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The trial on the federal constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban, has been in many respects a tale of two trials. The question is, which trial was U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker watching? To many observers, the anti-Proposition 8 side appears to have scored all the points. Attorneys David Boies and Theodore Olson spent two weeks attempting to discredit the law, calling dozens of witnesses who gave dramatic and emotional testimony that banning same-sex marriage harms gay couples, their children and even society. But defenders of Proposition 8 say they're missing the point. California voters made...

It was apparently the most open secret of the Prop 8 trial in San Francisco. The presiding judge, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is gay The San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate has the full report, and the article cites many sources who say they do not expect his sexual orientation to influence his opinion. Walker was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1989 and has never "taken paints to disguise -- or advertise -- his orientation," the article said. The judge in this landmark gay rights litigation being gay is quite ironic, but it isn't the first eye-brow raising trial...

Sen. John McCain is bristling at the Pentagon's decision to launch a yearlong study into allowing gays to serve openly in uniform, saying he is "deeply disappointed" and calling the assessment "clearly biased" because it presumes the law should be changed. McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said the current policy is not ideal, but that it has been effective.

The military's top uniformed officer said Tuesday that gays should be allowed to serve openly in uniform, arguing that it is "the right thing to do." Adm. Mike Mullen's statement was the strongest yet from the military on this volatile issue, although he stressed that he was "speaking for myself and myself only." He told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday he is deeply troubled by a policy that forces people to "lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens." The chairman of the Joint Chiefs Staff said he knows many will disagree about abandoning the...

When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it's shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama's kooky coalition. We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft. Thirteen...

On Tuesday Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss repealing the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and changing the law that prevents gay people from serving openly in the military. But polls show a majority of service members are still against allowing gays to serve openly. Originally passed in 1993 under President Clinton, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been the target of much criticism; in his State of the Union on Wednesday President Obama repeated his campaign promise to work with Congress to repeal it....

* Study solves puzzle that eluded scientists for 20 years * Finding should help development of new HIV/AIDS medicines * Allows scientists to see how Merck and Gilead drugs work LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV. British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which is found in retroviruses like HIV and is a target for some of the...

Jacob Zuma's 'Love Child' Sparks Political Row By Jonah Fisher BBC News, Johannesburg South Africa's main opposition party has accused the country's president of contradicting the government's message on HIV/Aids prevention. The Democratic Alliance issued a statement after claims that Jacob Zuma had fathered a child out of wedlock last year. There has been no comment from the woman, Sonono Khoza, Mr Zuma, or his party, the ANC. Mr Zuma married for the fifth time earlier this year. Although he is thought to have at least 20 children, Mr Zuma has always refused to say exactly how many offspring he...

President Obama’s address to the nation tonight provides a stark contrast to the reality that all Americans – not just gays and lesbians – are living,” comments Terry W. Hamilton. “The increasingly dominant role of government in the daily life of gays and lesbians under President Obama’s leadership has done nothing but put our community in jeopardy – from his support of the Estate Tax, instructing his Administration to defend the failed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy in court, to stifling small business development across the nation, all Americans should take heed to his overarching promises that are long on...

President Obama said he wants action this year to abolish policies that prohibit gays from openly serving in the military, for the first time establishing a timetable for one of his long-held goals. Obama called for repeal of the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" law near the end of his State of the Union speech, addressing the issue in a single, passing mention, but rekindling the debate between supporters and opponents of the move. "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2010 – Unlike many of her peers, Army 1st Lt. Kerney Scott, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot, didn’t grow up dreaming of flight. Army 1st Lt. Kerney Scott, far right, her five siblings and brother-in-law John Gowel, second from left, pose for a picture at her family’s home in Lorton, Va. Scott is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot and aviation officer serving in South Korea. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. It wasn’t until she learned about the lifesaving impact of flight on soldiers that she shifted gears. “After my brother, Andy, deployed at the...

