2 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE November 18, 2011 • www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

Senate panel okays DOMA repeal, but its future is dim

by Anthony Glassman

Washington, D.C.-The Senate Judiciary Committee on November 8 approved the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill to repeal the "defense of marriage act" barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

The party-line vote sends the measure to the full Senate. But, even if it gets a vote there and passes, the odds are slim it would survive in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chief Senate sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act said that she is committed to presenting the bill until it passes, which she acknowledged will be a long fight. She said that she currently does not have the votes to get it out of the Senate.

""Virtually any advance in civil rights or any kind of rights has been carried by the Democratic Party. It's just a fact,” she said, according to Politico. “So, we'll just march on. We'll continue this."

"And if I have to reintroduce it next session, I'll reintroduce it. Session after that, I'll reintroduce it," she concluded.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, along with 14 other mayors from across the country, sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging repeal of DOMA, calling it "a stain on our common values," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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A second letter, signed by the governors of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and California, as well as the of Washington, D.C., was sent to the committee as well, noting that DOMA ignored legal marriages in their states, and it "disrespects our states' decisions to treat all of our citizens equally."

In addition to the legislative challenge to DOMA, which was passed in 1996, there are also court challenges pending. In a case in federal court in Massachusetts, the Obama

administration refused to defend DOMA, backed up by the Justice Department. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder opined that one of the provisions of the law violates the Constitution.

Rep. John Boehner of Cincinnati, the Speaker of the House, stepped in and is using House of Representative's powers to defend DOMA in the case, at an increasing expense to taxpayers. Because of this, 133 Democrats in the House of Representatives, including 14 who originally voted for DOMA, filed an amicus brief with the court, arguing that the section defining marriage as between one man and one woman "lacks a rational relationship to any legitimate federal purpose and accordingly is unconstitutional."

"Many members believe that Section 3 of DOMA violates the Constitution and should be struck down," the brief continues.

Section 3 prohibits federal recognition of a same-sex marriage for any purpose, such as immigration, Social Security, or veterans' benefits.

"Congress passed DOMA without examining its impact on any of the thousand-plus federal laws that take marital status into account or hearing from child welfare or family law experts," it notes. "Nor did Congress pause to examine why the federal government traditionally has respected state marriages for purposes of federal law despite the non-trivial differences in state marriage laws over this nation's history before rupturing this longstanding federalist practice."

The case in which they filed the brief will consolidate two other cases before the First Circuit Court of Appeals, following a federal court decision that Section 3 is unconstitutional.

'We really do now have the means to end the epidemic'

by Bill Hardy

In early-November, in a gathering I attended in Chicago, a researcher made a statement that I was not sure I'd ever hear: "We really do now have the means to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic."

The declaration was made at the U.S. Conference on AIDS, and the point was that, short of a cure, with early diagnosis and aggressive treatment, we have at least arrived at a stalemate with HIV. This is a profound milestone, three decades after the first diagnoses among gay men in the U.S.

In addition to news about breakthroughs in prevention technology, updates confirmed that one-pill-a-day treatment is increasingly common, and that with good treatment, a person with HIV could expect to live as long as an HIV-negative person. We all realized that a revolution had taken place, a revolution that came about because

of the hard work of an army of scientists and activists and people with AIDS. Good cause to celebrate, indeed.

There is also growing awareness among the directors of America's leading AIDS service organizations that moving from science to implementation to achieve the "new possible" in HIV and AIDS care will require continuing structural changes to facilitate better access to health care, sustainable treatment, support services for those struggling with mental illness and addiction, counseling support for medication adherence and safer sex, and more. We also believe that providing that care and those services must continue to be linked to ensuring the rights and dignity not only of people with HIV, but of stilltoo-often marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by AIDS, such as gay and bisexual men, or injection drug users.

In other words, we all recognized that

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much has changed, which is good; but much remains the same.

The work ahead will be carried out in a starkly different landscape than the recent past. Simply put, AIDS service organizations will have to restructure and re-tool to address the evolving epidemic, at a time when resources are thin, and unlikely to improve anytime soon. This fact was evident in the number of ASOS facing significant funding challenges, and contemplating mergers, alliances, and even closures because of those challenges. No one at the conference disagreed with this stark forecast: failure to adapt especially linking services to medical care-means that individual organizations are at high risk of going out of business and thus losing or disrupting services to local people with HIV or AIDS.

Here in Ohio, there have been numerous examples of strategic alliances and mergers. Over the past few months, AIDS Resource Center Ohio, the Columbus AIDS Task Force and the Ohio AIDS Coalition recently completed mergers. With nine offices, we provide testing, prevention, linkage to medical care, and other direct services to two-thirds of Ohio; and patient advocacy and education for the entire state. These moves have

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been thoughtful and intentional, designed to enhance our capacity to serve and survive in troubled times.

Much has changed, but not everything— and there is much more work yet to do. Remarkably, frustratingly, in the U.S. the majority of new infections occur among gay and bisexual men. This reality cannot be separated from stigma and the lack of human and civil rights for LGBT people— rights which, study after study has concluded, are absolutely essential if we're going to win the fight against HIV.

As a gay man who has spent most of my adult life living under the shadow of HIV, and who has lost too many loved ones to AIDS, this last point is particularly important to me. No one should forget that we live in a state that does little to affirm the rights and identities of LGBT people—a state where it is still legal, in many cases, to openly discriminate against LGBT people in employment, housing, and other areas of life. The inequality and disparity faced by gay and bisexual men extends to HIV as well.

This past summer, ARC Ohio and other AIDS organizations around the state issued a policy brief documenting an unacceptable reality: While two-thirds of Ohio's HIV-cases are among men who have sex with men, only one-third of Ohio's HIV prevention resources go to efforts intended to reach gay and bisexual men, those most at risk for HIV.

The pain of losing so many in the LGBT community y over the years is only amplified by the pain of realizing that, despite those losses, inequality and disparities still exist. There is much work yet to do, and all of Ohio's major AIDS organizations, joined by Equality Ohio, have protested, with one voice, that the continuing disparity is intolerable.

But perhaps the most important work to do now is to dream again, with renewed vision; to re-energize our efforts, especially among the LGBT community, knowing that the means to end this epidemic are at hand. Fatigue and complacency must give way to new resolve and vigor: A world without AIDS seems possible, within our grasp. The tools are at our disposal; we can give people with HIV or AIDS their lives back, make new infections a rare thing, and embrace human and civil rights for all.

We are all leading the fight.

Bill Hardy is the president and chief executive officer of the AIDS Resource Center Ohio.

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