AEGiS-BAYW: Editorial: Congress' misplaced priorities. Plus, what the Schiavo family fight means for marriage rights.

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Editorial: Congress' misplaced priorities. Plus, what the Schiavo family fight means for marriage rights.

Bay Windows - March 24, 2005
Susan Ryan-Vollmar, srvollmar@baywindows.com.

It's so nice to see Congress engaged with issues like the abuse of steroids by professional athletes and wrenching familial disputes over feeding tubes. It shows they're at least capable of convening hearings and taking action. Which you wouldn't know if you were judging Congress solely by its inability to take action in the face of declining federal and state funding for HIV/AIDS care.

Last week, we learned that Boston's portion of funding from the Ryan White CARE Act will be reduced by $1.1 million because 44 fewer people were diagnosed with AIDS in 2003 than 2002 (263 versus 307). Fewer AIDS diagnoses, of course, is very good news. The bad news is that people still need services and now there's less money to pay for them, specifically $13.7 million this year as compared with $14.8 million last year.

There are approximately16,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in the Greater Boston area. Nearly every one of these people will be impacted by the Ryan White CARE Act cuts. Ten programs dealing with respite care, day care and herbal and acupuncture treatment will be cut entirely. This includes the popular Pathways to Wellness, which has provided acupuncture treatment to people with HIV/AIDS since 1989. Many more programs dealing with case management, primary care services and home-delivered meals will be reduced.

Last week, the media was spinning with numbers: baseball slugger Mark McGwire's 40-pound weight loss since leaving baseball; Sammy Sosa's three 60-home run seasons; Barry Bonds's 73 home runs-in-a-season record; and Jose Conseco's 1988 season of 40 home runs and 40 steals.

Much more significant are the following: there will be 195 fewer primary care visits paid for HIV/AIDS patients thanks to the Ryan White cuts. There will be 3840 fewer home delivered meals, and 1014 fewer visits with a case manager.

Which is more important? Well, if you're a member of Congress, that's an easy question: the baseball stats, of course! Railing about the use of steroids in professional baseball (the most recent steroid tests conducted by Major League Baseball showed that about 1.7 percent of minor league players tested positive for steroids), lets you rant and rave about something very few people actually care about. But you're still quoted in the hometown press because what paper is going to pass up an opportunity to run photos of Sammy Sosa, Curt Schilling, Jose Conseco and Mark McGwire wearing suits and, in some cases, reading glasses as they sit before a Congressional panel?

The grandstanding by President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, and others on this issue is grotesque. They know, as we do, that there are far more important things to be worrying about than whether or not Jose Conseco injected steroids into Mark McGwire's butt when they were in the big leagues together. But more cuts to services for those living with HIV/AIDS? Well, that makes for a far less interesting story.

***

As Michael Bronski points out this week (see "Whose Right To Life Is It, Anyway?," page 1), the Schiavo-Schindler family fight over the removal of a feeding tube has broad implications for the marriage equality battle. We all know what can happen - and has happened - to lesbian and gay couples whose relationships to each other and their children are not legally recognized. We should all be very afraid when Congress feels empowered to take aim at married heterosexual couples as well. The biggest irony of this debacle, of course, is that the people fighting hardest to meddle in the Schiavo marriage are the very same extremists who claim that civil marriage rights for same-sex couples will be the undoing of the institution: Congressman Tom DeLay, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. It would be funny if it weren't so scary.

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