Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings. The justices' 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion. The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march. The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law...

Asked during the question-and-answer period following his National Press Club speech on Monday [April 28, 2008] why he charged the U.S. Government with manufacturing the AIDS virus to kill black people, Barack Obama’s “former” pastor Jeremiah Wright cited a 1996 book by Leonard Horowitz, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola. This rang a bell. I had exchanged correspondences with Horowitz several years ago because I caught him promoting an old Soviet disinformation theme that has been disavowed by former Soviet and KGB officials.

Any hunter will tell you that when your quarry goes into hiding, you have to flush it out to get a good shot at it. Such is the case with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Though antiretroviral "cocktails" can target an active infection, they cannot get at the virus when it retreats inside the host's T cells, where it may lie dormant for decades, waiting for an opportunity to burst forth in a fresh round of infection. What HIV hunters need is a good bird dog. Now, Stanford chemist Paul Wender and his coworkers have found a way to...

Saddam Hussein confided to his diary that he was afraid of his American captors - because he thought he might catch HIV from them. The Iraqi tyrant, who was hanged in 2006, kept a diary following his capture by US troops three years earlier. In extracts published by the London-based Arab daily Al Hayat, he reveals that he feared catching a sexually transmitted disease from his guards. Saddam said he was concerned to find out that US military guards were using his laundry line to dry their own clothes. He wrote to them to ask them to stop but some...

The fact that Jeremiah Wright has not been rejected and condemned by his fellow African-American preachers is disturbing. The fact that they feel he represents a larger theology is repulsive. It should give all Americans apprehensions about black "liberation theology." I say this because Jeremiah Wright has become the nation-wide spokesman for this so called "theology." The fact that liberal Americans are defending Wright (to defend Obama) is equally disgusting. Wright has made too many radical claims. He has praised Jew-haters and allowed Hamas editorials to appear on the Pastor's Page of his Church newsletters. This man hates America, he...

Tuesday, November 27th, College of Charleston in Charleston, SC hosted Representative Ron Paul on campus for our Bully Pulpit series. “The Bully Pulpit: Reflections on Presidential Communication� is a series hosted by the College of Charleston and its Department of Communication that welcomes presidential candidates from the two major political parties to the College of Charleston campus to discuss the importance of presidential communication. The video of Dr. Paul can be found at cofc.edu/bullypulpit . After the event, I met with Dr. Paul to discuss the issues of extreme poverty around the world. I told him about the ONE Campaign...

The handsome young waiter's eyes followed Sarah as she walked across the restaurant, and she felt her heart beating faster as he leaned over to place a napkin in her lap. "At 54, I was unused to the attention of young men, especially a handsome one in his 20s," she says. "Our eyes connected as I told myself not to be silly - he couldn't possibly be interested in me. But I was wrong." Sarah Jarvis is 59 and has four grown-up children and four grandchildren. Attractive, slim and smartly dressed, she has been divorced from her lawyer husband for...

A SERIES of sickening videos have been posted on the internet showing a man who claims to have deliberately "infected" thousands of women with AIDS. Calling himself 'Trashman' and speaking with an American accent, the masked man says he has infected between 1200 and 1500 unknowing victims with the devastating disease. He can be seen reading the names and ages of some of the women he claims to have had unprotected sex with in the video clips on website YouTube. The videos - one of which has been viewed 195,000 times - also feature a web address to a "gangsta"...

LONDON, April 9, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), an  organisation in the UK founded ostensibly to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, has set up a website giving graphic information and instruction to homosexual men interested in "extreme" sexual practices. The site, called "Hard Cell", includes photos of male models involved in the various practices described, including "barebacking" - anal sex without condoms; "body mods" like branding, cutting and scarification; bondage and "breath control" or controlled strangulation. The Terrence Higgins Trust is a registered British charity founded to provide information to stem...

The senior al Qaida operative who helped direct the 2005 London subway bombings and a plot to blow up commercial airliners over the Atlantic Ocean has died in Pakistan’s tribal region, U.S. counter terrorism officials said Tuesday.

