Hey, Newlyweds, Don’t Forget About AIDS!
The great marriage debate dominated the gay forum. And, beyond that forum, nuptial-centric politics top the list of most talked about gay “issues”.
While it’s all well and good to fight for equal rights, National Black Justice Coalition’s H. Alexander Robinson reminds readers that we still have some pretty big fish to fry:
A naive viewer would have been left with the impression that marriage equality was the defining issue for LGBT America. While marriage is clearly a major civil rights priority for our community and I dare say the nation, it is hardly the only issue and should not in my view define our movement.
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Have we given up on the idea of ending AIDS?Despite the community’s best efforts, the HIV pandemic continues unabated both here at home in the United States and internationally. In 2006, more than 39 million people were living with HIV worldwide. Over four million people became newly infected with HIV and an estimated 2.8 million lost their lives to AIDS.
A real legacy, he says, would involve less wedding bells and more beakers.
Unfortunatley, (white) gay men have abandoned AIDS somewhat as the disease has spread into the larger community. It seems incredibly selfish to me, since we were the ones screaming about everyone else ignoring it when it was pretty much “our” disease. But having said that, I think the Robinson overstates the case. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not invited to an AIDS fundraiser or some other activity.d
If more gay people were encouraged to get married, there might be less promiscuity and less sexual transmitted infections of all types.
Promiscuity was never the cause of sexually transmitted infections. Irresponsible sexual behaviour – both within marriage and without – is what spread them around.
If people refuse to wear protection, if people refuse to take precautionary measures (such as regular testing), and if people refuse to keep up with basic levels of personal hygiene – in both the (presumably promiscuous) gay world, and the (presumably monogamous) straight world – then you’ll see no end to infections and diseases.
Marriage was never a solution to anything.
It’s merely a (fundamentally unnecessary) luxury.
I’m glad the reverend spoke out. I’m not sure how gay marriage became THE issue that we’re [or rather, the self-appointed gay leadership] pressing the politicians on. It’s important to know where the candidate stand, sure. But it is also very, very low on the list of issues that affect me personally.
If, for the sake of argument, John Edwards adamantly opposed marriage but also provided a viable plan to bring modern health care to all then I could argue that he’d be a better pro-gay candidate than any of the rest.
Saying marriage would cut down on promiscuity is like saying outlawing liquor will cut down on drunkenness. I think they tried that. It was something called Prohibition. It didn’t work.