Diagnosis: HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy

I've waited two days to say anything after my Cleveland Clinic Visit for the chest and back pain, as well as my current and re-accuring problems with balance and walking.  I've gone 12 years without a diagnosis.  12 long years of misdiagnosis, pain killers and medication that didn't work and the brush off when nothing could be found.  It's been emotionally exhaustive.  I've currently been with a home visiting nurse, a home physical therapist and a social worker.  I've also was fortunate enough to get an adjustable hospital bed, which I love by the way.  But it has been unbearable since the middle of January.  

It's felt very lonely.  It's been emotionally, physically, and spiritually draining.  I feel lost. 

Now though I have a diagnosis.  One I'm not overly thrilled with, but at least a diagnosis.  One that technically can not be treated except for what I am doing now by being on morphine and a course of HIV anti-retrovirals.  I saw a psychologist today who wants me to up the strength of my Zoloft and he is going to help me find a grief group.

I'm at a point right now in my life where I'm going to beg for people to talk to me about this.  Help me through this.  Help me cope, and as the psychologist said today "to find my sense of freedom."  There are things I need to figure out.  Beyond teaching what can I do with my MFA.  I'm not opposed to teaching, I would just like to know my options.  Should I continue on and earn my Doctorate in Modern African American Literature or do I immediately enroll in the government school program to teach and in 5 years would forgive my student loans.  I have personal issues I have to work through as well and I don't have the answer to those either.  BUT:

On a positive note I did graduate from Kent with Full Honors with a document that is now my first self-published book, I have had two articles about my writing recently, I have had rave reviews of my book, I'm enrolled in one of the best grad schools in the country and will have my MFA in Creative writing the beginning of January 2016.  I will have a second completed manuscript when I leave Fairfield that could become my third book.  I'm finishing my second now.  I won second place in poetry contest my first semester at Fairfield.  On July 16th of this year I celebrate 25 yrs. with AIDS.  So I know I have a lot going for me.  Yet, somehow, I have to begin to embrace and acknowledge what I have done and while living with a chronic illness.

I ask for your support, your love, your friendship and your prayers.  I'm so very grateful and blessed to have the people I do in my life.

Charlie

HIV-Associated Vacuolar Myelopathy

Overview

Vacuolar myelopathy is the most common chronic myelopathy associated with HIV infection. HIV-associated vacuolar myelopathy occurs during the late stages of HIV infection, when CD4⁺ lymphocyte counts are very low, often in conjunction with AIDS dementia complex, peripheral neuropathies, and opportunistic infections or malignancies of the central or peripheral nervous system (eg, cytomegalovirus, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, lymphoma).
For patient education information, see the Immune System Center, Dementia Center, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Center, as well as Dementia Due to HIV Infection and HIV/AIDS.

Pathophysiology

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the development of this common complication of HIV-1 infection. One hypothesis is infiltration by HIV-infected mononuclear cells that secrete neurotoxic factors, including cytokines, possibly in conjunction with neurotoxic astrocyte factors. A significant amount of scientific support exists for this paradigm. Transgenic mice that express HIV gene products in oligodendrocytes develop clinical and histologic features that resemble the human disease.
Although direct HIV infection of astrocytes and neurons is reported in the brain and dorsal root ganglia, it is not a major feature in vacuolar myelopathy.
The impaired ability to utilize vitamin B-12 as a source of methionine in transmethylation metabolism for myelin maintenance in the spinal cord may be a contributing factor.

Epidemiology and Prognosis

Before the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), vacuolar myelopathy was seen in 5-20% of adult HIV patients in clinical studies and in 25-55% of adult HIV patients in histologic studies. Since the introduction of HAART, it is estimated that fewer than 10% of AIDS patients develop HIV myelopathy.

The prognosis in HIV patients with vacuolar myelopathy is poor.

Clinical Presentation:

Vacuolar myelopathy typically presents as a slow progression of painless leg weakness, stiffness, sensory loss, imbalance, and sphincter dysfunction. Relapsing-remitting courses have also been described.^[1]

 Arm function is usually normal except for advanced vacuolar myelopathy.
Vacuolar myelopathy is often associated with AIDS dementia complex and peripheral neuropathy. In such cases, patients have cognitive decline and distal limb pain and numbness.

Physical examination:

The following may be noted on physical examination:

• Slowly progressive spastic paraparesis
• Hyperreflexia and extensor plantar responses
• Sensory ataxia
• Incontinence
• Rarely, asymmetric features and involvement of upper extremities

A discrete sensory level is usually absent; if present, this strongly suggests other causes of myelopathy.

Diagnostic Considerations

The differential diagnosis includes neurosyphilis. Other problems to be considered in the differential diagnosis of HIV-related vacuolar myelopathy include the following:

• Herpes simplex virus infection
• Cytomegalovirus infection
• Cervical disk syndromes
• HIV-1 associated conditions (eg, Kaposi sarcoma, lymphoma, toxoplasmosis) in the spinal canal
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection
• Compressive myelopathy (eg, tumor, abscess, herniated disc, arteriovenous malformation)
• Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1)–associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (can co-exist with HIV infection)
• Spinal epidural abscess in HIV-infected parenteral drug users
  
  
  Diagnostic Tests

Electrophysiologic tests can confirm a clinical diagnosis of vacuolar myelopathy. Somatosensory evoked potential (SSEP) may be a valuable tool in the diagnosis of AIDS-associated myelopathy, particularly when myelopathy and peripheral neuropathy coexist.^[2]

Serum studies can determine vitamin B-12 and folic acid levels. In patients with borderline low B-12 levels, elevated homocysteine and methylmalonic acid levels are better indicators of a deficiency. B-12 levels are usually normal in vacuolar myelopathy.

CT scan results are often noncontributory but may reveal unsuspected coexisting conditions such as extramedullary or intramedullary infections, neoplasms, degenerative disk disease, or degenerative joint disease of the spine.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging:

MRI scans are often noncontributory but may reveal unsuspected coexisting conditions such as extramedullary or intramedullary infections, neoplasms, degenerative disk disease, or degenerative joint disease of the spine.

Spinal cord atrophy is the most common abnormal finding involving the thoracic cord with or without cervical cord involvement. T2-weighted MRI often shows symmetric nonenhancing high-signal areas, which are present on multiple contiguous slices and are usually symmetrical; these may result from extensive vacuolation.^{[3, 4, 5]}

Care for patients with HIV-associated vacuolar myelopathy is primarily supportive. Although no specific treatment is currently approved for this syndrome, viral control tailored to the individual patient's medical and viral history is important, as case reports showing clinical and radiologic improvement with highly active retroviral therapy (HAART) have been described.^{[9, 10, 11, 2]}


Author

Niranjan N Singh, MD, DM, Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine

Disclosure: Nothing to disclose.

