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Express Gay News
http://www.expressgaynews.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=11954
Crown Publishing backs Coulter after gay slur
Random House division plans October launch for new book
NEW YORK (AP) | Mar 14, 12:37 PM
While conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been dropped by several newspapersfor using an anti-gay slur regarding Democratic presidential candidate JohnEdwards, she remains in good standing with her book publisher.
The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., plans anOctober release for her next book, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd BeRepublicans."
"We have a book with her on our fall list and have no plans on altering ourcurrent publication plans," Crown publisher and senior vice president SteveRoss told the Associated Press in a recent e-mail.
According to Editor & Publisher, at least eight newspapers have droppedCoulter's syndicated column since her comments about Edwards.
On March 2, speaking to Republican activists attending the annualConservative Political Action Conference, Coulter said, "I was going to havea few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards,but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ... "
Coulter has declined to apologize.
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The Express Gay News
http://www.expressgaynews.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=11948
Ark. Senate passes ban of foster care, adoptions by gay couplesBill's author cites recent arrest of gay man for sexual assault and abuseLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) | Mar 14, 9:09 AM
A bill passed by the Arkansas Senate banning gays and any unmarried couplesfrom adopting or serving as foster parents stands on "solid, legal ground,"its sponsor says.
Sen. Shawn Womack stresses his bill addresses a procedural point used by thestate Supreme Court last year to overturn Arkansas' ban. Senators voted 20-7Tuesday to support the bill, though other senators warned the measure onlydiscriminated against a group of people at a time when the state needs morefoster families.
"The right to adopt does not exist to give the adult the right to become aparent," said Womack (R-Mountain Home). "It is our obligation, our highestobligation to ensure we place that child with the best care."
Womack went on to mention the case of a Bella Vista man arrested last weekon sexual assault and abuse charges. The man cared for 28 boys the stateplaced with him over the past two years.
However, Womack said under questioning by colleagues that he did not believebeing gay made a person a pedophile, though he called the two "notnecessarily mutually exclusive either."
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The Deseret News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/print/1,1442,660202808,00.html
Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Gay activists to stage 'Jericho' walk at BYU
By Tad Walch
PROVO - Last year, Soulforce's gay activists staged a die-in at BrighamYoung University that led to 29 arrests.
Next week, the group will return to BYU with a new plan for publicity - aplan based on a Bible story.
The college-age Soulforce Equality Riders style themselves after the FreedomRiders of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Their 2007 tour beganeventfully last week with eight arrests, six at Notre Dame University, andwith an apology from one college president.
The group's BYU game plan includes a six-hour walk around the perimeter of
the campus on March 22, a public demonstration meant to recall the story inthe Old Testament Book of Joshua about the walls of Jericho.
In the story, God instructs Joshua to have the Israelites march around thecity of ericho once a day for six days, then seven times on the seventhday. The walls, as the song goes, came "a tumblin' down" when the Israelitesshouted after they circled it the final time.
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Express Gay News
http://www.expressgaynews.com/blog/index.cfm?type=blog&start=3/8/07&end=3/15/07#11961
By Steve Koval
Hillary is a poor choice for gay voters
If the folks at HRC don't feel used and abused, then they must bemasochists.
After the Clinton-HRC love fest behind closed doors on March 2, you mightexpect that Sen. Hillary Clinton could be bring herself to publicly say thathomosexuality isn't immoral. Unfortunately, you'd be disappointed.
CNN reported the sad truth Wednesday evening:
Sen. Hillary Clinton sidestepped a question about whether she thinkshomosexuality is immoral Wednesday, less than two weeks after tellinggay-rights activists she was "proud" to stand by their side.
Clinton was asked the question by ABC News, in the wake of Joint Chiefs ofStaff Chairman Peter Pace's controversial comment that he believedhomosexual acts were immoral.
"Well, I'm going to leave that to others to conclude," she said.
With friends like these...
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/03/031407baptists.htm
Furor Over Baptist's Gay-Baby Article
by the Associated Press
Posted: March 14, 2007 - 5 pm ET
(Washington) The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary hasincurred sharp attacks from both the left and right by suggesting that abiological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenataltreatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelicalleaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with anarticle earlier this month saying scientific research "points to some levelof biological causation" for homosexuality.
Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservativeChristians that homosexuality - which they view as sinful - is a matter ofchoice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.