There’s a remarkable article in the current Time magazine by Bob Geldof, musician and activist, regarding a recent trip he made to Africa with President George W. Bush. Geldof, a liberal, disagrees with Bush on many things, especially Iraq. Geldof is also fair. He has observed what Bush has done in Africa, particularly on AIDS, and is enormously grateful for the president’s truly unprecedented actions. To cite just one example: in 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs; today, thanks to American relief, 1.3 million receive free medicine. In an illuminating article, there are, however, two items Geldof...

President Bush is going partway toward atoning for his sins in the Middle East by rebuilding Africa. His leadership in fighting disease and poverty on the continent culminated Wednesday with a breathtaking gesture from the House of Representatives, which took the president's generous proposal to spend $30 billion over five years fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world and upped it by $20 billion. The $50-billion reauthorization for the president's anti-disease program, which is also expected to pass in the Senate, marks a dramatic shift in the United States' attitude toward foreign aid. This country has supported big international...

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) Washington DC, Apr 3, 2008 / 01:40 am (CNA).- Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, reported “compelling” evidence of the success of HIV/AIDS prevention programs that emphasize abstinence and fidelity before resorting to promoting condom use.  According to Smith, 70% of the estimated 33 million people with HIV and 90% of the two million children afflicted with the disease live in sub-Saharan Africa.  Speaking on Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in support of a 2008 bill that would renew the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the congressman...

Tens of thousands of children have been orphaned by the HIV pandemic The US is set to spend $50bn to battle HIV/Aids in the next five years. The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to more than triple government spending in Africa and other badly-affected parts of the world. The bipartisan measure, which is backed by the White House, was passed by 308 votes to 116. The bill marks a huge increase from the $15bn authorised during the first five years of an initiative launched by President Bush in 2003. "There is a moral imperative to combat...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill to more than triple spending to fight AIDS in Africa and other parts of the world, one of President George W. Bush's foremost foreign aid quests. The measure, a bipartisan compromise backed by the White House and passed by a vote of 308 to 116, calls for $50 billion in funding for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs over the next five years. It marks a big hike from the $15 billion authorized over the first five years of the initiative. Bush had initially proposed doubling the program to...

The 308-116 roll call Wednesday by which the House passed a global AIDS bill authorizing $50 billion in spending over five years. A "yes" vote is a vote to pass the bill. Voting yes were 230 Democrats and 78 Republicans. Voting no were 0 Democrats and 116 Republicans. X denotes those not voting. There are 4 vacancies in the 435-member House. ALABAMA Democrats — Cramer, Y; Davis, Y. Republicans — Aderholt, Y; Bachus, Y; Bonner, Y; Everett, N; Rogers, Y. ALASKA Republicans — Young, Y. ARIZONA Democrats — Giffords, Y; Grijalva, Y; Mitchell, Y; Pastor, Y. Republicans — Flake, N;...

President Bush showed the world that it isn't words, but actions, that truly make a difference. Millions throughout Africa would agree. Mr. Bush recently completed a historic visit to the African continent; a trip he described as "the most exciting, exhilarating, uplifting trip" of his presidency. During his visit, we saw pictures of the president dancing, celebrating and attending ceremonies with heads of state. But the real story is not about just this one trip; it is about the commitment the president made to Africa and what the United States has been quietly accomplishing throughout the continent over the past...

WASHINGTON — Researchers must go back to the drawing board before they can develop an effective vaccine against H.I.V., AIDS experts said at a scientific meeting on Tuesday. And Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top federal official responsible for AIDS research, agreed that more fundamental knowledge is needed about H.I.V. and the way the body and experimental vaccines respond to it before the goal of a licensed H.I.V. vaccine can be reached. Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pledged to re-evaluate the use of all $1.5 billion his agency spends on AIDS research...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically. By elevating the question of race in America, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate has deepened the dilemma created by his campaign's success against the party establishment's anointed choice, Hillary Clinton. In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African-American candidate -- not just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a racial dilemma for...

In one of his sermons, Obama's Reverend Wright accused the US Government of creating the aids virus to destroy the black population. That's an accusation of genocide on par with Hitler's crimes. Since the first cases of aid appeared in 1978, Rev Wright's accusation points to the Carter administration.

