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GAY
MEN'S HIV/STD Prevention Task Force
Here's What People are Saying About the Community Manifesto: • Finally.
GAY men as POSITIVE ROLE MODELS. 10/08/03 • Thank you for stating your position with such a strong, unified voice! This type of manifesto should be adopted by the straight community and communities of color as well. Since this manifesto is also aimed at bisexual men, please remind them that they must also use condoms for vaginal sex as well as anal sex. I wish EVERYBODY had as much personal integrity as you guys on the MSM Task Force. BD 10/09/03 • Thank
you RS 10/ 09/03 • I
found out about the Manifesto in today's article Unlike any who
may be 'shocked' by the Manifesto, I think I would like to see
it stiffened. I would like to see more demands made of us, and
made more explicitly. As a MSM, this Manifesto states what my
obligations are to partners, but when it comes to the rest of
my community, there's really only one item: Challenging friends
or loved ones that do not conform to this community norm with
the consequences of their actions. Don't we really need all MSM
to do more than just that? To challenge only our own friends and
our own loved ones? Don't we have to directly challenge all those
other members of our communities who downplay the risks of unprotected
sex? Who habitually "don't want to go there" and "don't
want to talk about it?" I think we have to challenge more
members of our community than just our own friends and loved ones.
I also note that the Manifesto makes no demands of any kind on
gay media or gay businesses. I could provide you with countless
examples of how Gay.Com and Planet.Out frequently fail to communicate
a strong and unequivocal message about safe sex. Print media are
as bad, or worse. Gay media and entrepreneurs who profit by catering
to our sexuality surely have some specific obligations as well.
SB 10/09/03 • I think the Manifesto is well written and to the point. I have difficulty understanding why people would have a problem with it. God forbid we ask people to come together as a community, take responsibility, and grow up! As a long-term person with HIV I for one am tired of having people refer people to me for counseling who are newly positive. I would rather talk to people before they are to help them understand that once you have HIV you have a disease. Well done! M. Allen 10/09/03 • As said by many, it is a good start. While I think that gay men must accept responsibility for ending the epidemic, however, government too has a role to play. Perhaps this might be addressed through some additional language calling on government to not stand by while MSM communities across the country are being ravaged, that responding to the global pandemic includes responding to needs here in the US, that fighting organizations seeking to reach us with direct and graphic programs is unacceptable, etc. I'd also note that I think the gay white community needs to acknowledge its responsibility for the racial balkanization of the MSM community that causes many to reject labels of "gay" and "bisexual" and consequently to separate themselves from prevention and treatment services. As for gay men of color, I'd commend to you the report of a group of black gay men convened under the auspices of the Black AIDS Institute (it's linked on BAI's home page at www.blackaids.org). Maybe you could also challenge other communities across the country to struggle with this issue. TS 10/09/03 • The Manifesto is a compelling appeal for love and respect of ourselves, our partners and our community. But for all this, it's still barely more than an artfully penned playbill for the live production, a suspenseful thriller about slowly shifting perspectives and changing behaviors. It's our show and we each must accept our roles as supporting cast members. We just can't afford to sit in the audience any more. DL 10/09/03 • I am sorry. I have sex with men. I should be punished more. What is the real problem.... Is it the low self-esteem imposed by a cruel and hostile society and the fact that the only gratification I can get is the meager ego lift knowing that at least my body is valued? It certainly couldn't be that the great mass of humanity feel and act as if AIDS were an act of God and therefore divine retribution for sinners. Would possibly giving gays and lesbians the same rights as heterosexuals be just as important a solution as telling them not to behave sexually? No one I know who has a meaningful loving relationship frequents the sex spots. WF 10/09/03 • All this seems like commonsense. It's sad that it's necessary to remind people to take care of themselves and each other. JS 10/09/03 • I applaud this Manifesto and