News Release
For Immediate Release: June 27, 2012
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355
Ignoring Homosexuality — Trying to Make HIV a Disease For Which Everyone Should Be Tested
(Harrisburg) — Today is the 19th National HIV Testing Day – “Take the Test. Take Control.” In 2006 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) began recommending that every American aged 13 to 64 be tested annually for HIV/AIDS, saying it “should be as common as a cholesterol check.” The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), is appalled that the CDC continues ignoring its own statistics and pretend HIV is not a ‘gay disease’ as Matt Foreman, former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said.
In 2009 startling CDC statistics included:
- men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for 61% of all new HIV infections
- MSM with a history of injection drug use accounted for an additional 3% of new infections
- young MSM accounted for 69% of new HIV infections among persons aged 13–29
- young MSM accounted for 44% of infections among all MSM
“This same CDC report acknowledges that men who have sex with men make up approximately 2% of the US population. The numbers tell the story — 2% of the population makes up 61% of all new HIV infections. Shouldn’t the CDC be concentrating its efforts on the major source of the problem, instead yesterday it announced a pilot program to train pharmacists and retail store clinic staff at 24 rural and urban sites to deliver confidential rapid HIV testing in order to more easily reach every American aged 13 to 64. Shouldn’t the government — on the federal, state and local levels — stop pushing for the normalization of homosexuality as if it is simply a safe, alternative lifestyle?” questioned Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.
In February 2008 during remarks Matt Foreman gave at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference in Detroit, he said, “with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi(-sexual), we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that.”
In January 2011 a New York City HIV ad was condemned by many homosexual organizations for stigmatizing homosexuals. However Larry Kramer, writer and a founder of Act Up said in an email, “This ad is honest and true and scary, all of which it should be. H.I.V. is scary, and all attempts to curtail it via lily-livered nicey-nicey ‘prevention’ tactics have failed.” Click here to view the ad.
“Those who identify as homosexual cannot hide behind the ‘born gay’ mantra; there is no ‘gay gene.’ The CDC needs to quit distorting and, in some cases, ignoring its data and hiding behind its so-called prevention tactics and treat HIV as a ‘gay’ disease. The compassionate response to HIV/AIDS is to be honest about the dangers posed by the sexual practices of the group most greatly impacted – men who have sex with men,” further commented Gramley.
# # #