While President Obama has lifted restrictions on AIDS-infected foreigners entering the United States, the "gay rights" lobby is demanding more. Led by lesbian Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, 90 mostly Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives are demanding that President Obama denounce the Christians of Uganda for considering new legislation opposing homosexual practices that threaten public health in that East African country. In the other body of Congress, Democratic members of the U.S. Senate are urging Uganda to allow foreign-funded homosexual groups to have free rein on their sovereign soil. In a letter to Uganda President Yoweri Museveni,...

Notre Dame uproar over anti-gay cartoon in student newspaper By DARA KELLY IrishCentral.com Staff Writer The University of Notre Dame is being rocked by a controversy over an anti-gay cartoon printed in the student-run newspaper, The Observer. The cartoon depicts a conversation between two figures that reads: “What’s the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?" “No idea.” “A baseball bat.” Earlier, the cartoonist, who has not yet been named, posted the original version of the cartoon on his blog. In this version, it shows the punch line as “AIDS” instead of “a baseball bat.” The paper, he...

DETROIT — Authorities are trying to determine whether a woman who claims in an online video that she intentionally infected more than 500 people in suburban Detroit with HIV is real or a hoax. The unidentified woman says in a nearly 11-minute video posted on mediatakeout.com that since contracting HIV in 1998, she has been "pretty upset" about having to "suffer," and has "set out to "destroy the world" because a cure for the virus that causes AIDS has not been found. Deputy Police Chief James Tolbert tells The Detroit News that tipsters have told police that the woman lives...

A proponent of California's same-sex marriage ban warned voters in a letter during the 2008 campaign that gay rights activists would try to legalize sex with children if same-sex couples had the right to wed, according to evidence presented Wednesday in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the measure. San Francisco resident Hak-Shing William Tam, a defendant in the case, discussed the letter to Chinese-American church groups during a legal deposition taped last month. Tam wrote that legalizing same-sex marriage was part of a broader gay agenda. "On their agenda list is: legalize having sex with children," states the letter, which...

Scientific fraud often ends up killing people. Joseph Stalin's fraudulent "agronomist" Trofim Lysenko caused harvest failures when Soviet agriculture was ordered to follow his bizarre pseudo-science. "Scientific Marxism" killed 100,000,000 people, according to Marxist historians themselves. The medical truth about the AIDS epidemic, that it was communicated by anal intercourse, especially among men, was suppressed for decades, causing thousands of more young men to die. And now it seems that the global warming fraud, just one aspect of broader EcoFraud, is killing people in the Third World. The proximate cause? A doubling of food prices. Why? Because of the diversion...

The Washington Post editorial page has now joined lesbian MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow in blasting the government of Uganda for considering a law to protect children from homosexual predators and the dangerous public health impact of the homosexual lifestyle. Despite its moderate views on some foreign policy issues, the Post has always come down firmly on the side of making homosexuality into a special right that should be protected and even glorified by governmental institutions. Now it wants to impose that view on Uganda's mostly Christian population. The editorial was probably written by Post editorial writer and homosexual activist Jonathan...

Should the U.S. invite foreign tuberculosis carriers to emigrate? Should the U.S. welcome foreigners suffering from Hepatitis A, B or C? How about other sexually transmitted diseases? Barack Obama chose this moment in history, when America is conducting a grand experiment in nationalizing its health-case system and suffering from the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression, to throw open the nation's immigration doors to foreigners suffering from HIV/AIDS. Make sense to you? Oh, sure, just what America needs – more AIDS patients. That's what the man in the White House has decided in lifting a long-standing ban on visitors...

The owner of a gay sex club in NYC reportedly said the following in the mid-1990s: “If I were to get AIDS today, it’s my own f***ing fault. I deserve it.” Agree or disagree?

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — They had to travel to the ends of the Earth to do it, but two Argentine men succeeded in becoming Latin America's first same-sex married couple.After their first attempt to wed earlier this month in Buenos Aires was thwarted, gay rights activists Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre took their civil ceremony to the capital of Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province, where sympathetic governor backed their bid to make Latin American history.The couple exchanged rings Monday in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, closer to Antarctica than Buenos Aires. The informal ceremony was witnessed...