Coauthor(s)

Florian P Thomas, MD, MA, PhD, Drmed:

Director, Regional MS Center of Excellence, St Louis Veterans Affairs Medical Center; Director, National MS Society Multiple Sclerosis Center; Director, Neuropathy Association Center of Excellence, Professor, Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, Associate Professor, Institute for Molecular Virology, St Louis University School of Medicine

References

1. Anneken K, Fischera M, Evers S. Recurrent vacuolar myelopathy in HIV infection. J Infect. Jun 2006;52(6):e181-3. [View Abstract]
2. Tagliati M, Di Rocco A, Danisi F, Simpson DM. The role of somatosensory evoked potentials in the diagnosis of AIDS-associated myelopathy. Neurology. Apr 11 2000;54(7):1477-82. [View Abstract]
3. Chong J, Di Rocco A, Tagliati M, et al. MR findings in AIDS-associated myelopathy. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. Sep 1999;20(8):1412-6. [View Abstract]
4. Santosh CG, Bell JE, Best JJ. Spinal tract pathology in AIDS: postmortem MRI correlation with neuropathology. Neuroradiology. Feb 1995;37(2):134-8. [View Abstract]
5. Sartoretti-Schefer S, Blattler T, Wichmann W. Spinal MRI in vacuolar myelopathy, and correlation with histopathological findings. Neuroradiology. Dec 1997;39(12):865-9. [View Abstract]
6. Eilbott DJ, Peress N, Burger H, et al. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in spinal cords of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients with myelopathy: expression and replication in macrophages.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. May 1989;86(9):3337-41. [View Abstract]
7. Tyor WR, Glass JD, Baumrind N, et al. Cytokine expression of macrophages in HIV-1-associated vacuolar myelopathy. Neurology. May 1993;43(5):1002-9. [View Abstract]
8. Petito CK, Navia BA, Cho ES, et al. Vacuolar myelopathy pathologically resembling subacute combined degeneration in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. N Engl J Med. Apr 4 1985;312(14):874-9. [View Abstract]
9. Bizaare M, Dawood H, Moodley A. Vacuolar myelopathy: a case report of functional, clinical, and radiological improvement after highly active antiretroviral therapy. Int J Infect Dis. Jul 2008;12(4):442-4.[View Abstract]
10. DiRocco A. HIV-associated myelopathy. Current Treatment Options in Infectious Diseases. Vol 5. 2003:457-465.
11. Fernandez-Fernandez FJ, de la Fuente-Aguado J, Ocampo-Hermida A. Remission of HIV-associated myelopathy after highly active antiretroviraltherapy. J Postgrad Med. 2004;50(3):195-6. [View Abstract]
12. Di Rocco A, Tagliati M, Danisi F, et al. A pilot study of L-methionine for the treatment of AIDS-associated myelopathy. Neurology. Jul 1998;51(1):266-8. [View Abstract]
13. Di Rocco A, Werner P, Bottiglieri T, et al. Treatment of AIDS-associated myelopathy with L-methionine: a placebo-controlled study. Neurology. Oct 12 2004;63(7):1270-5. [View Abstract]
14. Staudinger R, Henry K. Remission of HIV myelopathy after highly active antiretroviral therapy. Neurology. Jan 11 2000;54(1):267-8. [View Abstract]

Survival

     I know it's been a while since my last post.  College life as a senior has taken up so much time, energy and effort that this blog has really suffered and for that I am deeply sorry.  It is after all my outlet to openly speak, and bring awareness to topics I think we should know about.

     I sit here today, realizing that somehow, someway I have been deeply blessed to say that as of today I have survived AIDS for 23 years.  Now, I know what you maybe thinking, especially those who were reading regularly, "Charlie you have only 22 years".  Well, I met a friend recently with photographs, that I also happen to have, and we got to digging about information for the Cleveland Gay Pride event, which is where the photographs were taken and its 23 years ago not 22.  It is those photographs in June that for me mark the year as it was in July I got my diagnosis.

     You can imagine my surprise that I had made that simple mistake.  Maybe some of you think "Well  it's only one year what's the big deal?"  The big deal is it finally sunk in that my being diagnosed with AIDS has been half my life and beginning next year it will be over half of my lifetime.

     I know, a miracle into itself that somehow, someway I was able to pull through the early days of the gay holocaust, when nothing but death was around us.  Somehow, I managed to survive through only having one medication that was available to treat us.  Somehow, I survived losing over 600 friends, acquaintances, fellow gay men who in many cases I saw die before my very eyes; while some of those deaths were filled with medical violence--side effects, over use of drug induced comfort and families who in some cases were down right horrible.

     That I was a witness to a "funeral" in front of the White House, with the deceased in a wooden coffin, with the lid off and the young man in that coffin that day was just a few years older than I was.

     Somehow, I have survived where everyone, at every moment was talking simply safe sex.   Now, we as gay men live in an environment were there is the discussion about "safe" barebacking.  We live in an environment now, thankfully where we are living longer, but for those of us who have lived as long or longer than I have how do create a full, enriching and satisfying life when we have literally seen the monstrous eyes of the plague itself?

     This is something I struggle with a fair amount of the time.  It is why I am in college in the first place.  To try to create a life off Medicaid, Medicare, and Food Stamps.  To finally have a career, a life where I can possibly own something, buy something without worrying about how am I going to buy food. To be a contributing member to society.  To be able to work to build an IRA and retirement.  To give voice to the stories I want to tell, to give focus to the research I want to do and finally and most importantly, in my opinion, give at least one voice to those of us who have survived the earliest years.

     My awareness to AIDS came as early as 1986, when I was a mere 19 year boy.  I lost a very good friend to what was then called GRID.   Actually to be honest with you he was a boyfriend.  As a 19 yer old boy, I loved him deeply and when he died I stumbled head first into a world of pills and booze.  Pills and booze, it was a battle for years with two trips into rehab.  But as in all cases time marches on and I fell in love again and by October 1988  I was burying a second lover to AIDS.

     That event lead to my first suicide attempt and my falling "off the wagon" and falling even further into the abyss by frequenting gay bath houses.  It is something I am not proud of, I rarely admit it, but I think for many gay men--- my self included-- it was a part of our lives and our darkest days.

     I was then in an 11 month relationship, that ended with my being thrown down an entire flight of stairs.  It had been violent all along and it took cement stairs to bring me to finally leaving that relationship.  Once again "off the wagon" and back to the baths.

     By 1992 I met an incredible man named Ron Rooy Sr.  who simply turned my world upside down.  I dried out completely.  I stop the cycle of the baths.  I was madly in love with a phenomenal man.  We were together four short months of 10 years when he died in our home in 2002.  I have loved him like no other.

     I think about him a lot these days.  Would he be proud of what I 'm trying to do today?   Would he approve of the man I have become?  What would he say about my Honors Thesis work, a Creative Nonfiction piece on gays in the Holocaust?  Would we really enjoy my trying to become a teacher and author?

     I know at my core, if given the chance I would still be with him. today  In many ways I still am.  He was able to finish my sentences, he knew me inside and out.  He was not only my lover, my husband---he was my best friend.  I lost so much when he died, and honestly at times I wonder if I have ever recovered.

