Tag Archives: LGBT

Behavioral Science, Culture, Ethics, human rights, mental health, Philosophy and Religion, Religion, Social Justice, Stigma

Pope Francis’ call for legal acceptance of same-sex relationships

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Pope Francis’ call for legal acceptance of #same-sex relationships has raised both hope and worries among #LGBTQ Catholics.

“What we need certainly to create is a civil union law,” the pontiff said in “Francesco,” an upcoming documentary from Russian American filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky. “That way, these are typically legally covered. I stood up for that.”

Image: Pope Francis delivers "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas Day message from main balcony of St. Peter's Basilica

The remarks are a departure from earlier church messaging. Inside the last book, “Memory and Identity,” Pope John Paul II suggested same-sex marriage was “part of an innovative new ideology of evil.”

In 2003, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote that respect for gays and lesbians “cannot lead in any solution to the approval of homosexual behavior or even to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

“Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on a single level as marriage will mean not only the approval of deviant behavior,” Ratzinger wrote, “but would also obscure basic values which fit in with the normal inheritance of humanity.” It has not been long ago that African Americans and Whites could intermarry. At that time, some Whites believed that Blacks would destroy the white race. Now, we see that the Pope is making a bold statement. Why are some people concerned about others’ marriage when their marriage ends in divorce because of an unfaithful partner who may be practicing deviant behavior with an individual of a different gender or that same-gender, which leads to adultery? Why get in other people’s business if your business is not perfect? Who gives a person the right to tell others who to love when your Christian bible say, “save yourself”? What would G-d say about one’s prejudice toward a sister or brother who may not share the same beliefs? Are we better than the other person because we know scriptures and many times misquote them without knowing the historial context that time in which scripture was written? If we take the scriptures literally, should we be stoning people?There are gay people in our families, pulpits, professional life who are doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, firefighter, ministers, essential workers, and in the church serving in every ministry whether known or unkown. There are just questions to think about.

Reference
Pope’s civil union remarks raise hopes, doubts for gay Catholics. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/pope-s-civil-union-remarks-raise-hopes-doubts-gay-catholics-n1244337?cid=referral_taboolafeed

Culture, human rights, Politics

Do you know what the colors in the rainbow flag stands for?

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The rainbow flag that has turned out to be a worldwide icon of hope for LGBTQ individuals around the world, first flew in San Francisco bay area’s United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978.

It had eight colors — two more than today’s version — and was created by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist, and activist. He has previously been accredited to develop an icon for the LGBTQ people by his associate Harvey Milk, the initial openly gay chosen official in California.

Baker drew motivation from the US national flag, which had commemorated its bicentennial in 1976, and a real rainbow, which showcases the colors of the light spectrum in approximately precisely the same sequence since the flag. He assigned a meaning to every one of this colors: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for harmony and violet for spirit.

The first flag measured 30 by 60 feet and Baker, who was then 27 yrs. old, had sewn it by hand.

Reference
Pride flag: A history of the Gilbert Baker rainbow design …. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/pride-rainbow-flag-design-history/index.html

disease, Health

People need access to all options in HIV testing

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Usage of HIV testing is a fundamental human right that may only be met with an international commitment to eliminate the obstacles that reduce the risk of people from testing for HIV. Those hindrances consist of reducing HIV-related preconception and discrimination, making sure privacy in HIV testing and treatment services and implementing an optimum mixture of HIV testing techniques to attain the populations most in need, amongst others.

However, in most regions, more recent testing technologies are nevertheless not widely available. Among countries that documented all about available HIV testing modalities to UNAIDS in 2018, just 32 countries permitted lay providers to execute HIV testing, 14 offered HIV self-testing, and 18 offered home-based HIV testing. Helped partner notification was more common, with 54 out of 140 reporting countries reporting that taught service providers can be provided to assist newly identified people in revealing their HIV status to partners.

Reference
HIV testing: people need access to all options | EATG. http://www.eatg.org/news/hiv-testing-people-need-access-to-all-options/

disease, Health

HIV treatment may eliminates risk of passing on virus

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The possibility of passing in the HIV virus is wholly eradicated by successful drugs treatment; a landmark study has revealed, in a substantial boost towards the prospects of ceasing the AIDS epidemic.