Scientists seeking to understand how to make an AIDS vaccine have found the cause of a major roadblock. It turns out that the immune system can indeed produce cells with the potential to manufacture powerful HIV-blocking antibodies – but at the same time, the immune system works equally hard to make sure these cells are eliminated before they have a chance to mature. "These studies show that a potentially protective neutralizing antibody against a viral disease is under the control of immunological tolerance," said Barton Haynes, M.D., director of the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) at Duke University Medical...

A pro-family leader says organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference are engaging in "moral surrender" by allowing a Republican homosexual activist group to co-sponsor the prestigious event. Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver have sent a letter to American Conservative Union chairman David Keene, warning him they will boycott CPAC 2010 if the homosexual activist group GOProud is allowed to remain as a co-sponsor of the February event. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, was one of the first social conservative leaders to sign the letter. He...

A former international rugby star has shocked the sports world by revealing that he is gay. Gareth Thomas, Wales' most-capped player after appearing in 100 Tests, made the surprise announcement in an interview with British newspaper The Daily Mail. The 35-year-old retired from internationals after the 2007 World Cup, but still plays for Welsh provincial side Cardiff Blues. He is the first openly gay top-level rugby player, although top referee Nigel Owens came out in 2007. While homosexuality in a macho code such as rugby is rarely acknowledged, top-level tennis players such as Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Amelie...

The BBC has apologised after complaints about an online debate which asked: "Should homosexuals face execution?" in response to proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda. Critics flooded the British broadcaster's website after it launched the provocative debate ahead of a World Service Africa Have Your Say feature. The headline question asking if gays should face execution was later changed to: "Should Uganda debate gay laws?" and the BBC World Service admitted the original version overstepped the mark. "The original headline on our website was, in hindsight, too stark. We apologise for any offence it caused," the director of BBC World Service,...

snip Christianity Today spoke on the phone with Niringiye about the cultural context of the bill and how he thinks American Christians should respond.How are Ugandan Christians generally responding to this legislation?This is not just a Christian response. I can certainly say the objectives of the bill have the total support of most of Uganda, not just Christians, but also Muslims and Roman Catholics. It would not be right to talk about how Christians feel. They're all agreed on the objectives. There will be a difference of opinion on the details of the bill.The second thing I need to say...

A coalition of human rights groups is condemning a proposed amendment to Rwanda's criminal law that would criminalize homosexual behavior and advocacy. Meanwhile, Rwanda's northern neighbor, Uganda, is receiving heat for a "draconian" anti-gay bill being debated in its legislature. The coalition Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders says the draft language to criminalize homosexuality could be voted on in the Rwandan lower house of parliament by Friday.  The draft code would then pass to the Rwandan senate for approval. The amended language for Article 217 acquired by the group would give offenders - those who "practice," "encourage,"...

SIRAKANO, Uganda — At age 45, after giving birth to 13 children in her village of thatch roofs and bare feet, Beatrice Adongo made a discovery that startled her: birth control. "I delivered all these children because I didn't know there was another way," said Adongo, who started on a free quarterly contraceptive injection last year. Surrounded by her weary-faced brood, her 21-month-old boy clutching at her faded blue dress, she added glumly: "I fear we are already too many in this family." (snip) Under President George W. Bush, the United States withdrew from its decades-long role as a global...

On Tuesday, December 8, the Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) and the Council on Women and Girls co-hosted a Women and HIV Meeting at the White House. The purpose of the meeting was to examine effective approaches to lowering HIV incidence in women, reducing racial disparities in infection rates and access to care, and improving services for women and girls living with HIV.It was an insightful discussion on lessons learned specific to women and will help inform the development of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS).  This Strategy has three primary goals:  reducing HIV incidence, increasing access to care and...