I hope it will wake our community up from the ignorance of not using condoms and thinking HIV/AIDS is curable with drug cocktails. Every gay and bisexual man should read this and sign it. JG 10/09/03 • Greetings from DC! Please keep me posted how this goes. I also want to partner with you around something loud and strong for National HIV Testing Day June 27. Our messages will be delivered by positive people. Thank you so much for doing this important work to save our lives. PF 10/09/03 • The Manifesto doesn't advocate the only thing that will prevent HIV/AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea,campylobacter, condyloma, "gay bowel syndrome," ano-rectal trauma, anal cancer, and the many other maladies associated with homosexual sex. Abstinence is the only thing that will prevent these problems. Sexual reorientation is available and is even validated as beneficial in new studies by Robert Spitzer of the American Psychiatric Association, and others. People who wish a more healthy lifestyle, where AIDS is not a constant risk should consider re-orientation therapy or the ministries and twelve-step programs available. KM 10/09/03 • If all the uproar to hold agencies like Gay City and Lifelong is being done out of concern for gay men's health, then no one must be concerned about the health of gay men of color. The articles and letters to the editor in the SGN and Stranger are mostly targeting Gay City and Lifelong, but these agencies are not the main agencies that provide prevention services to gay men of color. Is anyone holding POCAAN responsible? It's about time that this community say something about how POCAAN has been irresponsible to the HIV community, and on some levels the community that it is sanctioned to reach. When that happens, then I can start feeling like Gay City and Lifelong need to be held accountable, because they don't serve me as a man of color. Anonymous 10/ 09/03 • I think that this Manifesto is an effective way to educate people about the spread of HIV/AIDS and to help people to adopt self love to know that they are worth it! At the risk of sounding trite, we all need to respect ourselves, protect ourselves and those we love. The anticipated dialogue of the Manifesto is exciting! HF 10/09/03 •
I have been positive for 13 years and everyone that knows me knows
that. I have never been ashamed of that fact and I'm not going
to start now. If I am going to engage in any act that might put
anyone at risk my status is discussed first and everyone I know
feels the same way. That is my responsibility as a human being
and the sentiment of all my friends. That is my commitment to
fight this ids-ease, as it is many peoples. In my years of working
HIV Prevention in New Orleans, LA and in FL, I have never seen
anything more of a set back for HIV prevention then this Manifesto.
For those of you, some whom I have seen in different places doing
some of the things that this manifesto condemns and have signed
on with this, I am very disappointed. This is not the direction
prevention should be taking. This isn't prevention; this is a
feel good tactic that won't work. Are concentration camps the
next step, some of you will be right there with us? HIV negative
people need to take responsibility for their own actions as we
do. Not only is this manifesto going to alienate people, it will
scare them away from going to testing sites to get tested out
of fear of being seen. For those who have tested positive it will
suppress them from revealing their status to possible partners
and friends out of fear. I see we just took a leap backward to
the 90s. This is fear based and fear breeds contempt, contempt
= distrust and complacency with the system which leads to closet
behaviors. I came from Florida where the only prevention we could
share was abstinence; we could not mention anything else and still
keep our funding which was already greatly cut not only by George
Bush but by Jeb Bush as well. I hear you don’t have to operate
under such restraints so why isn’t the concentration in
the adolescent stages rather then on the already infected. We
know the consequences; we are living it and don't need hateful
wording and harassment of this work. At our ASO in Florida we
saw double increases in HIV infection and STD in adolescents but
could not convince the state and federal government that school
education was greatly needed for prevention of HIV and other STDs.
I would see these young people after the fact when teaching TASK
(The Aids Survival Kit) and found that many did not have the information
that we could have been provided prior to their infection if we
didn’t have the restraints that federal and local government
put on us and our funding. What kind of right wing tactic is this?