Research of about 1,000 gay male couples with one partner with HIV who had taken antiretroviral therapy (ART) discovered no new cases of transmission towards the HIV-negative partner during sex without a condom.

During the period of the eight-year study, 15 men were infected with HIV, the herpes virus, which causes AIDS. However, genetic tests revealed that the transmissions were a result of the HIV-negative men having sexual relations with someone aside from their partner.

The report, in The Lancet medical journal, indicates that using ART to suppress HIV to undetectable levels showed that it was incapable of transmission during sex.

If everyone in the world with HIV knew their status and had usage of successful treatment, no new cases would occur, the study suggests.

Reference
HIV treatment eliminates risk of passing on virus …. https://fox17online.com/2019/05/03/hiv-treatment-eliminates-risk-of-passing-on-virus-landmark-study-says/

Culture, disease, Health

Looking at the new HIV map that offers a detailed look at the epidemic

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The United Nations has established a target of ceasing the global HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The tide, in other areas, is slowly turning in southeastern Africa — which involves international locations like South Africa, Mozambique, Lesotho and Botswana — and which remains the epicenter associated with the epidemic and home to over fifty percent the 36.9 million people living with the disease. The rates of fatalities and infections one can find declining overall. However, a July 2018 report through the United Nations’ AIDS agency found a $5.4 billion shortage in international financing needed to accomplish ultimate triumph.

A first-of-its-kind new map can help boost the precision associated with HIV/AIDS response as some data-savvy scientists narrow their focus on the continent’s worst-affected areas — into the size of a tiny town.

Research published presents what these scientists explain as the most step-by-step map ever produced of HIV prevalence across sub-Saharan Africa. The group behind the map is a global consortium of epidemiologists led by the University of Washington-Seattle’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Their work appears when looking at the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

The researchers do not just go country by country. Researchers break down the continent into a grid of tens and thousands of 9.6-square-mile squares. The effect is a view of HIV distribution that is more fine grain compared to general national or province level statistical data, and that could have a significant effect on how resources are assigned to diagnose, treat and stop new infections.

Reference
Fan, Yaxin, Xinyan Zhu, et al. “Network-Constrained Spatio-Temporal Clustering Analysis of Traffic Collisions in Jianghan District of Wuhan, China.” PLoS One, vol. 13, no. 4, Public Library of Science, Apr. 2018, p. e0195093.

New HIV Map Offers Most Detailed Look Yet At The Epidemic …. https://www.tpr.org/post/new-hiv-map-offers-most-detailed-look-yet-epidemic

Ethics, Politics, Social Justice

Supreme Court will hear LGBT staff member discrimination cases term that is next

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The Supreme Court consented Monday to think about whether national employment discrimination legislation that bans discrimination centered on sexual orientation encompasses discrimination considering one’s sexual identification.

Lower courts have actually split from the pressing issue that is of critical relevance to LGBT legal rights supporters who are seeking broadened defenses. The Trump management has actually stated that Title VII for the Civil Rights Act doesn’t supply protections that are such.

The court will hear arguments from the instances next term.

The situations are now being closely watched by LGBT rights groups that are wanting to broaden defenses. The Trump management, on the other hand, does not believe the law currently includes those defenses.

More information discrimination of LGBT in the workplace

 

Philosophy and Religion, Social Justice

Pope Francis: Church Should Apologize To Gays And Other Marginalized Groups

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Aboard a flight home from Armenia, Pope Francis fielded a pointed question from reporters: Did he agree with German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who, during the wake associated with Orlando shooting, said gays deserve an apology from the Church?

His answer was frank.

“I think that the church not just should apologize to the person who is gay whom it has offended,” the pope told reporters, “but has got to apologize to your poor, to exploited women, to children used for labor; it’s got to inquire of forgiveness for having blessed many weapons.”

Resource:

Pope Francis: Church Should Apologize To Gays And Other Marginalized (nd) Groups http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/26/483630582/pope-francis-church-should-apologize-to-gays-and-other-marginalized-groups?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160626