Fistgate instructor Margot Abels had been with the Massachusetts DOE “Safe Schools” program for seven years by the time she ran the scandalous workshop documented at the GLSEN-Boston conference in 2000. That takes her back to 1993, the year the “safe schools” program began in the DOE. She had run “at least five” workshops similar to Fistgate prior to 2000.... It was in 1992 that Kevin Jennings joined radical David LaFontaine at the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, to “run its education committee” – which set up the “safe schools” programs in the Department of Education..... Isn’t it...

Members of the curling community are excited about a joint fundraising program between United States Curling Association and Central Coast HIV/AIDS. With the help of the curling team’s sponsor, Kodiak Technology Group, they will sell Hurry Hard condoms. “Hurry Hard!” is part of the curling vocabulary. The condom’s logo will feature a smiling curling stone on a house. The condoms will be sold leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games in British Columbia, Canada.

KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Uganda is considering legislation that would impose a death sentence for intentional or willful transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, authorities say.

An HIV-positive man has infected his sleeping wife with the virus, which can cause AIDS, by pricking her with a sewing needle dipped in his own blood. It's believed he wanted to give her the disease so she would start having sex with him again, the Sunday Star Times reported. It's the first case of its kind in New Zealand. Other cases have seen HIV-positive people infect others through unprotected sex. The man, 35, admitted infecting his wife, 33, and has been remanded in prison awaiting sentence for wilfully infecting another with a disease, an offence that carries a maximum...

He won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the actor's estate after convincing a jury that Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS. Marc Christian MacGinnis, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the estate of his ex-lover, actor Rock Hudson, after convincing a jury Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS, has died. He was 56. Known as Marc Christian, he died of pulmonary problems June 2 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. The details were confirmed Friday by his sister, Susan Dahl, who said she did not publicly announce his death earlier because of...

It is now obvious to keen observers that the hysteria over climate change and global warming, was nothing more than a big fat hoax, intended to extort billions of dollars from the American people. But this is not the only big scam being peddled in America. A South African Afrikaner journalist, Rian Malan, revealed a few years ago that the statistics on HIV and AIDS are pure lies. The corrupt UN organization, UNAIDS, has been claiming that Aids is wiping out the African population. Yet, population statistics show that the nations that are supposedly being wiped out by Aids, are...

As a gay Ugandan, Frank Mugisha has endured insults from strangers, hate messages on his phone, police harassment and being outed in a tabloid as one of the country's "top homos". That may soon seem like the good old days. Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda's parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a "person of authority" over the other partner, or if the "victim" is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty. Members of the public...

Ban Lifted For Green-Card Applicants With HIV A two-decade-old rule kept those with the virus out of the U.S. Now such immigrants will be able to visit the country and apply for legal status. By Anna Gorman November 25, 2009 A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive. Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold. But that soon may change. This month,...

Lutherans to Observe World AIDS Day Dec. 1 WASHINGTON (ELCA) -- Every nine and a half minutes a person in the United States becomes infected with HIV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. Globally, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates the number of people infected with the virus is 33 million. On the weekend before or after World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are invited to participate in a worship service, event or advocacy activity, and to remember and demonstrate support for people living with and...

At a time when our country is sick, it shouldn't surprise that one our sickest places is our nation's capital. The poverty rate of Washington, DC, almost 20 percent, is one of the highest in the nation. Its child poverty rate is the nation's highest.. DC's public school system, with a graduation rate of less than 50 percent, is one of the worst in the country. According to DC's HIV/AIDS office, three percent of the local population has HIV or AIDS. The Administrator of this office notes that this HIV/AIDS incidence is "...higher than West Africa...on par with Uganda and...

Major Nidal Hasan seemed worried about the results of an HIV blood test taken a week before the Fort Hood shooting rampage, according to federal investigators piecing together background details on Hasan's life. The information came from a member of the Fort Hood medical staff who was in the building where Hasan is accused of opening fire on November 5 and killing 13 people. SNIP Hasan, who is not married, was a regular at a Killeen, Texas strip club which features nude dancers, according to employees there. Investigators also found that Hasan donated $20,000 to $30,000 a year to overseas...

