Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Washington Blade - August 15, 2008
Jaime Grant, Ph.D.
TWO WEEKS AGO, through the twists and turns of the legislative process, President Bush signed a five-year authorization on one of his landmark overseas programs, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and with a stroke of his routinely anti-LGBT pen, lifted the 15-year-old U.S. HIV travel ban.
That this is an overdue victory is an understatement, but the true statement here is that we never should have had such a discriminatory law to fight against in the first place.
This ban, initiated by the late and infamously anti-gay Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), was a relic of the ferocious anti-gay stigma associated with HIV at the onset of the epidemic. Draconian policies sprung up from every corner, and Helms' travel ban did damage to HIV-positive businessmen and women, vacationers and families for more than a decade. While people's memory of the ban, along with our relative outrage, faded over the years, the terrible effects of the law pressed on.
URVASHI VAID, WHO served as the Task Force's director at the height of Helms' anti-HIV crusade noted in an e-mail to me the day the ban was lifted:
"The policy hurt so many people. I spent time just last year trying to help a friend's gay brother whose partner of more than 25 years was suddenly stopped and prevented from entering the U.S. at the Canadian border during a routine crossing. This was a guy here legally, had a life and was suddenly turned away at the border because of his HIV status. His partner wrote to every member of Congress, met with all the people I directed him to, fought back with lawyers and incurred so much pain and hardship and yet was not able to get his partner into the country. That is what this entire ban accomplished - it hurt really good people so some ideological point could be scored."
REA CAREY, THE Task Force's executive director, who worked in LGBT youth leadership development at the onset of the travel ban had this to say:
"Today, we can all be proud of never letting up, never acquiescing to the government's neglect and abuse of people with HIV. Regardless, all of us are looking forward to a new era and a new administration, one in which the possibility of addressing the resurgence of HIV infection rates, especially among black and Latino men who have sex with men, might finally be appropriately addressed."
The president has made a big show of PEPFAR while neglecting the terrible rise in infections in communities of color at home. Further, he continues to tie PEPFAR funding to abstinence-only educational programs, favoring right-wing social agendas over science. Gay Men's Health Crisis Executive Director Marjorie Hill notes: "Abstinence-only-until-marriage has been an abject failure in the U.S. and it is undercutting the local, effective prevention efforts in Africa and elsewhere."
Today, we are all breathing a sigh of relief that our friends and loved ones with HIV can finally be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve as they exit and enter this country. Once here, our work begins. Again.
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Jaime Grant, Ph.D., is director of the Policy Institute for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and can be reached via thetaskforce.org.
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