Cut funding for HIV prevention from the organizations that do
the most good and then place funds in peoples hands that, evidently,
know nothing about human nature and or behaviors. I guess it will
take some HIV or STD infections close to the administrations home
to make them realize that education is power and knowledge gives
one the added responsibility of taking their own lives into their
own hands and not laying blame where it shouldn't be laid. Trying
to appease the Stranger isn't the way to work prevention even
if your job might be on the line for past indiscretions that were
dug up. Learn to delete e-mail after you read them. Knowing, consenting
adults are just that. They have to take responsibility for themselves,
it is not just a responsibility of the positive individual, responsibility
lays in the hands or the negative individual as well as the positive
person. If we can't get the word out, "responsibility lies
within ourselves to protect ourselves" then we have already
lost. As I see it today, the government has stifled programs that
teach responsibility for ones own actions by not giving them the
accurate and concise information needed to make their own decision.
We are the messengers of how devastating HIV is to our bodies.
We need to show people the real effects of HIV on the body as
well as the disruptive effects that the medications have, instead
we see pharmaceutical ads for medications with body building models,
I sure wish it was that way, but, it is only an illusion and perceptions
and not reality. The messengers should not be the models that
the pharmaceutics portray as happy and healthy. How healthy is
diarrhea and night sweats and blood work every 3 or so months.
How about wasting of the face and crixbelly and buffalo humps?
This is the message that should be going out to our nations youth
and adults that have no true idea as to what HIV and STDs for
that matter can do to them. No thanks to the sheltering from the
parents and the religious right of our youth by not allowing them
the education and information that is out there to protect them
and give them some responsibility for their own actions with educated
decision Reality is here, youth are going to experiment sexually
as they always have and if they aren’t armed with the knowledge
they need they will not make educated choices. This manifesto
will put us back in the closet and discredit all that has been
accomplished in the past decade instead of advancing us forward.
We are not all as this Manifesto portrays. The majority are very
responsible individuals that would never think about transmitting
any of these diseases but if they shy away from testing and knowing
their status then what accomplishments have been made with this
piece of work. As you can tell, I am not happy with this manifesto
and its implications as the working in this manifesto portrays.
As it is written, most people wont even read the whole document
because of the inflammatory language it is written in and will
just disregard it as more right wingers running scared instead
of facing the implications that sex is going to happen and if
people aren't educated they can't make knowledgeable decisions
and if they do know the consequences then they take the responsibility
into their own hands and there is know one to blame but themselves.
This Manifesto is only going to be fodder for the press and religious
right to shame, condemn and disgrace any individual who might
even consider being tested let alone revealing that they are positive.
The implications are far reaching and the wording of this manifesto
is so right wing its prejudice oriented. The fodder is already
hitting the press and the right is running with it. It’s
already started. History is repeating itself here as it is in
Florida. -- (signed) Very Disappointed • I love this. It's pointed and doesn't try to tell people they have to get "married" to have sex. A great step forward in our current environment. GM 10/10/03 • I fully support the manifesto, and I admire your initiative and courage. JH 10/10/03 • Thanks for putting this together. This is an important step to a healthier and safer gay community is Seattle. JL 10/10/03 • As a 46 year old gay man who has seen how aids has affected members of the community and friends, I am in favor of this manifesto. I applaud Dan Savage's courage to take a strong moral stand on the issue of disclosing HIV status to sexual partners. It takes courage to risk being labeled a heretic by the SGN, which for too long has been the only voice/opinion on HIV issues. JM 10/10/03 • I am a politically conservative, hetero male who has long cherished my friends in the gay community in Seattle. While I have often bit my tongue when taking part in certain conversations about sexual practices my friends indulge in, this is definitely not one of those times. There can be no excuse for such immoral, self-destructive, and arrogant behavior. To treat one's own life (and the lives of untold others) in such a cavalier way is flat out WRONG. I feel that way when a straight guy knocks up his girlfriend and leaves her to deal with the outcome; I feel that way when a pregnant woman lights up a cigarette and pops open a beer. Wrong is wrong, and no polemic shortcuts will change that. I support the Community Manifesto and would like to know how else I can help. JM 10/10/03 |