   I sit here today knowing how blessed I have been.  Sometimes I wonder why.  Why me?  Why did I survive the horrors of the gay holocaust? Why am I now thinking about my "old age" when 23 years ago that wasn't even an option.  A career with Full Blown AIDS, 23 years ago was damn near impossible and now it is a reality.  So much has changed; and I wonder have I changed enough with the times?

     Am I still living in the past?  Has the past overshadowed everything else?  What will the next 25 years of living with AIDS be like?  By that time I will be 72 years old, and living with AIDS for 50 of them.  Is that even a possibility?  Will our pharmaceuticals make that a reality?  Will our society as a whole change even more dramatically in acceptance or will we still be bogged in ignorance and bigotry?

     For now I am thankful for what I do have.  I am, if I have to be honest, thankful for even the struggles because without them I wouldn't be the man I am today.  I met a Hindu swami recently and asked his advice for someone living this long with AIDS.  He first said in his country my story would more than likely never happen.  He felt I was looking at my diagnosis with AIDS all wrong.  Maybe G-d chose to come and manifest him/herself as AIDS so I could literally see the face of G-d.  That through this "disease" not only see G-d but feel his/her presence all around me; that I may have missed the appearance of G-d in my life because I chose to see it the way I did.

     I know he didn't mean it as G-d's curse on me, as Hindus do not believe that is even possible.  He saw G-d in the disease.  That G-d is in everything, everyone, and everywhere; we however simply have to see it.  That simple thought has changed my life.

     I want to leave you on that thought---can we see G-d in everything, everyone and everywhere or do we chose not see it that way?

Namaste

An AIDS Free Generation: Is it possible

President Barack Obama included AIDS in his first State of the Union speech after his re-election:

“.... the United States will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades by.... saving the world’s children from preventable deaths; and by realizing the promise of an AIDS-free generation, which is within our reach.”


Watching the State of the Union last night I was taken that President Obama made the mention that we could have an AIDS free generation and not only have it but it is within reach.  This clearly, to me, seems like an incredible idea but I seriously have my doubts--- and here is why:

1. I have been involved with the AIDS crisis since 1986 when I first became aware of it at the tender age of just 19 years old when a friend of mine was diagnosed with what then was "the gay cancer" and was within six months dead!  That has been nearly thirty years of involvement and I have heard a lot of things in those thirty years that promise great advances, possible cures and even scheduled treatments. I also have watched six hundred friends die from AIDS before I stopped counting. I also know that we are far from an AIDS free generation when it seems so little is being done.
2. FACT:   As the U.S. observes the tenth anniversary of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the landmark global AIDS program which President George W. Bush first proposed in his 2003 State of the Union address, advocates from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) urged President Obama to reconsider recent funding cuts he made to the lifesaving AIDS program which has saved millions of lives worldwide. AHF advocates also note that given his actions versus his rhetoric, President Obama’s highly touted goal of an ‘AIDS-free generation’—which received only a glancing mention in his State of the Union address last nightt—is unlikely to be achieved, as the funding cuts he’s instituted take devastating—and deadly—effect globally.       “By all accounts, PEPFAR has been a tremendous success, saving millions of lives while also serving as one of America’s most successful diplomacy efforts over the past decade,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “However, President Obama is also the first U.S. president to cut global AIDS funding, a shameful retreat at a time when, according to World Health Organization, there are 6.8 million who need treatment now but aren't receiving it, and at a time when we are seeing the real impact of treatment on saving lives and reducing new infections.”
   
   3. FACT:  A new survey focused on gay and bisexual men who use apps such as Grindr, Scruff and Manhunt to meet sexual partners found that nearly half had engaged in unprotected sex.
   Conducted by New York's Community Healthcare Network (CHN), "Zero Feet Away: Perpective on HIV/AIDS and Unprotected Sex in Men Who Have Sex With Men Utilizing Location-based Mobile Apps" found that although 80 percent of respondents said they were knowledgeable in how the HIV virus was transmitted, while 46.4 percent admitted to having bareback sex always, often or sometimes.
        The most frequently-cited reason for bare-backing among the 725 gay and bisexual men who were surveyed was "with condoms, [sex] does not feel the same."
        "Clearly, we've come a long way in educating people about HIV and AIDS," Dr. Freddy Molano, Assistant Vice President of HIV Programs and Services at CHN, said in the report. "Yet among certain populations, HIV/AIDS is on the ride, and that's alarming."
        Added co-author Renato Barucco: "The survey findings show a clear disconnect between the reasons why men engage in unprotected anal intercourse and the way prevention initiatives attempt to address risk behaviors."
   
    4. The following is simply my opinion and should be taken as thus:
   
   
    In nearly the nearly thirty years of work in the trenches I have seen it all-- people who are compliant with all of there drugs and still die, people who are complaint with all of their drugs and who somehow pull through (in my circle there are five of us, counting myself, who have lived twenty years or more with AIDS), I have seen lovers thrown out of their homes because one of them died and a family took literally everything, I have seen hospital trays left in the hall because no one wanted to go into the hospital room.  On that note I have a very good friend who works at a "Christian" Nursing home and the staff when they found out a specific resident had AIDS and was there to to die, wanted nothing to do with him, let alone for care him-- this was just LAST YEAR!
   
   
   Yet President Obama has the gall to say we "are within grasp of an AIDS free generation. Really?  People can not afford or get access to basic HIV medications in Africa and "we are within grasp of an AIDS free generation.  Really?  The government keeps cutting funding to not only research a cure, cut funding to Ryan White Access and cut funding for services for people living with AIDS and yet somehow we are within reach to an AIDS free generation.  Really?  
   
   
   We have the largest influx of gay bareback movies, gay bareback porn studios and a gay society-- which I myself am gay--are largely burned out, overworked, underpaid and in my opinion under appreciated when it comes to what we do for AIDS.  
   
   
   We have a young gay society under twenty-five who know precious little about the struggle we the generation into our forties and more who were there and saw first hand all of the death, all of the suffering, all of the protests in the streets and I will go out on a limb and say attend an ACT UP funeral of one of its members in front of the White House with the "dead" in a pine coffin laying in the streets and we the mourners demanding change.
   
   
   We have Californians having the discussion whether condoms should be on all porn shoots gay or straight, laws in California which have been passed and yet we can not move past the idea that somehow by "enforcing" condom use we are stepping on the toes of those wishing "their freedom of expression".  Really?  But yet somehow we are within grasp of a generation that is AIDS free.
   
   
   We have a vast number of Americans who still view "victims of HIV/AIDS" as the minorities-- you know the "them" we always speak of--- gays, African Americans, drug users, prostitutes, the poor, the uneducated, the brother on the down low, the Hispanic woman who sleeps around to much, the gay man who who still anonymous gay sex in bath houses or sex clubs.... when in all reality it has been more than this group of "minorities" for a LONG time.  Yet somehow we still can not have a honest, frank and open discussion about sex--- yet President Obama believes we are within grasp of an AIDS free generation.
   
