Someone commented on my post from last week asking if a rumor that "AIDS testing [might] become a legal mandate for health insurance" was valid. Just as I was researching this question (my answer to which is posted as a comment in my last blog), the
Human Rights Campaign sent out an email about a proposed piece of crap legislation that would bar "nearly every foreign person with HIV from entering the United States."
America's fear of HIV/AIDS has gone on too long. It began in 1981 when the newly-discovered disease was so misunderstood it was called gay-related immune deficiency (GRID). But even though we've changed the name, and even though contracting HIV is no longer a death sentence, and even though researchers know much more about the disease, the AIDSphobia epidemic is still rampant. It continues with the
bill the Human Rights Campaign emailed me about. It continues with the FDA preventing men who have sex with men, sex workers, and drug-users from donating blood. It continues with a court
giving Willie Campbell, an HIV+ man, 35 years for assault because he spat on a Dallas police officer.
And, like all phobia epidemics, it stops with a cure: education
