New Jersey Repeals Outdated HIV Crime Laws and Fights Stigma

In January, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation that decriminalizes sexual activity by people living with HIV or a sexually transmitted infection (STI) in specific instances. What’s more, the law tackles HIV stigma because it requires that whenever a person is prosecuted under appropriate circumstances, the names of both the accused and the accuser be kept confidential.

The summary of the legislation—S3707/A5673—reads: “Repeals statute criminalizing sexual penetration while infected with venereal disease or HIV under certain circumstances; requires that in prosecutions for endangering another by creating substantial risk of transmitting infectious disease, name of defendant and other person be kept confidential.”

The legislation’s primary sponsors included Senators Joe Vitale (D–Middlesex) and M. Teresa Ruiz (D–Essex) and Assembly Members Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Joann Downey, according to a press release from Governor Murphy.

“Unfortunately, over the years, there has been a culture of criminally targeting HIV-positive individuals in general, rather than targeting those who intentionally expose others. The criminal code is meant to punish actions that harm others, not discriminate against people living with a chronic health condition,” Senator Ruiz said in the press release. “Signing this piece of legislation into law is a step in the right direction toward reforming the system.”

HIV criminalization refers to the use of laws to target people who have HIV—notably African-American, Latino and LGBTQ populations—and punishing them because of their HIV status, not because of their actions. Under outdated laws, people with HIV can be sentenced to prison in cases where HIV was not transmitted, simply for allegedly not disclosing their status.

Of note, repealing HIV laws does not mean that people can’t be held accountable for intentionally transmitting HIV. Other laws may apply to the situation.

“Hyacinth AIDS Foundation applauds Governor Murphy signing S3707/A-5673, which would repeal New Jersey specific HIV criminalization statute. New Jersey’s HIV criminal law was based on stigma and fear, rather than modern science,” Axel Torres Marrero, Hyacinth’s senior director of public policy and prevention, said in the press release. “In 2022 it no longer reflects the current science of treatment and transmission of HIV. Today we recognize that no one should be singled out and punished solely on the basis of their HIV status. Taken together with the attorney general’s recent guidance that only a clear, successful intent to do harm should be punished, today New Jersey acknowledges that health care policy and the fight to end the AIDS epidemic must be anchored in the updated science of treatment and transmission of HIV.”

Marrero was referring to HIV-related guidance issued in October by Andrew Buck, who was the acting attorney general at the time. When deciding whether to charge someone under the state’s HIV crime laws, Buck directed prosecutors to consider three factors:

- Whether the individual forced or coerced their partner to engage in sexual activity;

- Whether the individual engaged in sexual activity for the purpose of transmitting HIV to their partner; and/or

- Whether the individual was adhering to a medically appropriate HIV treatment plan at the time of the sexual activity.

“It is virtually impossible,” the guidance states, “to imagine a scenario where it would be appropriate for a prosecutor to charge an individual…when that person’s HIV viral load was undetectable at the time of the sexual activity and no aggravating factors existed.”

One of the goals of the new HIV law and the guidance is to base possible prosecutions on updated science, notably that people with HIV who take meds and maintain an undetectable viral load do not transmit HIV sexually, a fact referred to as Undetectable Equals Untransmittable, or U=U.

Another goal is to fight HIV stigma and encourage testing and treatment. “For decades, the HIV epidemic has had devastating effects on New Jersey, particularly in our LGBTQ+ communities and communities of color,” the governor said in the press release. “Repealing the outdated law will eliminate the stigma and fear associated with testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, encouraging more individuals to be proactive in learning about their health. This new law, coupled with advances in modern science and medicine, will bolster our efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New Jersey.”

In related news, New Jersey also passed a series of harm reduction laws. One allows more syringe exchanges to open; another makes it legal to possess a syringe; and a third creates a review panel to study overdoses.

New Jersey isn’t the only state to decriminalize HIV. Last year, Illinois became the second state to repeal its discriminatory HIV laws (California did so in 2017). And lawmakers in Missouri, Nevada and Virginia have reformed similar laws. For more, see “Breaking HIV Laws: A Roundup of Efforts to Decriminalize HIV.”

"Brilliant timing! So you can knowingly have sex while you know you are infected with AIDS, but you can’t do anything at all while you probably aren’t but theoretically could be infected with coronavirus!"