   
   5.  FACT:   We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation when funding is cut. 
   
   
    We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation when people refuse to have an open, frank, honest discussion about sex.  
   
   
   We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until the church as a whole not only embraces those living with the disease, but gets off their knees praying but actually does something to address the issue, help those in need of help and make a concentrated effort to embrace everyone into their fold.
   
   
   We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we do everything in our power to prevent sexual transmission to those who choose to make porn a career.
   
   
   We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we make AIDS medication to every single living human being on on the planet, and not only make it available but affordable.
   
   
   We can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we do everything within our power to help our brothers and sisters, like myself, who are living with AIDS.  We need to be able to provide medical coverage that would continue at affordable rates for those wishing to return to work, we need to provide the time off needed by our employees if they need it for medical purposes to recover from an AIDS related illness, we need real equal employment opportunities for those living with AIDS.  And finally we need to provide affordable and accessible college opportunities to those living with AIDS-- many who do not realize that there is available funding where we could in all honesty pay very little out of pocket to not only get a degree but get a job that would once and for all get us out of poverty.
   
   
   Finally, we can not and will not have an AIDS free generation until we treat this disease as a human disease and not a minority disease.  That the attitude and change that needs to take place is what has happened with Americans embracing Cancer (i.e. The Susan G. Koman Fundraising events), Heart Disease and even Alzheimer's and until all of these things Mr. President happens we will NEVER have an AIDS free generation!

I'm so very tired: Bigotry and Stupidity

You know I was watching "Betty and Coretta" on Lifetime last night and I was moved to tears and heavy sadness.  I am to the point where I have reached the end of my rope.  Let me explain...

It seems here lately that I am having to defend my G-d given right to be an openly gay HIV+ man, and to live my life as one.  That the "Christian-right", being whatever domination they are have the right to judge me based on what I happen to with either my dick or my ass and where and how either of those items may or may not be used.  If G-d has all that free time to be that concerned with that aspect of my life, I have one thing to say--- Get a life, and preferably not mine.

According to the Talmud there are 613 mitzvot ("commandments") in the Torah/Old Testament.There are 248 positive mitzvot and 365 negative mitzvot given supplemented by seven mitzvot legislated by the rabbis/religious leaders of antiquity.

Items that are in the Bible:

1.   A glutton should be put to death--OK, all you morbidly obese people, go slit your throats because the Bible tells you too.
2. A woman's place is in the home under the husband authority at all times no questions asked or required-- so no more working women,no more equal rights for women, no more voting rights for women and certainly no equal pay for women.  Let alone having the wife own, inherit, or possess anything of any value.
3. A disobedient child should be stoned--OK, all you parents with G-d awful brats, you know who you are-- go stone your child to death right now.
4. All adulterers should be put to death-- OK, anyone who has ever cheated, which BTW includes a former-President, congressmen, senators, mayors, school teachers and religious leaders-- your next to be stoned to death.
5. Probably most importantly.. and this one is a shocker... The Emancipation Proclamation needs to be done away with because the Bible SUPPORTS slavery!
6. Some have gone so far as to say that the ENTIRE African race was born out of the curse of Ham! And have used the Bible to support their thinking.

Yet, somehow, the most pious of Christians would be simply be appalled  by these notions, and "Oh by the way darling, Christ himself did away with all the laws of the Old Testament with the whole idea of "Love thy neighbor as thyself", the Old Testament's is after all out of vogue."

Really--wow.  Love thy neighbor as thyself...... when you say LGBT folks are "not created in G-d's image, that LGBT Folks are in a continual state of sin for being LGBT, you ARE in fact saying that we are less than what G-d created--how self righteous of you to point that out. 

That employers have the right to fire us, landlords have the right to evict us, that the government has the right to deny us the right to marry, to adopt and to even love and in some countries has the right to put us to death... because you feel that this ONE particular Old Testament commandment is more relevant that than other 612 commandments of the Bible.

This goes into supporting organizations, or business that support anti-gay causes as well.  You give them your dollar, your dollar supports their hate, their rhetoric, and their bigotry plain and simple--no questions asked.

You want to stone me to death then darlin' keep in mind the words of Christ himself "Let him without ANY sin cast the first stone" oh and by the way darlin' here's your ROCK!

I have just had it and I don't care what the excuses are, if we as American were doing what we are doing to LGBTQ folks to any other race, anywhere on the planet someone would be screaming their bloody head off about it.  And I guess I am!

There are so many issues that we as a human race do not want to take a stand on---  you have someone like Gabby Gifford speaking out on gun violence, gun legislation and yet our elected officials have yet to take a stand and say that we as society do not need a gun that can shoot 300 hundred rounds in less than a minute.  Really, you need a gun of this power to go hunting Bambi, protect your home and your life--if this is the case then guess what I want to leave America.

You have someone like Harry Belafonte speak at the NAACP Awards about gun violence and yet did it fall on deaf ears.  It is not just the role of the black church to take stand on this issue but the church as a universal whole needs to say NO MORE!

You have masses of people who dying of AIDS because the costs or availability, or any other excuse are denied access to those drugs when the focus should be doing what we can to provide those desperately needed drugs to those who need them.

You have people tortured and killed in countries for whatever reason--sexuality, race or other topics simply because they are who they are,  When was the last time we spoke out about the gay man killed in Afghanistan or the genocide that is happening in Darfur--when we said "NEVER AGAIN" in the 1940's?

Are we that per-occupied with all of our technology, all of our commitments, all of the unnecessary things in life to take a stand for the things that really matter? Is it so important Johnny or Suzie belong to five after school activities, is it life changing if we don't talk on our cell phone constantly, that we forget the dead child killed in the streets yesterday only to talk about he dead child in the street killed today.

When have we done something for the poor, the underprivileged, the illiterate and the struggling in this country alone, not to mention the entire planet.  It has to start somewhere.  Mother Teresa started out simply--not being who she ended up being---Martin Luther King Jr.started as a simple country minister, Ghandi began earnestly and determined to change fate.

You want to be small minded--- do it on your clock, you want to be naive--- do it on your clock, you want to bury your head in the sand--- do it on your own clock.  I for one can't take it anymore.

I feel in the depths of my heart this is the real reason G-d in his divine wisdom left me alive nearly 22 years after being diagnosed with AIDS--- that I am to be the voice of the forgotten, the down-trodden, the struggling, the repressed, the hated and ridiculed and like Coretta Scott King I will strive to eradicate these issues till my dying breath.

In closing, I want to leave you with the words of Coretta Scott King:

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won you earn it and win it in every generation. 

 The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members, ... a heart of grace and a soul generated by love. 

 I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Now, my challenge is to bring about change!

Sistah 2 Sistah--my poetry

This powerful piece I wrote for an African American Women's Literature Class and in some ways was my respone to reading "For Colored GirlsWho Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange.  I hope I captured the spirit of her work, as that was my goal and while I am not Afircan American or a woman I felt this topic needed addressed in a powerful poetry piece.  With all of that said I hope you enjoy.


