They can try to dress this up as a humanitarian issue all they want, but
quite frankly, I don't see how opening the door to more HIV-infected gay men
entering the country is going to help the moral or spiritual status of the
USA one single bit.

The bottom line, in my view, is that like his liberal, Democratic pro-gay
predecessors befor him -- Bill Clinton and Al Gore -- President Obama is
just pandering to the gay and lesbian minority.

If this were some other disease, I might feel differently; but this is a
serious, lethal disease which has been specifically linked to intravenous
drug users and gay men for decades now.

If the Obama administration wants to be so liberal, why don't they just roll
out the red carpet for hookers, drug pushers, gangsters and other societal
riffraff? While I am purposely being facetious here, I am sure that you get
my point. In short the USA has enough spiritual and moral problems already,
without aggravating the problem further by opening the door wider to sin.


Obama Lifts a Ban on Entry Into U.S. by H.I.V.-Positive People

By JULIA PRESTON - NYT

October 30, 2009


President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to
the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that
causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to
eliminate a restriction he said was "rooted in fear rather than fact."

At a White House ceremony, Mr. Obama announced that a rule canceling the ban
would be published on Monday and would take effect after a routine 60-day
waiting period. The president had promised to end the ban before the end of
the year.

"If we want to be a global leader in combating H.I.V./AIDS, we need to act
like it," Mr. Obama said. "Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this
disease, yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat."

The United States is one of only about a dozen countries that bar people who
have H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

President George W. Bush started the process last year when he signed
legislation, passed by Congress in July 2008, that repealed the statute on
which the ban was based. But the ban remained in effect.

It was enacted in 1987 at a time of widespread fear that H.I.V. could be
transmitted by physical or respiratory contact. The ban was further
strengthened by Congress in 1993 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse
Helms, Republican of North Carolina.

Because of the restriction, no major international conference on the AIDS
epidemic has been held in the United States since 1990. Public health
officials here have long said there was no scientific or medical basis for
the ban.

Under the ban, United States health authorities have been required to list
H.I.V. infection as a "communicable disease of public health significance."
Under immigration law, most foreigners with such a disease cannot travel to
the United States. The ban covered both visiting tourists and foreigners
seeking to live in this country.

Once the ban is lifted, foreigners applying to become residents in the
United States will no longer be required to take a test for AIDS.

In practice, the ban particularly affected tourists and gay men. Waivers
were available, but the procedure for tourists and other short-term visitors
who were H.I.V. positive was so complicated that many concluded it was not
worth it.

For foreigners hoping to immigrate, waivers were available for people who
were in a heterosexual marriage, but not for gay couples. Gay advocates said
the ban had led to painful separations in families with H.I.V.-positive
members that came to live in this country, and had discouraged adoptions of
children with the virus.

Gay advocates said the ban also discouraged travelers and some foreigners
already living in the United States from seeking testing and medical care
for H.I.V. infection.

"The connection between immigration and H.I.V. has frightened people away
from testing and treatment," said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of
Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for gay people in immigration
matters. She said lifting the ban would bring "a significant public health
improvement."

"Stigma and exclusion are not a sound basis for immigration policy," Ms.
Tiven said.

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who led the effort to repeal
the ban, said it had now "gone the way of the dinosaur."

But, Mr. Kerry added, "it sure took too long to get here."

International health officials said lifting the ban would end a
much-criticized inconsistency in United States health policy, with
Washington playing a leading role in AIDS prevention in Africa and other
countries with severe epidemics, but preserving restrictions that in
practice prevented international AIDS researchers and activists from
gathering at conferences here.

In 1989, a Dutch AIDS educator, Hans Verhoef, was detained for several days
in St. Paul when he tried to attend a conference. Since then, people
involved with AIDS issues have not organized meetings here.

"We think this is going to give a very positive image of where the United
States is going in terms of eliminating stigma and discrimination in
relation to H.I.V.," Dr. Socorro Gross, assistant director of the Pan
American Health Organization, said Friday.



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