Black AIDS Institute Responds to CA Gay Marriage Ruling
The Black AIDS Institute applauds the California Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the state’s law limiting marriage to opposite sex couples. The ruling is a blow against homophobia and sexual stigmatization and, therefore, a blow against HIV/AIDS.
It is by now clear that shame and stigma surrounding sexuality—whether gay, straight or bisexual—is deadly. When our public policies reinforce a social order in which some relationships are valued more than others, we push people to the margins. When we refuse to affirm open, healthy relationships, we encourage hidden, self-damaging ones.
And that’s something Black America cannot afford. As a community, we can no longer accept the plague ravaging members of our families. Study after study has shown HIV infection rates among Black gay and bisexual men to exceed those in some of the hardest hit corners of the globe. A seven-city U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found 46 percent of Black gay and bi men to already be HIV positive. And the toll is particularly high among young men: A New York City health department study last fall found that a stunning nine out of 10 HIV infections among gay and bisexual men under age 20 were among Blacks and Latinos.
Many different factors come together to drive these trends, ranging from the social to the biological. And far too many questions remain unanswered: Research shows, for instance, that despite the racial disparity in sexually transmitted infections, Black gay and bisexual men take fewer sexual risks than their peers. We must dig deeper to understand these sorts of complexities surrounding our sexual health.
One villain, however, is clear: Sexual shame and fear. And public policies that devalue loving, supportive relationships help spread these emotional vectors of disease.
Moreover, our nation’s sexual caste system is not only unhealthy, it’s immoral.
“Homophobia is as morally wrong and as unacceptable as racism,” the late Coretta Scott King reminded us. “We ought to extend to gay and lesbian people the same respect and dignity we claim for ourselves. Every person is a child of God, and every human being is entitled to full human rights.”
From child custody to health benefits, our government denies those rights daily through intrusions into the family decisions of same-gender couples. They are denied access to more than 1,000 legal rights and responsibilities that marriage brings. It’s an injustice carried out against a broad swath of society.
The 2000 Census found same-sex households in 99.3 percent of U.S counties. And not just white people: 10.5 percent of those households were Black and 11.9 percent were Latino. And not just the couples themselves: 34 percent of the female couples and 22 percent of the male couples were
raising at least one child in their home.
The Black AIDS Institute welcomes the day when every state follows the lead of California in working towards true equality for all of our families.
Phill Wilson
Executive Director
Black AIDS Institute
AIDS is a Black disease
unless we do something.
Our People, Our Problem, Our Solutions
