Gay Appointed to South Africa’s Highest Court

Justice Edwin Cameron, a justice on South Africa’s Supreme Court, has been appointed to the Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest court by the nation’s President Mothlanthe. Cameron has been particularly vocal on the subject of HIV/AIDS and has been praised by Nelson Mandela as ‘one of South Africa’s new heroes’. Judge Cameron was the first judge to disclose that he was HIV-positive.

Star Trek’s Lost “Gay” Episode Airs Saturday

From Star Trek: Phase II:

“Blood and Fire: Part One”, will be released on December 20, 2008 as a holiday gift to fans. The fourth episode completed by Star Trek: New Voyages, and the first produced under the Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II moniker, “Blood and Fire” was written by Carlos Pedraza and David Gerrold, based on an original TNG script by David Gerrold.

The horrific story finds a battle damaged Enterprise caught between an incurable contagion that threatens to overrun the galaxy, the pull of a dying star, and Klingons poised to attack. Like all of the best Star Trek episodes, “Blood and Fire” finds the Enterprise crew facing their own human fears and failings as they have to weigh the costs and decide how much personal risk to take in order to save the people around them.

Gerrold wrote the story of contagion as a metaphor for the AIDS pandemic and the episode is dedicated to the gifted Star Trek alumni the world has lost to the disease: William Ware Theiss, Mike Minor and Merritt Butrick. It was also Gerrold’s intention to challenge the apathy of the public regarding the small sacrifice, yet far reaching power, of blood donations. Based on an original TNG script that was shelved because of the mention of a gay crewman aboard the Enterprise, “Blood and Fire” for Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II honors Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a non-judgmental future with the inclusion of a gay couple as part of the principle action of the story.

Side Effects Include….

Greg is 48, in a relationship, and like most Americans, has prescription medication. He seems just like any other American, but that’s not the case. He has suffered side effect after side effect, each seeming more serious than the last. This is all because Greg, like millions is experiencing perhaps the ultimate side effect of sex; Greg has AIDS. I had only spoken to Greg via email prior to our meeting in which he agreed to an interview. We decided to meet at a quaint, coffee shop just off Government Center. As I sat, waiting for him I wondered what he would look like. After all, he wasn’t HIV positive; he told me he had AIDS. Based on my perception of AIDS through my studies and through the media, I expected Greg to be gaunt, unable to walk on his own, and on the verge of death. That wasn’t the case. In walked a tall, slightly overweight guy who looked just like anyone else. After shaking hands and chitchatting, he told me his story.

Read the entire post at Sex and Pharmacy!   A GREAT new site!

HIV Art Project - PWA Body Maps

From xtra.ca:

The “bodies” of three gay men living with HIV are hanging in HIV Edmonton’s boardroom. Their naked figures are vivid with colour, honesty and expression. They are hard to ignore with graphic stories emerging from their flesh the longer you stare at them — soon you learn that this is the point.

The “bodies” are actually body maps, a self-portrait art form in which the traced self becomes a shell to express one’s lived experience. They were created this fall during a three-day workshop organized by HIV Edmonton in a rural Alberta retreat.

Indonesia to Implant Microchips in HIV +

According to a post in Reuters:

Indonesia’s Papua province is set to pass a bylaw that requires some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips in a bid to prevent them infecting others, a lawmaker said on Saturday.

Under the bylaw, which has caused uproar among human rights activists, patients who had shown “actively sexual behavior” could be implanted with a microchip to monitor their activity, lawmaker John Manangsang said.

“It’s a simple technology. A signal from the microchip will track their movements and this will be received by monitoring authorities,” Manangsang said.

If a patient with HIV/AIDS was found to have infected a healthy person, there would be a penalty, he said without elaborating.

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