WASHINGTON--Here's the lighter side of President Obama, about five pounds worth. Two male network correspondents asked Obama about his weight, after a serious discussion about other issues during one and one interviews in Bejing, China. Obama told NBC's Chuck Todd, "My weight fluctuates about five pounds. It has for the last 30 years. It's unchanging. I still wear the same -- some of the same stuff I did when I got married 17 years ago. My hair's gotten a lot grayer; there's no doubt about that. But I'm not sure whether that's just because I was about the age where...

American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday. Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States. "Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated," said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," Douglas added in a...

Holmes Norton: Republicans to blame for high D.C. AIDS rate By Silla Brush - 11/04/09 06:00 PM ET Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) is blaming Republican lawmakers for the District of Columbia’s high HIV/AIDS rate. In a letter posted on her website, Norton lashed out at Republican efforts in recent years to attach riders to annual congressional spending bills that limited the District from using locally raised revenues to support needle exchange programs. She said this explains “in large part” why the District has a higher HIV/AIDS rate than do similar cities. “The District has a higher HIV/AIDS rate than...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will lift a 1987 ban on foreigners with AIDS entering the country. "We talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat," Obama said Friday. Obama said an order lifting the restriction will be issued Monday and take effect after 60 days. Poll on page!

The US is to end its 22-year ban on people with HIV entering the country, President Barack Obama has confirmed. Mr Obama made the announcement as he extended funding for an act that provides HIV/Aids related health care. "If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/Aids, we need to act like it," Mr Obama said. The US is one of only about a dozen countries barring entry on HIV status. The ban is expected to be lifted at the beginning of 2010. 'End the stigma' Mr Obama confirmed the move as he signed the Ryan White HIV/Aids...

President Obama overturned a decades-old policy Friday that he said was "rooted in fear rather than fact," when he announced the lifting of a rule barring HIV-positive people from entering the US. "Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease -- yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat," the President said. "[W]e are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people [with] HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."

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Does HIV mean certain death? In the quarter century since the world was introduced to the idea that a new sexually transmitted virus was the cause of Aids, HIV has been generally regarded as one of the biggest killers of our time. HIV/Aids has not been the mass disease in Britain that people were led to believe in the 1980s, but the death toll from immune deficiency diseases ascribed to HIV in Africa has been staggering. The scale of death there is an ongoing tragedy that tests the moral resolve of the rich world. How much do we care? Enough...

A Toronto man who contracted HIV from his former stripper wife is hoping he's alive to see her get deported to Thailand. Whiteman and his lawyer appeared before a Federal Court of Canada last Thursday in an ongoing battle with immigration officials to get Iamkhong deported due to her criminal record. He has launched a $30-million lawsuit against the Canada Border Services Agency and Zanzibar Strip Club in Toronto in connection with the case. He claims Iamkhong, 40, a former stripper at the Zanzibar, was allowed into the country with HIV and that led to his life being placed in...

The sponsors of the largest ever HIV vaccine trial yesterday hailed a "historic" moment as they formally announced the trial's results at an international AIDS vaccine meeting in Paris. The results received rapturous applause from an audience of more than 1,000 HIV researchers. But some scientists are much more sceptical of the findings, arguing that the response of the HIV research community, long deprived of any good news from vaccine trials, is based more on hope than on rigorous science.The US$119-million phase III trial, sponsored by the health ministry of Thailand and the US Army, started in Thailand in 2003....

A deeper analysis of the results of an HIV vaccine tested in Thailand suggests that the vaccine may not have been as effective as originally indicated. When first publicly disclosing the outcome of the Thai trial in September, researchers said the vaccine had lowered the risk of infection by about 31%. That result was modest but statistically significant, meaning it wasn't the result of a fluke. That announcement, coming after two decades of failed HIV vaccine trials, garnered headlines around the world. Now, two other analyses of the trial data suggests that the results could have been due to pure...