Meaning in too many places can’t do anything at all as regards potential interaction with people in public places due to potentially infecting others with a virus you potentially are carrying and may potentially be infectious and which potentially may result in death, unless you are vaccinated 3 or 4 times which potentially can prevent others who are vaccinated and thus potentially protected.

Of course such broad all-ages restrictions would indeed be warranted if the potentials that are presupposed were significant enough relative to other things, but which is neither even close to uniform in the case of lethality (with a CFR ranging from 0.01% for ages 0-19 to 23.25% for ages 85+ (which make up more of Covid-assigned deaths) nor in prevention (which with Delta dropped to about 40% the WHO said). And if vaccination so effective as to require even the very young to undergo it, then those who are vaxxed should not need to be protected from the unvaxxed. Thus the push to mandate vaccination of the young is actually an admission that it is not ever effective, which thus impugns the very premise which is used to mandate vaccination of them.

Meanwhile, if the consensual Biblical practice of the Lord's supper resulted in the manner of statics that homosexual relations have for 40 years, then can you image the reaction. Not the removal of stigma to say the least.

Although only approximately 7% of adult and adolescent males reported having had male-to-male sexual contact at some point in their lives, 82% of HIV infections among males in 2018 were attributed to male-to-male sexual contact. (P. 7)

Young gay and bisexual men accounted for 83% (6,385) of all new HIV diagnoses in people aged 13 to 24 in 2019, and 81% of diagnoses overall of HIV infection among Adolescents and Young Adults, and 92% of HIV infections among men aged 13 to 24 was attributed to male-to-male sexual contact:

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/images/group/age/youth/cdc-hiv-youth-sex-700x698.png https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/images/group/gender/men/2020/cdc-hiv-men-diagnoses-bar-graph-700x318.png

In 2019, heterosexual men accounted for 7% of HIV diagnoses, and heterosexual women accounted for 16% of HIV diagnoses.

The largest percentage of HIV infections was attributed to male-to-male sexual contact (66% overall and 81% among males).
Overall there were 36.801 new HIV diagnoses in the United States and Dependent Areas 2019 among both men and women, with 23% being among heterosexuals:

Also according to the CDC (chart), in 2017 male to male sexual contact was the mode of transmission in 92% of new HIV cases among male youth aged 13 to 24, and MSM accounted for 81% of diagnoses among males and 70% of all new HIV diagnoses, and 2 out of every 3 diagnoses in the United States. Which is despite only representing approximately 4% of the male population).

And which practice (historically) has resulted in a and premature death. (Even when their disease is well controlled, people with HIV can develop aging-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, kidney and liver disease, osteoporosis, and cognitive impairment decades ahead of their HIV-negative counterparts, and their life expectancy is significantly reduced.) And which practice is primarily responsible for more than 700,000 people with AIDS having died (as of 2017 since 1981) in the USA since the beginning of the epidemic - despite decades of attempting to tame it into being "safe." (Worldwide, 77.3 million people have contracted HIV and 35.4 million have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the beginning of the pandemic in 1981 (https://health.usnews.com/conditions/hiv-aids/articles/hiv-statistics)

God made man and women distinctively different yet uniquely compatible and complementary, and only joined them together in marriage - as the Lord Jesus Himself specified (Mt. 19:4–6) - and Scripture only condemns homosexual relations wherever they are manifestly dealt with. Yet there is still room at the cross for all who will come to God in repentance and faith, and trust in the Divine Son of God sent by the Father, the risen Lord Jesus, to save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood, and thus be baptized and live for Him. Acts 10:36-47

This law is so nebulous in "definitions" it is essentially unenforceable. By design.

Buck directed prosecutors to consider three factors:
- Whether the individual forced or coerced their partner to engage in sexual activity;

Who gets to allege this?

- Whether the individual engaged in sexual activity for the purpose of transmitting HIV to their partner;

Again, who is assessing the actors culpable mental state regarding his intent? He can just disclaim the intent and no one can disprove it.

- and/or, Whether the individual was adhering to a medically appropriate HIV treatment plan at the time of the sexual activity.

And if he wasn't? Will charges be filed? Please.

This is just another "gays-can-do-no-wrong" law, just like the campaign to abolishs so-called "gay panic defense" (defending yourself against an aggressive physical contact assault by a homosexual.) It just gives sodomites another tool in their box to act in their usual perverted fashion with impunity.

Notice the article also poses this new decriminalization as a "step in the right direction." What is the ultimate goal they're seeking? A reward for infecting someone?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.