"Sistah 2 Sistah"

crazy ass bitch ya must

b outcha mothafuckin’ mind

where my god damn shoes at

ya juz his damn wife

wit ur mocha colored thighs

& coffee colored eyes

jus’ his dreadlock girl

cain’t do dis 2 often sistah

cuz he didn’t use a condom

may b a kiss 4 u his baby mama

i don’t need anotha mouf 2 feed

here in da projects

4 real it’s jus’ sex, yo’ nuttin’ mo’

she thinks or do she know

he jus’ wanna fuck ya

fo’ da 80 dollars he has on him

but dat nigga georgio don’t stop talkin’

how he seen ur man on christopher street

pickin’ up mens who never set dey foot in no ghetto befo’

he don’t need no damn atm

when dere michaels, trevors and stephens

dat luv a gangsta thug cravin’ der male pussy

a white melon backside

he done done it million times ‘fore girl i knows

fo’ real girl my word is bond

let him speak dat voice 2 me

swearin’ he ain’t no faggot

i sees em all up wid da gump on the prowl

dey dat bitch and he’s dey homothug

i done heard they go raw dog

but dat ain’t no bitch dats a man

so take your low down down-low

lying ass & leave my house & hood

i don’t  wanna c ur face u lying prick

cuz i’mma fuck ya up homeboy

tryin’ 2 act all black wigger

cuz dis here sistah don’t need

ya sorry ass or ya

hiv

Condoms NOW Required for LosAngeles Porn Actors

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Actors in many of the adult films made in the nation’s porn capital must use condoms under a law that took effect Monday, but the prophylactic police aren’t yet on the case.

How they will enforce such a regulation once they do begin enforcement is anyone’s guess.

In Los Angeles, where an estimated 90 percent of the country’s porn films are made, city officials and industry leaders are trying to settle on a way to ensure that there’s more safe sex on the set. Some say health care professionals should be present during a shoot to make sure actors use condoms.

"Today really is a milestone in the advance of health and safety for these adult filmmakers," said Ged Kenslea, spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which lobbied for years for the measure.
When the City Council passed the law in January, it gave police, the city attorney, the porn industry and others six months to recommend the best way to enforce the measure. They have roughly four months left.
Until then, it’s unclear whether police or health officials will start showing up at shoots. On Monday, city attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan said he didn’t know the status of enforcement.

To shoot a movie outside of a studio, the law requires a film permit and condom use. The larger porn companies that make the movies on studio soundstages don’t need permits and therefore are exempt from the condom requirement. The companies, however, would need one if they went to a house in a neighborhood to shoot a scene.

The question is whether smaller companies, in which only a handful of people show up at a house, usually in the city’s San Fernando Valley, quickly make a movie in a day or two and then move on, will pay any attention.

The head of one of the industry’s largest filmmakers said he hadn’t been approached about working out how the ordinance would work and how the city would deal with violators.

"We assumed we would be approached but we have not been," said Steven Hirsch, chief executive and co-founder of the Vivid Entertainment Group. Hirsch said about 90 percent of Vivid’s film shoots are conducted either in its own studio or outside the city.

But he quickly added that his company would immediately begin complying with the law and require that actors use condoms on any film shoots taking place outside a studio in Los Angeles.

Kenslea, the spokesman for the AIDS health care group, said he’s heard that, although as many 50,000 porn films a year are made in Los Angeles, only about 200 permits a month are issued by the city to film them.

"Just because they don’t take out permits does not mean there shouldn’t be regulations," he said.

Industry officials say the law isn’t needed and that their audiences find the use of condoms a turnoff. They said the industry’s own requirement, that actors be tested for sexually transmitted diseases every 30 days, is sufficient. Hirsch and others have pointed out that there hasn’t been a case of HIV linked directly to the making of a porn film since 2004.

Kenslea and other advocates of using condoms say there have been nine reported cases of HIV involving porn actors since 2004. They said those cases highlight the ever-present risk that someone can acquire the virus in their private life and then infect others on set.

When it comes to enforcement, Kenslea said, his organization is pushing for the city to use health care professionals, perhaps from a nursing agency, to conduct spot checks. The cost of the inspections would be paid out of fees the filmmakers would pay when applying for permits. The foundation has proposed a fee of $50 to $75.

Filmmakers who are caught violating the requirement would be refused future permits.

Meanwhile, his group is trying to get a measure on the November ballot that would require that Los Angeles County adopt a similar but tougher measure mandating a health permit similar to the ones for nail and hair salons. Such an ordinance would cover more than 80 other cities that fall within the county.

Some have threatened to leave the city, taking what they say is an $8 billion-a-year business.
Kenslea dismissed that as a "hollow threat."

"The industry is too entrenched here," he said, noting that Vivid, Larry Flynt and other prominent filmmakers are all based in the city and so are the industry’s actors and behind-the-scenes people.

If any do leave, he said, his organization will follow them and push for similar legislation in those new communities. In the case of one city, his organization won’t have to.

The mayor of Simi Valley, located about a 10-minute drive from the west San Fernando Valley, where most of the films are made, has proposed an even tougher ordinance than the one in Los Angeles. It is expected to come up for a vote of the City Council within a few weeks.

That law would require that a licensed health care professional be on any porn set to ensure condoms are being used and that the filmmakers turn over an unedited copy of their movie so authorities can see if condoms were used.

"The primary purpose here is it’s a health and safety issue. And secondarily, we don’t want them here," Mayor Bob Huber said of his city of 125,000 residents. "This is a family-oriented community and we don’t want them setting up their studios in Simi Valley."

Tim Gunn: I Haven’t Had Sex in 29 Years

"Celibacy: Make it work."

Project Runway uber mega-star Tim Gunn dropped a helluva bombshell on The Revolution (Don’t worry, we’d never heard of it either) yesterday. He hasn’t had sex in 29 years!

Watch as Tim explains what brought about his curious commitment to celibacy, while his co-hosts gasp uncomfortably.



We can squawk and guffaw about three decades without sex all we like, but Tim makes an excellent point. He began abstaining when his friends were dying of AIDS left and right. Tim, while celibate, is very much alive and healthy today.

What’s the longest you’ve gone without sex?

Julie Roberts, Alec Baldwin to star in "The Normal Heart"

Hollywood — Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy is bringing "The Normal Heart" to the big screen, starring Alec Baldwin, Julia Roberts, and Mark Ruffalo.

The movie is based on the Tony Award-winning, semi-autobiographical play by Larry Kramer, which chronicles the life of gay and HIV activists in New York City from 1981 to 1984.

Ruffalo will play the main character, gay activists Ned Weeks; Baldwin will play Weeks' homophobic brother; and Roberts will play Dr. Emma Brookner, one of the few health officials in New York to be taking the disease seriously.

Jim Parsons, one of the stars of "Big Bang Theory," has appeared in Broadway version of "The Normal Heart" and will reprise his role as a Southern gay activist.

Ruffalo, who is straight, has been active in helping the gay community, and headlined a fundraiser for a small gay club in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisc., last year.