However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary inLouisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters.They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin evenif it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medicaltreatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's sexual orientation toheterosexual.
"He's willing to play God," said Harry Knox, a spokesman on religious issuesfor the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. "He's more thanwilling to let homophobia take over and be the determinant of how heresponds to this issue, in spite of everything else he believes about nottinkering with the unborn."
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The Advocate
http://advocate.com/print_article_ektid42989.asp
Pentagon dismissed 612 personnel in 2006 under "don't ask, don't tell"
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that 612 service members weredismissed last year under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy ongays, fewer than half of the total number of discharges in the fiscal yearpreceding the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that 612 service members weredismissed last year under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy ongays. The number of troops dismissed in 2006 is fewer than half of the totalnumber of discharges in the fiscal year preceding the September 11, 2001,attacks.
Following recent media attention concerning the ban, the Pentagon releasedthe data Tuesday.
C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network,an advocacy group for gay and lesbian service personnel, said in a statementthat the data "shines a bright light" on the ban's inner workings.
"When military leaders need the talent, skills, and qualifications of gaypersonnel, dismissals decline," Osburn said. "Then, during peacetime, thedismissal rate climbs again. The Pentagon's own data shows that, duringtimes of war, when unit cohesion is most important, fewer gay troops aredismissed. In fact, lesbian and gay Americans are making importantcontributions to our national security. The ban on their service, and nottheir service itself, is what erodes cohesion most."
In 2005 the Pentagon dismissed 742 service members. The 2006 figure showsthe fewest number of people discharged since the law's enactment. (TheAdvocate)
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The Advocate
http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid42976.asp
March 15, 2007
George Soros pledges $3 million to fight TB
Billionaire George Soros pledged $3 million Wednesday to fight a deadlystrain of tuberculosis in Africa.
Since an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB wasidentified in South Africa last year, health experts have repeatedly issueddire warnings about the disease's spread across the continent, fueled by theAIDS pandemic. But aside from a series of worldwide meetings, littleconcrete action has been taken.
Soros's Open Society Institute announced a $3 million grant to the nonprofitorganization Partners in Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston,Mass. The donation will be used to design a model project of community-basedXDR-TB treatment in Lesotho. Once treatment guidelines are developed,experts hope the program might be adopted in other poor countries.
Partners in Health has previously implemented community-based programs fordrug-resistant TB in countries including Peru and Rwanda. ''It is possibleto treat highly resistant tuberculosis,'' said Dr. Paul Farmer, cofounder ofPartners in Health, who disputed characterizations of the disease as''virtually untreatable.'' Farmer emphasized the need for HIV and TBtreatment to be integrated.
''It's great that Soros has stepped forward, but what we really need ismassive investments from governments,'' said Mark Harrington, executivedirector of the Treatment Action Group, a United States-based healthadvocacy group. ''Governments have been embarrassed about the outbreak andterrified of not knowing what to do about it,'' he said, calling the XDR-TBproblem ''out of control.''
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-gay-parents.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
March 14, 2007
Gay Male Parents Get Dedicated Fertility Program
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:50 a.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles fertility clinic has launched what itsays is the first dedicated program for gay men wanting to become parents.
The Fertility Institutes, already a pioneer in the controversial area ofgender selection, said it was responding to huge demand from gay malecouples around the world who want their own biological children but areoften thwarted by prejudice and bureaucracy.
``There are a lot of centers that dibble and dabble in this. But we are theonly program for gay men that has psychological, legal, medical, surrogates,donors and patients all taken care of in one place,'' Dr Jeffrey Steinberg,director of The Fertility Institutes, told Reuters in an interview.
``The demand is incredible. The United States has always been busy but weare seeing more and more demand from abroad.''
The last few years have seen a large increase in the number of gay men whowant to father children using surrogate mothers rather than opting foradoption, which is difficult or impossible for homosexuals or lesbians inseveral U.S. states.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/opinion/15thu4.html?pagewanted=print
March 15, 2007
Editorial
General Pace and Gay Soldiers
There's a good reason that military officers avoid commenting on politics,society and public policy. The results are usually bad.
Consider the offensive comments that Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff, made this week about gay people. They carried a specialmeasure of hurt coming from the nation's highest military officer whenthousands of gay men and lesbians are serving their country in Iraq.
