by Emily Bridges, Director of Public Information Services

Through YOUR efforts, including lobby visits and hundreds of emails and phone calls to Congressional offices, the HIV travel ban has been lifted!

The travel ban on people living with HIV and AIDS was a discriminatory policy maintained by the United States government that automatically denied entry into the United States to non-U.S. citizens otherwise eligible for entry on the basis of their HIV-positive status. If a non-citizen was found traveling into the U.S. with HIV medication, they were arrested and placed on a flight home. 

The US’s travel ban was controversial because there is no scientific or public health rationale from barring those with HIV from entering the country, since the virus is not spread by casual contact. The ban also meant that the important biennial International AIDS Conference could not be held in the United States.  The U.S. was one of only about a dozen countries with these regulations.

by Brian Ackerman, Program Manager, International Policy

Late last week, legislation was introduced in the Uganda parliament that expands criminal penalties for being gay.

The Anti-Homosexuality Law, Bill Number 18, in the Ugandan national parliament, has all the trappings of yet another gross violation of human rights structured on the premise that gays constitute some sort of threat to the general social welfare.

Under Uganda’s current penal code, any member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community can be imprisoned for up to 14 years if they are convicted of carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature.  This new legislation would increase that sentence to life and, if one is convicted of aggravated homosexuality, carry a penalty of death.

That’s right—in 2009, at a time when states are moving toward recognizing marriage equality in our own country, Uganda is moving toward making life for the LGBT community in their country a living Hell.

Send a letter to President Obama urging him to condemn the proposed legislation! 

By Joe Sonka, Managing Editor of Amplify

Right now, America seems to be flooded with delusional conservative conspiracy theorists.

“Obama was actually born in Kenya, and is a secret foreign agent sent to destroy our country from within! Obama is secretly setting up FEMA internment camps for conservative critics! Obama’s healthcare reform will set up “Death Panels” to kill old people and babies with disabilities! Obama has mandated that taxpayer funds will now cover abortions!”

Of course, none of these allegations are true. Although, providing funds for poor women to exercise a legal right is something that I wish were true. But unfortunately, it looks like it won’t be.

In an effort to reach “common ground” on abortion, it appears that coverage for any abortion under a public insurance plan was off of the table from the very beginning. From a recent interview with Katie Couric , it looks like the Hyde Amendment, which bans public funds from being used to cover the cost of an abortion, is here to stay:

By Meghan Rapp, Program Manager, State Strategies 

On June 25th, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Healthy Youth Act, clearing the second-to-last hurdle before becoming a law that’s been years in the making. The Healthy Youth Act, which amends the state’s current law about abstinence-only and sex education, was signed by Governor Bev Purdue on June 30th.

The bill’s final version was a departure from the two-track system originally proposed: one track for abstinence-only programs (the past standard for North Carolina, and, as we know, programs that fail to provide youth with accurate and complete information about sexual health) and one for comprehensive sex education. Parents would have been able to place teens in a specific track or no track.

This bill, with its parents’ choice, was fairly unique. In the past few years, the successful sex ed bills have generally been about medical accuracy. Beyond that, this bill wouldn’t outright eliminate harmful abstinence-only programming. Yet, given the overall conservative nature of the North  Carolina, and past experience with a similar track system in New Hanover County (where parents overwhelmingly selected comprehensive sex ed), it was a gamble worth taking.