 

Bryan Fischer: God Would Cure AIDS If Gay Men Would Just Having Sex

Stop f*cking! You're killing millions of African babies!

Activist Mike Tidmus Dies At 60

Well-known San Diego activist Mike Tidmus has died of AIDS-related cancer at the age of 60. Mike was a longtime JMG commenter and regular news tipster. His passing was disclosed yesterday by his brother via an email sent to Mike's list of Facebook contacts. His friend and GOP presidential candidate Fred Karger said via email:

Mike was an early leader in LGBT civil right internationally and right here at home. He was a cantankerous guy with a great wit and sense of humor. He battled HIV-AIDS for nearly 25 years and finally lost that battle today. He was so disappointed with the poor HIV-AIDS care in San Diego and worked to try and improve it. He was courageous to the end and, fought like he did all his life, to make things better for others.

L.A. Center Receives CDC Grant to Combat HIV/AIDS Among Black Gay Men

A new four-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will provide more than $330,000 each year to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center so it can expand its vital HIV prevention work.

Specifically, the grant is funding services tailored to reach gay and bisexual men of color who are 24 and younger.

"The HIV-infection rate we’re seeing among gay and bisexual youth, especially in men of color, is really alarming," said Susan Cohen, the Center’s Director of Health, Education and Prevention. "We know that, in order to reach the communities that need these services most, we have to tailor our approach to meet their needs. That’s why this grant is so important; it allows us to adapt our best practices to meet the needs of those most at-risk."

The funding will enable the Center to test more people who live in high-risk neighborhoods through its mobile testing unit. The specially equipped van travels to neighborhoods where HIV infection rates are on the rise, particularly in Latino and African American communities within the basin and south Los Angeles.

The mobile testing unit has been able to test about 600 clients a year, but the goal with the CDC grant is to increase the number of those tested and to link those who test positive to appropriate treatment and support.
"These programs are the result of Presidential leadership that has finally allowed funding for populations that are most at-risk for HIV infection but who have long been ignored," said Center Chief of Staff Darrel Cummings. "These programs build community and self-esteem, and they engage participants in the very real and complex issues that contribute to HIV risk. We can’t just say ’use a condom,’ we’ve got to address the many underlying issues that could lead them to engage in unprotected sex. "

The grant will also allow the Center to expand its MPowerment peer program. The youth-based initiative fosters community building and meaningful discussions about issues that can lead to risky behavior. It also provides youth with a safe space to create its own community.

"Funding on a federal level has not specifically focused on gay and bisexual men of color or youth of color," said Cohen, who said prior efforts haven’t focused on these at-risk populations properly. They mostly focused on gay men in general, and not reaching out to underrepresented populations.

"There is a correlation between communities struggling with homelessness and poverty and higher HIV rates," added Cohen.

Other Los Angeles-based programs focusing on minorities and at-risk LGBT youth include the Sabores Youth Program through Bienestar that is geared towards LGBT youth between 14 and 24.

Sabores is offered in Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and it focuses on promoting the health and well being of LGBT youth who take part. The program offers individual counseling, weekly support groups and social events that are held in a substance-free and safe environment.

The Center for Strengthening Youth Prevention Paradigms in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles provides services to help mobilize these communities. The SYPP center provides services based on the creation of sustainable structural changes that reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and building an effective coalition of service providers and community-based organizations to combat the spread of the epidemic

William J. Mann on AIDS

William J. Mann  

(From "The Edge: New England) William J. Mann has told the story of a generation that came through the AIDS crisis, dealt with the social and political turmoil of the 1980s and 1990s, and touched the very lives that he was describing in his seminal trilogy of books, "The Men from the Boys," "Where the Boys Are," and "Men Who Love Men."

But Mann has also told the story of Hollywood as a gay place where gay people--be they in the closet as they often were--made a profound impact on global culture. Mann’s works include "The Biograph Girl," a fictionalized account of the life of silent screen star Florence Lawrence, as well as biographies of a prominent early gay actor, "Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines" and an Oscar-winning director, "Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger."

More recently, Mann has turned his attention--and his skill as a cultural detective--to divas of the screen, icons with big gay followings like Kate Hepburn ("Kate") and Elizabeth Taylor ("How to Be A Movie Star"). The book he now has in progress, "Hello, Gorgeous," concerns itself with arguably an even bigger star: Barbra Streisand.

Mann agreed to an interview with EDGE about the imminent Streisand biography. The friendly chat turned into a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion about his life and career thus far.

  

Growing Up and Getting Involved

Mann meets me at the door with a quick hug. "I’ve got a cold," he says apologetically. Then, in his usual solicitous manner, he escorts me inside and offers me a drink. "Sorry about the mess," he says, navigating his way around plastic sheeting, tools, and assorted displaced kitchen items. "We’re renovating. This is the kitchen stage."

Mann’s comfortable house in Provincetown is one of two homes that he and his husband, Dr. Timothy Huber, a psychologist, maintain. On this particular day, Huber is in New York, setting up a new practice. Until recently, the couple, who married in 2004, spent winters in Palm Springs, California. They’ve since sold their California home and bought a house in Connecticut, the state where Mann grew up.

Mann’s younger years were those of a gay kid who didn’t lie to himself when he realized who he was. The writer embraced his sexuality and the world of people like him as an 18-year-old in the 1980s. His coming of age took place in the wake of the sudden and devastating fury of the onslaught of AIDS, and on the cusp of the energetic activism that put gay people on the political map once and for all.

It seems like an appropriate place to start the interview: How did being a club kid in the midst of the AIDS crisis affect his view of gay culture and, by extension, color his novels? How does this club kid now see the gay world, and what does he think the future might hold?

"I’m might still be a club something," Mann chuckles. "But I’m sure not a kid.

"How did being a club kid influence my view of gay life?" Mann continues, reflectively. "I think that I was always in the midst of things as they were happening. It was an exciting time, with all the parties that used to go on, parties which eventually became the circuit. At that age, I wasn’t as politically aware of the bigger picture as I became later, but because I was so versed in the gay bars and going out, I had a sense of the larger community out there, all the different kinds of people there were in the big gay world.

"I don’t think that for many kids today, that world of the club still exists," Mann reflects. "It’s online. Even today at Tea Dance, a young man I met told me he doesn’t normally talk to anybody because he comes with his friends, his pack. They all travel together because they all know each other, and the idea of meeting someone at Tea Dance or in the clubs isn’t a big part of what they do."

As he grew up and completed his education, Mann grew more aware and interested in the gay political situation.

"It was when I got my graduate degree at Wesleyan," the novelist tells EDGE. "Through meeting people at Wesleyan, I got to know some of the Connecticut gay activists. When I got my Master’s, I was teaching at UConn as an adjunct, to make money. I got an apartment in Hartford and made friends with the local activists, and that woke me up and sharpened my awareness of the political situation.

"That was in the early 1990s, when AIDS activism was at its height, and we’d go to ACT UP demonstrations in New York or Washington. That group of activists in Connecticut really became my family."