By refusing to apologize, General Pace compounded the injury and remindedthe entire country of what happened the last time the top brass took on thissubject. It was Gen. Colin Powell's public rebuke of a new president, BillClinton, for even entertaining the idea of allowing homosexuals to serveopenly that led to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
It is a bad system, which has ruined people's lives and hurt the military,but it still is the policy, established by General Pace's civilian bosses,and it allows gay people to serve as long as they don't say anything abouttheir orientation.
Which made it all the more offensive to read that General Pace told theeditorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he believes homosexuality is anintolerable immoral act equivalent to adultery.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?Do ask ... for an apology
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
IT'S INSULTING enough to the untold thousands of gays and lesbians inuniform that the U.S. military clings to its "don't ask, don't tell" policyof 1993. Now they must deal with the indignity of hearing the chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs of Staff express his view that "homosexual acts betweenindividuals are immoral."
Worse yet, Marine Gen. Peter Pace did not have the class to apologize or toretract his offensive statements Tuesday. Instead, he merely issued astatement of regret that his comments were not focused more on Department ofDefense policy and less on "my personal moral views."
In the interview with the Chicago Tribune, Pace attributed his opinion thatgay sex was immoral -- comparable to adultery -- was a result of hisupbringing. "My upbringing" is not an acceptable excuse for any form ofbigotry from a high-level public official in 2007. The adultery comparisonis just plain ludicrous in view of the laws against same-sex marriage.
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy, an anachronism when promoted as acompromise by President Clinton in 1993, is all the more outrageous at atime when we are asking soldiers who are serving their country so ably --risking their lives in combat -- to conceal their sexual orientation, as ifit were a matter of shame.
Pace should apologize.
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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/state/16900207.htm?emplate=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Posted on Wed, Mar. 14, 2007
FDA says gay blood ban stays in effect
By MATT KING
MediaNews
SANTA CRUZ - U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials say they have noplans to lift the prohibition against gay men donating blood, despitepressure from blood collection agencies and civil liberties groups, who saythe rules are outdated and discriminatory.
"Blood safety depends not only on donor testing, but on reducing the numberof contaminated donations that may take place," FDA spokeswoman HeidiRebello said. "This is why we continue to defer persons whose behaviorplaces them at high risk for infection."
FDA rules preclude any man who's had one sexual encounter with another mansince 1977 from donating blood. According to the FDA, such men are 60 timesmore likely to have HIV than the general population, 200 times more likelythan first-time donors, and 2,000 times more likely than repeat donors.
The issue flared up in Santa Cruz in December when Harbor High Schoolstudent body president Ronnie Childers helped organize a blood drive butwasn't allowed to donate because he is gay. Since then, Harbor students andfaculty have lobbied state and federal legislators to pressure the FDA tochange the rules.
Rebello said the FDA will change the rules only when it can be shown "thatblood safety would not decrease... and that errors of testing and inventorycontrol are prevented."
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Express Gay News
http://www.expressgaynews.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=11954
Crown Publishing backs Coulter after gay slur
Random House division plans October launch for new book
NEW YORK (AP) | Mar 14, 12:37 PM
While conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been dropped by several newspapersfor using an anti-gay slur regarding Democratic presidential candidate JohnEdwards, she remains in good standing with her book publisher.
The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., plans anOctober release for her next book, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd BeRepublicans."
"We have a book with her on our fall list and have no plans on altering ourcurrent publication plans," Crown publisher and senior vice president SteveRoss told the Associated Press in a recent e-mail.
According to Editor & Publisher, at least eight newspapers have droppedCoulter's syndicated column since her comments about Edwards.
On March 2, speaking to Republican activists attending the annualConservative Political Action Conference, Coulter said, "I was going to havea few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards,but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ... "
Coulter has declined to apologize.
=
Deseretnews.com
http://deseretnews.com/dn/print/1,1442,660202808,00.html
Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Gay activists to stage 'Jericho' walk at BYU
By Tad Walch
Deseret Morning News
PROVO - Last year, Soulforce's gay activists staged a die-in at BrighamYoung University that led to 29 arrests.
Next week, the group will return to BYU with a new plan for publicity - aplan based on a Bible story.
The college-age Soulforce Equality Riders style themselves after the FreedomRiders of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Their 2007 tour beganeventfully last week with eight arrests, six at Notre Dame University, andwith an apology from one college president.