The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine is in crisis after two field tests of the most promising contender not only did not protect people from the virus but may actually have put them at increased risk of becoming infected, The Washington Post reported. Experts are questioning the overall strategy and scientific premises of the nearly $500 million in AIDS vaccine research funded annually by the government after the two field tests were halted last September and seven other trials of AIDS vaccines have either been stopped or put off indefinitely. The recently closed studies, STEP and Phambili, were halted...

The Wall Street Journal has published yet another damning sermon from Barack Obama's retiring minister of two decades, Jeremiah Wright. The displaced anger, bigotry, and hatred displayed is chilling: "We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body." Mr. Wright thundered...

Currently, blood bank rules do not allow men who have had anal sex to donate blood because of the danger of transmitting AIDS. Sonoma State University (Calif.) professor Rick Luttmann disagrees, calling the risk of disease transmission “a small price to pay for an egalitarian society.” “A person receiving a blood transfusion from a gay man might get AIDS,” Luttmann admitted. “However, weighed against the certainty of diminished feelings of self-worth in the gay person denied the right to donate his blood, I think it is clear that all right-thinking people would agree that this discrimination is the greater evil.”

Responses to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic are often driven not by evidence but by ideology, stereotypes, and false assumptions. Referring to the hyperepidemics of Africa, an article in The Lancet this fall named “ten myths” that impede prevention efforts—including “Poverty and discrimination are the problem,” “Condoms are the answer,” and “Sexual behavior will not change.” Yet such myths are held as self-evident truths by many in the AIDS establishment. And they result in efforts that are at best ineffective and at worst harmful, while the AIDS epidemic continues to spread and exact a devastating toll in human lives. Consider this...

Elizabeth Alderman, adolescent specialist at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, was astounded by a federal report this week showing that two out of five teenage girls who have had sex have experienced at least one sexually transmitted infection. Lorena Granados, a junior at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County, was not the least bit surprised. "A lot of girls fall in love, and it doesn't seem they care about protection," she said yesterday. "It's 'What am I going to enjoy right now?' Or they'll say, 'I know he hasn't been with anybody. . ....

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group. The study by CDC researcher Dr. Sara Forhan is an analysis of nationally representative data on 838 girls who participated in a 2003-04 government health survey. Teens were tested for four infections: human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer and affected 18 percent of girls studied; chlamydia, which affected 4 percent; trichomoniasis, 2.5 percent; and herpes simplex virus, 2 percent.

A cellular protein that helps guide immune cells to the gut has been newly identified as a target of HIV when the virus begins its assault on the body's immune system, according to researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “The identification of this new receptor opens up new avenues of investigation that may help further elucidate the complex mechanisms of the pathogenesis of HIV infection,” says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., chief of the Institute’s Laboratory of Immunoregulation (LIR) and senior author of the new study....

On July 27, 2007, 28 executives of the Thousand Oaks, Calif., pharmaceutical firm Amgen contributed more than $20,000 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) campaign. On Aug. 2, Pelosi (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Early Treatment for HIV Act, a bill that could boost Medicaid coverage of HIV-related drugs, including Procrit, which is manufactured by Amgen and marketed by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, a firm in which Pelosi's husband owns at least $250,000 in stock, according to Pelosi's disclosure forms. Specifically, the legislation would give states the option to allow patients who are HIV-positive, but do not have AIDS, to...

Homosexuality not only leads to the deadly HIV/AIDS virus, it also leads to premature aging, according to the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 5. “I have a population that, having survived this terrible illness, is now getting illnesses of old age 10 or 20 years sooner than normal,” Dr. Ardis Moe, a physician at UCLA’s Center for Clinical AIDS research and Education, said. Meanwhile, on Feb. 8, Matt Forman, outgoing director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, noted, “We cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease.” According to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention,...

(AP) A House committee on Wednesday voted to more than triple spending for a global AIDS program that has proven to be one of the Bush administration's most successful and popular foreign policy initiatives. The Foreign Affairs Committee's voice vote on the plan to approve spending of an average $10 billion annually over the next five years came hours after lawmakers and the White House reached a compromise on some of the policy issues, including spending on abstinence programs, that had held up action on the legislation. The bill extends the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which authorized spending...