Since then, of course, things have improved for the GLBT community in many ways--except, Mann notes, where they have not.

"It’s infuriating, the political situation now," he tells EGDE. "More so than before because, ’God damn it, how come we haven’t evolved already?’ It’s frustrating that’s it’s still an issue, that we have to defend ourselves from people like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. It’s 2011! That level of homophobia should have gone away by now--and I think it would have, if George W. Bush hadn’t been handed the White House in 2000.

"At that point, a lot of the evangelical movement was disenchanted with politics. There was talk of them just retreating to their own worlds and teaching their kids what they wanted. They were discouraged that the public wasn’t more on their side during the whole Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. But with Bush getting in there--and he looks positively pro-gay next to Bachmann and Santorum--the evangelical movement had eight years in which to reorganize, get their judges appointed, and get their message out through Fox News.

"I’m not saying we wouldn’t have homophobia today if Bush hadn’t been president," Mann continues, "but if we’d have had eight years of a pro-gay bully pulpit under a President Gore. We would have seen a continuation of the kind of gay acceptance that we saw growing all through the 1990s. Can you imagine what these crazy people would say about "Will and Grace" today? It’s no surprise we haven’t had such an unapologetically gay show on TV since that point.

"The rhetoric that we hear today is worse than it was ten years ago, and not just on gay issues," Mann adds. "Now we talk about whether burning a Koran is free speech. Ten years ago such a discussion would have been seen as beyond the pale to have on national TV. Anyone advocating such a view would be marginalized and not given airtime. But now extremism dominates the national conversation.

"And we’ve gone beyond homophobia. Now it’s ’Death to gays.’ We’re an abomination, we should be killed--it’s happening in Africa, and there are now religious fundamentalists who actually float that idea in this country as well. That, again, would have been beyond the pale to even infer ten years ago.

"The rhetoric has just become much more extreme on so many levels. Look at the disrespect the office of the President is given under Obama. That would have been unthinkable under Bush."

 

LONDON — Elton John is writing his first book, a personal account of the AIDS crisis.

 

The musician says "Love is the Cure: Ending the Global AIDS Epidemic" will include memories of friends who died of AIDS-related illnesses, including Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

British publisher Hodder & Stoughton says the book will be published in July along with an audio book read by the British pop star. The U.S. publisher is Little, Brown.

Proceeds will go to the Elton John's AIDS Foundation.

John said Monday the book would ask why more is not being done to cure the disease.
He said AIDS "is a disease that must be cured not by a miraculous vaccine, but by changing hearts and minds, and through a collective effort to break down social barriers."

Gay Marriage Victory Still Shadowed by AIDS

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Steve Mendelsohn lost a partner to AIDS. “If my partner were alive, I believe we would have married.”

By AUSTIN CONSIDINE 

ON the evening of June 24, Steve Mendelsohn celebrated in the street with his friends and nearly a thousand other supporters of same-sex marriage outside the Stonewall Inn, the storied gay bar in the West Village.

The setting was nothing if not appropriate: In 1969, a riot at the Stonewall would make the bar forever synonymous with the awakening of the modern gay rights movement in America. That night, nearly a half-century later, a bill passed that would allow gay men and women to legally marry for the first time in New York State.

For Mr. Mendelsohn, 54, the moment represented an unequivocal victory: an apex to decades of struggle for equal recognition under state law. Still, the moment was tinged with a sense of absence, as it was for many gay men his age. Amid the jubilation, he couldn’t help but think of Phil Kanner, his partner of 15 years, who died of complications from AIDS in 1995.

“I was thinking, ‘I wish Phil were here with me,’ ” Mr. Mendelsohn said in an interview in the fall, adding later, “If my partner were alive, I believe we would have married.”

For many middle-aged gay men in New York City, the passage of the same-sex marriage law was in part a fresh reminder of the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic, when men like Mr. Mendelsohn, the director of a nonprofit media group, lost innumerable friends and loved ones to a disease that was often as stigmatizing as it was deadly.

At the height of the epidemic, the disease took tens of thousands of lives in the United States each year; it reached its deadly peak in 1995, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the number of deaths of those with AIDS reaching more than 50,000 that year.

Those who survived haven’t stopped living, forming new relationships and organizing for equality in the decades since. But the memory of what was lost lingers — a shadow cast by marriage equality’s glow.
“New losses can trigger old feelings of grief, but so can successes, so something like having gay marriage can trigger feelings of loss,” said James Masten, a Manhattan psychotherapist and author who has worked with patients with H.I.V. and AIDS for the last 20 years.

“Even though it’s a positive experience, it can still remind us of all the people who aren’t here, who haven’t had the opportunity to see this — all the activists who never lived to this point,” he added.

Jeffrey Sharlach, 58, founder of a Manhattan-based communications firm and an adjunct associate professor of management communication at New York University, said he lost nearly every one of his gay friends in New York during the 1980s and ’90s, including his partner of more than 12 years, Ken Williams, who died in 1994 at age 33. Mr. Sharlach is publishing a novel in May about that period in his life called “Running in Bed,” which he described as about a quarter autobiographical.

For Mr. Sharlach, New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic became an empty shell, its streets a constant reminder of loved ones who were disappearing. “Every single block would be like, ‘Oh, I remember this guy used to live here.’ ”

“It was like a city of ghosts,” he added.

With the passing of time, many of those who survived the 1980s and ’90s have gone on to form meaningful long-term relationships. Some, like Mr. Mendelsohn, took advantage of the same-sex marriage law fairly quickly. In September, he married Wallie Pagunsan, exactly two years after the day they met.
Others, like Mr. Sharlach, believe that the moment for marrying may have passed. Though he, too, has a long-term partner, his second since Mr. Williams died, he has little interest in marrying.

“I think the relationships that you have when you’re older are different than the relationships you have when you’re in your 20s,” he said. “In your 20s you have this idea that you’re going to grow together, build a life together and kind of grow up together.”

His current relationship, Mr. Sharlach added, is “much more mature.”

The generational marriage gap felt by Mr. Sharlach, and echoed by others, isn’t only about age. It’s also a function of history and denied opportunity. While some middle-aged gay men and lesbians leaped at the chance to marry after having been denied the right, others say the concept feels too foreign today because it was such a remote possibility for so long.

“The idea of gay marriage — I mean nobody ever talked about it, it was nowhere on anyone’s radar screen,” Mr. Sharlach said. During the 1980s and ’90s, he said, “we were just worried about people not being fired from their jobs, people not getting kicked out of their apartments. That was the big thing. Really, basic rights were much more important.”

David Norris lost his partner of 10 years, Jeffery Reddick, in 1992, also from AIDS complications. Like Mr. Sharlach, he focused for years on other issues that, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, seemed more urgent.

 

“It also just seemed like such a pie-in-the-sky thing,” he said of same-sex marriage. “It was just like: ‘That will so never happen. Why put energy into it?’ ”

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Today, Mr. Norris, 57, has a partner of 18 years who lives with him in the Upper West Side apartment he once shared with Mr. Reddick. The two own a house together in Asbury Park, N.J., and were joined there in a civil union to make property ownership more economical and practical.