The group's BYU game plan includes a six-hour walk around the perimeter ofthe campus on March 22, a public demonstration meant to recall the story inthe Old Testament Book of Joshua about the walls of Jericho.
In the story, God instructs Joshua to have the Israelites march around thecity of Jericho once a day for six days, then seven times on the seventhday. The walls, as the song goes, came "a tumblin' down" when the Israelitesshouted after they circled it the final time.
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BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6449321.stm
French gay marriage fight goes on
By Petru Clej
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2007/03/14 12:36:30 GMT
A mayor who conducted the first gay wedding in France has vowed to continuehis fight in spite of a court decision which ruled it illegal.
Noel Mamere, Mayor of Begles in south-west France, officiated at the"marriage" of two gay men in June 2004.
But it was declared illegal by France's highest court on Tuesday.
The two men, Stephane Chapin and Bertrand Charpentier, have said they willappeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Mr Mamere told BBC News he was not surprised by the decision of the Court deCassation, which confirmed earlier decisions by two lower courts.
"It is a part of a conservative conception of marriage", Noel Mamere said.
"I have no regrets. I subscribe to this cause and I will persist."
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Deutsche Welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2383308,00.html
Poland Considers Outlawing Homosexual Material in Schools
14.03.2007
Poland is debating a bill that would make all material dealing withhomosexuality, including educational information, illegal as way ofprotecting school children from "homosexual propaganda."
Roman Giertych, Poland's deputy prime minister and education minister, ispreparing legislation to sanction school principals who allow members of gayrights organizations to speak with pupils, a Polish education ministryspokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
Deputy Education Minister Miroslaw Orzechowski said the bill is intended toprotect Polish families and could come before parliament by the end ofMarch.
"The Polish constitution says that the state should protect families,because of that, we are obligated to take this step," he said at a pressconference. "There are children in schools who could be susceptible tohomosexual political agitation, and that puts homosexual propaganda indirect opposition to the elementary interests of our state."
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/politics/15gays.html?pagewanted=print
March 15, 2007
Clinton Seesaws on Question of Gay Morality
By PATRICK HEALY
WASHINGTON, March 14 - Asked if she believed homosexuality was immoral,Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, initially saidWednesday that it was for "others to conclude," but later issued a statementsaying she did not think being gay was immoral.
Her remarks came a day after Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefsof Staff, said he should not have publicly expressed his personal view thathomosexual acts were immoral and akin to adultery, a position that he saidwas a factor in his opposition to gay men and lesbians serving openly in themilitary. His views had appeared in The Chicago Tribune on Monday.
A rival of Mrs. Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination,Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was asked the same question three times onWednesday and sidestepped the issue, according to an article in Newsday.
But a spokesman for Mr. Obama said last night that the senator disagreedwith General Pace's remarks and believed that homosexuality was not immoral.
Mrs. Clinton supports allowing gay men and lesbians to serve in themilitary, which differs from the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy,adopted under President Bill Clinton in 1993.
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The Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/454/story/42081.html
Posted on Thu, Mar. 15, 2007
They bleed red, too
'
'It is not our place in the military, those of us in senior leadershippositions, to make moral or religious judgments with respect tohomosexuality.'' That's what Gen. Colin Powell told Congress in 1993 when,as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he unveiled the Don't Ask, Don'tTell policy on gays in the military.
He was right then, and he's still right today. Gen. Peter Pace, the currentchairman of the Joint Chiefs, forgot this wise counsel when he recentlycalled homosexual acts immoral.
The military has no official position on the morality of homosexuality,which makes Gen. Pace's remarks all the more puzzling. His opinion servesonly to denigrate the inestimable contribution made by thousands of gay menand women who have served honorably in Iraq and elsewhere and continue toput their lives on the line every day.
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http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2007/03/ann_coulter_and.html
March 14, 2007
ANN COULTER AND H.R.C.--A QUESTION OF CENSORSHIP
I wrote the following commentary for Gay City News, which will publish ittomorrow:
You'd have to be living under a rock in Fiji without electricity to not haveheard by now how the odious ultra-conservative pitbull Ann Coulter (left)called Sen. John Edwards (right) a "faggot" during her remarks last week atthe Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But what you may nothave heard is what an organization calling itself the Human Rights Campaign(HRC) did in response to Coulter's bigoted slur.
