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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 5, 2004)
match 5. 2004 » ¿maLMm t| 15 Continued from Page 1 3 told Just Out. “If these meds were available for them at an earlier time, they might still be here. I have these memories ingrained in my head. I don’t want them happening to anyone else unnecessarily.” P ortlanders V isit D.C. to S ave AIDS P rogram ozens of people with HIV and their advo cates came to the nation’s capital Feb. 24 seeking funding from Congress to maintain access to life-saving HIV/AIDS medications. They were in Washington, D.C., to deliver a letter— signed hy more than 400 community- based groups, health care facilities, national health care provider organizations as well as local and state governments— asking politicians to save the AIDS Drug Assistance Program by providing $180 million in an emergency supple mental appropriation for fiscal year 2004. The amount would serve as a down payment on the $319 million the program will need through fis cal year 2005 to serve nearly 100,000 clients. ADAPs across the country are in fiscal crisis. According to a January report by the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, 791 eligible clients are already on waiting lists. Moreover, 15 states have taken steps to limit access to lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs, while at Rachel Pobi traveled to Washington, D .C ., last least nine others plan to do so in the near future. month in hopes of saving the national A ID S Since 2002, ADAPs have not received ade Drug Assistance Program quate federal funding. The fiscal year 2002 bud get fell short by $62 million, and the gap was About 100 people from 32 states met with $79 million in 2003. Advocates predict this year their congressional representatives. Portland- could see the largest budget shortfall of about area participants included Rachel Pobi, a het $180 million unless Congress acts. erosexual woman who has been HIV-positive for Unlike previous years, state and local gov 24 years, and Fred Schaich, International Foun dation for Alternative Research in AIDS ernments won’t have the funds to make up the founder. difference, leaving thousands of HIV/AIDS patients without needed medicines. Even a “In 1990, before combination medicine was short gap in treatment can undo years of available, I was in a support group of 12 people; progress in fighting the infection. all but two of us died within two years,” Pobi D A LOOK THAT WILL MAKE YOU PROUD FROM SOMEONE SPECIALIZING IN MALE/FEMALE PRECISION CUTS. (ONE B L K SOUTH OF HWY 26) ( 503 ) C L I N I C P a r i 250-3388 C a A L L A o u n c i l o in E x k H T p e r s o n a l C n c A 503 - ! Offering general internal medicine and excelling i s k : L C f? 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The Human Rights Campaign strong ly condemned the recess appointment. “We have no reason to believe that William Pryor— who has shown time and again that he’s unable to separate his anti-gay beliefs from his professional duties— will he able to serve as a federal judge without bias,” president Cheryl Jacques said. “Mr. Pryor changed his vacation plans to avoid being at Disney World during Gay Days. If he’s too prejudiced to share a 36,000-acre theme park with openly gay couples and their families, he should not he serving on a federal bench. It’s especially troubling that he’s been appointed to the same court that’s been asked to rule on whether gays who serve as fos ter parents should he able to legally adopt chil dren they’ve raised their entire lives.” Pryor will serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which has been asked to review the decision in Lofton vs. Kear ney upholding Florida’s ban on adoption hy gay ' Com piled by JlM RADOSTA and M eg D aly C E R T I F I E D in sexual health care 503 226-6678 A n ti -G ay J udge W ill D ecide on F lorida A doption B an M FLEXIBLE APPTS. AVAIL. • EVERY 10TH HAIRCUT IS FREE W estoyer H eights For more information visit umnv.atac-usa.or^/adap. FITNESS VILLAGE BARBER SALON 100 SW MURRAY BLVD. and lesbian parents even though they’re allowed to serve as foster parents. Portlanders Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau, who are raising three foster children from Florida, are among the plaintiffs in the case. Jacques added, “Putting an individual with a track record of animus against G L BT Ameri cans on any federal court, particularly the 11th Circuit, could have a devastating effect on so many G L B T Americans and their children.” In his role as Alabama’s attorney general, Pryor abused his position by utilizing state resources to directly and indirectly attack queers in his state and across the country. He linked the state attorney general’s Web site to vehemently anti-gay groups, including the Family Research Council and the American Center for Law and Justice, which regularly litigates cases against queer rights. Pryor also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Lawrence vs. Texas, the U .S. Supreme Court case challenging sodomy statutes, in which he likened homosexuality to incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, prostitution and adultery. He also argued in the brief that sodomy is a chosen behavior unworthy of con stitutional protection. 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