But it would feel wrong to have a marriage recognized in one home state, but not another, he said. Mr. Norris, a vice president for an insurance group, has long been active in gay equality groups like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Lambda Legal and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. He hopes to engage more fully in his advocacy role once he retires.

Mr. Norris is thrilled about the New York marriage law, he said, especially for younger people who, largely because of his generation’s efforts, will never know the same kinds of discrimination. But he is reluctant to marry because he believes the law doesn’t go far enough. “We probably will get married, but I still go back and forth on it,” he said regarding his current partner. “I want the whole enchilada.”

If the federal Defense of Marriage Act were repealed, he would feel more certain, Mr. Norris added. “Then we’d be booking the banquet hall. It would be a real celebration.”

The men interviewed for this article may form an imbalanced picture of their generation because each has gone on to form long-term, meaningful romantic relationships — despite the loss of partners, and regardless of feelings about marrying. But, as therapists attest, there are silent others who remain haunted by the tragedies of the AIDS scourge, and unhealed by the passing years.

“Of course, there’s a sense of positivity around gay marriage, but many gay men of my generation, I would describe us, actually, as a lost generation,” said Darrell Greene, a Manhattan psychologist who spent the worst years of the epidemic working for AIDS-related health organizations, first as part of the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland, then at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the AIDS unit at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, in New York. It was, he said, “like living through a war.”

“There are many people who are survivors and who have tremendous resilience, of course,” Dr. Greene said. “But in terms of my population, there are many people who were profoundly traumatized by the epidemic. And they are still processing what happened to them.”

Mr. Mendelsohn, who welcomed the news of the gay marriage act outside the Stonewall, has learned above all to place his loss within a larger context — in a way that, though tragically ironic, gives added positive meaning to the otherwise devastating experience.

“I believe that there wouldn’t be any gay marriage today if it weren’t for AIDS,” Mr. Mendelsohn said. “There was so much intolerance and misunderstanding about who was gay and who wasn’t until everyone found out that people were gay because they were dying. And it was their friends, their family, their relatives.”

Support groups for gay men grieving the deaths of their partners helped Mr. Mendelsohn, like many of the men interviewed, cope with his loss, especially in the years just after his partner died. As time passed, his grieving evolved, his nightmares stopped.

“Somewhere, the memories were less and less about the hard times and the illness, and more and more about the happy times,” he said. “It was less traumatic. I came to see him more as my angel looking over me and helping me.”

HIV + Man Admits to Trying to Infect Thousands of PArtners

 

In what’s probably the most horrible thing I have heard in months, a HIV+ man in Michigan turned himself in to authorities last week and confessed to sleeping with 3,000 men and women and, according to police reports, “intentionally attempt[ing] to spread the disease to kill people.”

As it stands, David Dean Smith, 51, has only been arraigned on two counts of penetrating a partner who did not know he was positive.  One female victim, who met Smith on Yahoo! Personals, told MSNBC he was a “sociopath” and a predator. ‘He hits [on] drifters. He hits people who are young. He hits young women, and from what I understand, he hits men, too,” she added.

It’s unclear whether Smith’s lawyers will attempt an insanity defense: Sexual penetration with HIV is considered a felony in Michigan but Smith had recently been remanded to a mental hospital Smith after several suicide attempts. (Files from the hospital indicate he is “sexually aroused by causing pain to females.”)

Attorney Richard Zambon told the network that he plans on “exploring all options” in his client’s defense. “I am concerned about his mental health.”

Tournament of Roses Features AIDS Float

Tournament Of Roses Parade To Feature First-Ever AIDS Themed Float

Karen Ocamb reports at LGBT POV:

This year the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena will make history: it will be the first time in the parade’s 123-year history and the first time in the 30 years since HIV/AIDS was identified that a float will acknowledge those who died of AIDS and the advocates who helped them. [snip] Many of the 150,000 water vials will hold “AHF Memory Flowers” with inscriptions of the names of lost loved ones handwritten on the vial. AHF says their “Elizabeth Taylor: Our Champion” Parade Float was designed by award winning float designer Raul Rodriquez and is being built by the respected and award-winning Fiesta Parade floats.

Daniel Rick convicted of knowingly spreading HIV virus

Daniel Rick could get 10 years in prison, and is facing two other charges.

​Daniel Rick has been found guilty of knowingly spreading the HIV virus through unprotected sex with another man, a felony that could put him behind bars for as long as a decade.

The man who had sex with Rick in the spring of 2009, when the two had known each other only briefly, told police the encounter was wholly consensual. But Rick didn't mention his HIV infection to the other man, who soon fell ill.

Rick, now 26, had known of his own illness for at least three years at that point, but never -- not before, during, or after the unprotected sex -- mentioned his affliction to his partner, who figured it out only after doctors told him he was HIV-positive.

On Friday, a jury found Rick guilty of felony assault. His conviction, which is classified as a first-degree assault, is the first of its kind in Hennepin County. Daniel is also facing trial for two other similar cases.

After Rick and the other man met online and exchanged messages for some time, Rick came in to the Saloon Bar, where his victim worked as a bartender. At the end of his shift, the bartender went to meet Rick for a late-night hook-up.

During the anal sex, during which neither man wore a condom, Rick ejaculated inside the other man, according to the criminal complaint filed in March 2010 by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.

Spokesman Chuck Laszewski confirmed that Rick is the first person in the county convicted under the crime of felony assault for "knowing transfer of communicable disease," and Laszewski said it might also be the first of its kind in Minnesota.

The jury's conviction, which came down on Friday, means Rick's fate now lies in the hands of the judge. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 28, which will also be used to set a trial date for two other cases being brought against Rick.

Britain's Manliest Man Bares All For Elton John Charity

(Thanks to the Advocate for running this story originally) Rugby star Sacha Harding has bared all for a photo shoot for the U.K. magazine Gay Times to support Elton John’s AIDS foundation.

“AIDS is such a devastating disease for so many people around the world and I was honored to get this opportunity to try and do my part to help raise awareness of the disease and ultimately save lives," Harding says.

Last year Harding, who plays with Bedford Blues, was also voted "Britain’s manliest man" after winning a nationwide competition organized by men’s grooming brand the Bluebeards Revenge.

Harding is one of 54 men to appear in the magazine's annual "naked issue." Darren Scott, the editor of Gay Times, says in a statement that he was delighted to feature Harding on the front cover. "How could we not have Britain's manliest man on our cover?" he asks. "Our readers do like their men to be real men! It's an absolute joy to have a straight rugby player be so willing to take part in a shoot for Britain's longest-running gay magazine."

Harding is happy to help a cause he believes in. “I know I’m going to get some stick from the lads at Bedford but it’s all good fun and the whole campaign has a very serious message which needs promoting,” he says.

The Elton John Aids Foundation supports innovative HIV prevention programs, efforts to eliminate stigma and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS, and direct care and support services for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Watch video of Harding's shoot and interview below.