News Release: Senators Casey and Toomey Vote To Repeal Bestiality Ban in Military

News Release
For Immediate Release:  December 8, 2011
Contact:  Diane Gramley  1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

Why Did Senators Casey and Toomey Vote to Allow Bestiality in the Military?

(Harrisburg) — One week ago today the US Senate voted to approve the National Defense Authorization bill and both of Pennsylvania’s US Senators voted “Yea.”  The bill has come under close scrutiny in the days since it passed and it has been exposed that on page 174 of the bill it will repeal the military ban on sodomy and bestiality.  The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA) faxed and emailed both Senator Robert Casey and Senator Pat Toomey asking, ” Did you know that on page 174 of that bill there is a provision that will repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which bans bestiality and sodomy in the military?”

“Casey’s and Toomey’s constituents want to know if they support sodomy and bestiality in the United States military or was that section simply overlooked as they reviewed the bill before voting on it last Thursday,” noted Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

The communications with the Senators also asked whether they supported the consequences of such a repeal.   The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that over half of all new HIV cases are men who have sex with men.   The estimated number of HIV cases in the US in 2009 included 23,846 HIV cases involving men who have sex with men.   

In August the CDC acknowledged that the number of new AIDS cases in the US between 2006 and 2009 remained around 50,000 per year. CDC director, Thomas Frieden, said in a statement, “Not only do men who have sex with men continue to account for most new infections, young gay and bisexual men are the only group in which infections are increasing,”

Additionally, according to a calculation by the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington D.C., less than half of 1 percent of Americans have the AIDS virus. However, according to Kaiser Family Foundation spokeswoman Jennifer Kates, homosexual men continue to be infected at much higher rates.

“We don’t have a generalized epidemic in the United States. We have a concentrated epidemic among certain populations,” Kates said.

“If the National Defense Authorization bill passes as is and removes the military ban on sodomy, how will that affect the CDC numbers on new HIV infections?  How will that affect our national defense?  Now that Senator Casey and Senator Toomey know what’s in the bill they voted on last week, what will they do with that knowledge,” questioned Gramley.

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