The LGBT Humanist Council, a project of the American Humanist Association, is a forum for LGBT humanists from across the country to exchange ideas on local organizing, find support in coming out as LGBT (and a humanist), and to speak out with once voice on issues of concern to the LGBT-humanist community!
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Support World AIDS Day Dear supporter, On Wednesday, December 1, World AIDS Day, we remember the tens of millions of lives lost to the 30-year tragedy that is the AIDS epidemic. Since 1988, World AIDS Day has been a commemoration of those lost to this epidemic, those living with HIV/AIDS, and those supporting them. Today, we stand with the many Americans and those abroad who are living with HIV and those who work tirelessly to comfort them. Last year, the American government lifted its ban on funding of needle exchanges. This year, President Obama crafted America’s first-ever National HIV/AIDSStrategy. Last month, the Vatican changed their prevention stance, stating that condoms should be allowed for HIV prevention. Last Tuesday, The New England Journal of Medicine announced that a prophylaxis of an anti-retroviral drug (Truvada) was shown to be 73 percent effective in HIV prevention. Though there have been these and many more recent reinforcements of hope in our struggle, we must remember and fight towards the ultimate goals -- 100% prevention, the most effective treatment and a cure. We must continue to fight for HIV-positive Americans without access to quality healthcare or lifesaving medication. The patchwork American system of HIV treatment has multiple inadequacies. The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which provides free or low cost anti-HIV medication to all Americans, is in a near billion dollar fiscal crisis with over 4,000 people in 9 states on waiting lists for their live-saving medication. It is our advocacy, support, unity and attention that will help address this challenge. We must fight for HIV-negative Americans whose lack of access to HIV prevention and education may make contracting HIV inevitable. With parts of America having virtually no on-the-ground prevention efforts for high-risk groups, more resources are needed for HIV prevention. And every year more Americans contract HIV, with well over 60,000 transmissions this year. We must engage, empathize with and inspire those whose sense of reason is overshadowed by lore and superstition. Medically sound safer sex education must replace emotionally wrapped abstinence-only education. And we must always promote those treatments that are empirically proven effective, and work to dissipate treatment and prevention myths. We must think and act globally towards universal access to life-saving medication and the extension of all benefits of HIV prevention and treatment to everyone in the world. To end the scourge of HIV, our greatest tools are Prevention, Treatment, Education Action and Compassion. TAKE ACTION:
…Alone or with your Humanist or Atheist Group… · Promote HIV testing and get tested yourself. Knowledge is power. · Participate in a local HIV/AIDS charity such as anAIDS Walk. The money raised by these efforts saves lives. · Encourage your local government to sponsor condom distribution and clean needles programs. The federal funding ban has been lifted, so your locality can apply for federal money for these efforts. · Challenge local abstinence-only education and rhetoric. These programs do not work, are dangerous and are grounded in religiously biased ignorance. · Volunteer to help HIV community service organizations. Over one million Americans are living with HIV and your volunteer hours make a world of difference. · Get involved in state and federal HIV Prevention and Treatment Advocacy. Find out more information about the domestic AIDS Drug Assistance Program crisis and what you can do help. Let this World AIDS Day serve as a call to action to fight towards a day where no one is forced to live with HIV -- aday where the AIDS epidemic serves only as a reminder of the destruction of ignorance and inaction. Let today offer us humility in our common humanity, gratitude for each other and a deep hope that one day soon, AIDS will be only a distant memory. Sincerely,
Roy Speckhardt
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Latest Update: December 1, 2010