.