Drug-resistant tuberculosis is spreading even faster than medical experts had feared, the World Health Organization warned in report issued Tuesday. The rate of TB patients infected with the drug-resistant strain topped 20 percent in some countries, the highest ever recorded, the U.N. agency said. Globally, there are about 500,000 new cases of drug-resistant TB every year, about 5 percent of the 9 million new TB cases. In the United States, 1.2 percent of TB cases were multi-drug resistant. Of those, 1.9 percent were extensively drug-resistant. There's a huge, gross discrepancy there if they are then reporting 25 percent of the...

"Papa loved Mama, so they got married and had babies." Thus does my earnest four-year-old summarize the mysteries of marital love. For scientific purposes that statement is terribly incomplete. For philosophical purposes, it hits the bull's eye. With those words Phil Lawler began a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March of 1996. His child's perspective stands in instructive contrast to an article in today's New York Times titled, "Talking With Children About Sex and AIDS: At What Age to Start?" The answer suggested in the lede is "How about, oh, 4?" The reporter tells us this is the subject...

A study published Monday found that teens who regularly get into fights with their parents have significantly different brain structures than their more laid-back peers. - Snip - It's also possible that these biological changes are in response to the home environment, Allen said of the study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Other studies have found that extreme neglect and sexual and physical abuse can impact brain development. A stressful home environment has also been linked to the early onset of puberty in girls, he said. "What we don't know anything about is, is there...

Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have found that therapy can be used to stimulate the production of vital immune cells, called “T- cells,” in adults with HIV infection. HIV disease destroys T-cells, leading to collapse of the immune system and severe infection. The thymus gland, which produces T-cells, gradually loses function over time (a process called “involution”) and becomes mostly inactive during adulthood. Because the thymus gland does not function well in adults, it is difficult for HIV-infected adults to make new T-cells. Thus, therapies that stimulate...

(CNSNews.com) - In a startling admission, the head of a major homosexual activist group said HIV/AIDS is a "gay disease." The comments were made last Friday at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's (NGLTF) national conference in Detroit by Executive Director Matt Foreman. "Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi (sexual), we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease," Foreman told his audience. "We have to own that and face up to that." Conservative organizations that work on the HIV/AIDS issue say they are shocked. "Foreman's comments are...

Even the best drugs currently available cannot weed out HIV from all of its hiding places within the body, according to a new study of HIV patients in the United States. The discovery seems to confirm doctors' suspicions that once the virus gains a foothold, it can never be fully eradicated from the body. After years of aggressive drug treatment, the virus still hides out in significant reservoirs, particularly in tissues surrounding the gut lining, the researchers report. Cells in these tissues, a part of the immune system called 'gut-associated lymphoid tissue', remain infected with the virus even though the...

p>WASHINGTON, February 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a public statement last Friday, Matt Foreman, outgoing Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, rattled the homosexual activist community by joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pro-family organizations and a growing number of homosexual activists willing to admit that homosexual behavior is both extremely high-risk and primarily responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. Addressing the topic of AIDS, Foreman drastically deviated from the "gay" lobby's party line by admitting, "Internally, when these numbers come out, the 'established' gay community seems to have a...

The AIDS virus can be passed from an infected mother to her baby if she pre-chews the child's food as sometimes occurs in developing countries, U.S. government scientists said on Wednesday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had identified three cases -- two in Miami and one in Memphis, Tennessee -- in which a child was infected in this way between 1993 and 2004. The mother was involved in two of the cases and a relative who acted as a caregiver was involved in the third. In developing countries, some mothers pre-chew food for babies. These...

BOSTON--Two prominent researchers have bluntly assessed the depressing state of AIDS vaccine research and have urged the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to correct its course. In back-to-back plenary talks at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections today, Ronald Desrosiers, director of the New England Primate Research Center in nearby Southborough, said he thought that NIH--the world's largest funder of AIDS vaccine research--had "lost its way," spending too much money on developing and testing products and not enough on basic research. Virologist Neal Nathanson, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania who formerly headed NIH's Office...