Not content with simply denouncing this latest evidence that Coulter isinfected with a particularly virulent form of intellectual rabies, HRCdecided to reach deep into the Christian right's grab-bag of intimidationtricks and organize a national letter-writing campaign demanding ofUniversal Press Syndicate that it simply stop distributing her column to the100-odd newspapers around the country that publish Coulter's syndicatedlacerations.
And now it's HRC that is taking incoming from gay writers and editors whostill hold to the increasingly quaint notion that freedom of speech applieseven to those whose speech we don't like -- that it is, in fact, a humanright.
The first Scud launched at HRC came from longtime gay columnist PaulVarnell, whose work appears in the Chicago Free Press and is syndicated to anumber of other gay papers around the country.
"Doesn't this smack of an attempt at censorship, even prior censorship?After all Coulter hasn't used 'faggot' in her column, so far as I know,"Varnell (left) wrote in an e-mail to HRC that he circulated to others of uswho write for gay media, adding, "This just seems like trying to silence aperson whose politics the HRC disagrees with. That's never a very goodgrounds for attempts at censorship."
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365gay.com
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon07/03/031507blackgaymen.htm
Crossing the Gay Color Lines
by James Hillis, AfterElton.com
Posted: March 15, 2007 - 1 am ET
(New York) Isaiah Washington, an African American actor, uses the word"faggot" during an altercation on the set of ABC's Grey's Anatomy. TimHardaway, a black former NBA star, hears that another former NBA player isgay and responds: "I hate gay people. . I am homophobic. It shouldn't be inthe world or in the United States."
White gay men see these incidents as examples of a homophobic AfricanAmerican culture. Straight African Americans see a cynical media exploitingcaricatures of the angry, ignorant black man. Neither appraisal reveals themore complex truths about why GLBT people and African Americans still eyeeach other suspiciously across the cultural divide.
Are the parallels that gays make between GLBT struggles and the civil-rightsmovement instructive or offensive? What is the deeper meaning behind theperceived homophobia in the African American community? And what aboutinclusiveness in the gay community? Do gays of all ethnicities live up tothe ideal of the "rainbow" people?
AfterElton.com recently spoke to five gay African American men - artists whoare fiercely active within their communities - to explore how white gaypeople and African Americans can better understand each other, andultimately come together to promote the equality of all people. That journeymay begin with uncovering some hard truths.
Controversies Spark Conversation
Out filmmaker Lee Daniels is the producer and director of last year'sShadowboxer, which starred recent Oscar-winner Helen Mirren and Cuba GoodingJr. He also produced Monster's Ball, which featured Halle Berry'sOscar-winning performance. During the Isaiah Washington controversy, some inthe gay press compared the word "faggot" with the N-word, and as a gayAfrican American, Daniels sees this as a fair analogy. "I think it's anabsolute comparison," he said. Washington "should have been fired on thespot."
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Forwarded from Kenneth Sherrill - Ken's List
Kenneth.Sherrill@hunter.cuny.edu
kenslist@groups.queernet.org
March 14, 2007
Contact: Scott Tucker
Log Cabin Republicans-Washington, DC Office
(202) 347-5306
Log Cabin Republicans Praise Bi-Partisan Introduction of Early Treatment forHIV Act
President Bush and Congress Should Support this Bill to Tackle EarlyTreatment of HIV/AIDS
(Washington, DC) - Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), joined by Senator HillaryClinton (D-NY), has re-introduced the Early Treatment for HIV Act (ETHA)."Log Cabin praises Senator Gordon Smith for re-introducing this criticalpiece of legislation," said Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon. "This billwill save lives, reduce the transmission rates of HIV, and save millions ofdollars."
This program will expand access to vital medical services for low-incomeHIV-positive individuals before they develop full-blown AIDS. Medicaidcurrently offers no help until a person has AIDS.
"HIV/AIDS touches the lives of millions of Americans from a variety ofbackgrounds," said Senator Smith. "Some get the proper medications theyneed to remain healthy, but far too many do not. The inability to accesslife-saving treatment literally creates a 'life and death' situation formany of our most vulnerable citizens. Fortunately, ETHA can give thoseindividuals access to the care they need so they can look forward to a longand healthier life."
"We call on President Bush and Congress to join in this bi-partisan effortand support ETHA," said Sammon.
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