Israel Sex Festival Sextival Penetrates Tel Aviv By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----- February 5, 2008 ....... The first ever sex festival in Israel got off to a hot start this evening. Hanger 11 in the northern Tel Aviv port can now boast the proud record for having the most vibrating plastic dildos in one place in the Middle East. For many the soft, skin like rocket shaped devices, oils, candles and live erotic shows spelled relief for the enlightened citizens of this tiny Jewish nation. A free and tolerant democracy which lives under the constant and lethal...

A once-promising experiment to see if treating genital herpes with a common drug could dramatically reduce susceptibility to HIV infection has found no protection whatsoever -- a shocking setback for researchers hoping to find a pill that would slow the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Results of the long-awaited study, which included gay men in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Peru, as well as women in Africa, were released here Monday at the 15th annual Retrovirus conference, the premiere annual scientific meeting of AIDS researchers.

Swiss change safe sex message on HIV By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press WriterThu Jan 31, 8:10 PM ET Swiss AIDS experts said Thursday that some people with HIV who meet strict conditions and are under treatment can safely have unprotected sex with non-infected partners.The proposal astonished AIDS researchers in Europe and North America who have long argued that safe sex with a condom is the single most effective way of preventing the spread of the disease — apart from abstinence."Not only is (the Swiss proposal) dangerous, it's misleading and it is not considering the implications of the biological facts involved...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A five-year, $15 billion effort to combat AIDS in Africa and other areas - arguably the most important and popular international program of the Bush presidency - may become a political battleground as it comes up for renewal. President Bush wants to double and House Democrats want to triple spending on a program that is now treating 1.4 million people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where he will visit in two weeks. Democrats also want to slash spending on a multimillion-dollar component that emphasizes sexual abstinence. And that has conservative groups furious.

Just a quote from the story .... The ring forged death certificates to hide donor diseases such as AIDS, cancer and hepatitis C, an investigative grand jury in Philadelphia said in a lengthy indictment in October. They also lowered the donors' ages and dates of death to make the specimens more desirable, the indictment said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About one-half of one percent of young adults living in homes in the United States are infected with the AIDS virus, around 600,000 people, the National Center for Health Statistics reported on Tuesday. The agency's snapshot of HIV infection in the United States shows the rate continues to be stable and confirms other surveys that show black men are far more likely than other Americans to be infected. The report covers adults aged 18 to 49 and only people living in households -- not prisoners, the homeless or patients in institutions, said Gerry McQuillan, who led the...

FOR A FEW FLEETING moments Monday night--what should have been vivid and affecting moments--television coverage of President Bush's final State of the Union address fastened on the image of a mother and daughter from Moshi, Tanzania. They sat, their faces alive with hope, in the first lady's box seats. Viewers were not told, and no one seemed inclined to tell them, that Tatu Msangi and her daughter Faith quite literally owe their lives to the Bush administration. After Msangi became pregnant, she went to a clinic at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center and learned she was HIV-positive. Five years ago...

At a campaign stop attended by a CBS reporter in Lady's Island, S.C., Thompson was asked if he, "as a Christian, as a conservative," supported President Bush's global AIDS initiative. "Christ didn't tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it," Thompson responded. "The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other."

AP Medical Writer In the two decades since AIDS began sweeping the globe, it has often been labeled as the biggest threat to international health. But with revised numbers downsizing the pandemic - along with an admission that AIDS peaked in the late 1990s - some AIDS experts are now wondering if it might be wise to shift some of the billions of dollars of AIDS money to basic health problems like clean water, family planning or diarrhea. "If we look at the data objectively, we are spending too much on AIDS," said Dr. Malcolm Potts, an AIDS expert at...

Those explanations do not satisfy Larry Kramer, founder of several AIDS advocacy groups. Mr. Kramer, 73 and a long-term survivor, said he had always suspected “it was only a matter of time before stuff like this happened” given the potency of the antiretroviral drugs. “How long will the human body be able to tolerate that constant bombardment?” he asked. “Well, we are now seeing that many bodies can’t. Once again, just as we thought we were out of the woods, sort of, we have good reason again to be really scared.”

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A drug-resistant strain of potentially deadly bacteria has moved beyond the borders of U.S. hospitals and is being transmitted among gay men during sex, researchers said on Monday. They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. Sexually active gay men in San Francisco are 13 times more likely to be infected than their heterosexual neighbors, the researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," said Binh Diep, a researcher at the...