At 11:46 AM 9/16/00 -0400, Jodi Hoffman wrote:
In 1972 (the year before the APA unilaterally decided homosexuality was "no longer an illness") the Gay Rights Platform was drawn up at the convention of the National Coalition of Gay Organizers. It was officially set forth at the Gay Pride March on Washington, D.C. on April 25, 1993 and has been reinforced every year since.
By the way, a couple more of the demands:
1) Demand that contraceptives and abortion services be made available to all persons, regardless of age (what the hell does that matter to homosexuals???);
i'm opposed to all government-funded health care;but, if we ARE stuck with it, it ought to be for all, and, of course, no PRIVATE company should be forced to discriminate on the basis of age.
2) Full inclusion of lesbians, homosexual men, bisexuals and transgenders in education of children and child care;
Seems reasonable to me. Why not? A heterosexual is as likely to be a child molestor as anyone else.
3) Legalization of all forms of sexual expression, including pedophilia, changing age of consent laws to allow sex with children;
They're already down to 14 in Bible belt states like Arkansas...
4) demand that Federal Defense budget funds be diverted to cover AIDS patients' medical expenses...
The 1998 Federal Budget included $4.746 *BILLION* for AIDS funding. That was a $465 million increase over the 1997 Budget, which is more funding than all forms of cancer combined. Current Federal Money (your tax dollars and mine) spent per death:
AIDS/HIV: $39,172.00 Diabetes: $ 5,449.00 Cancer: $ 3,776.00 Heart Disease: $ 1,056.00 Stroke: $ 765.00
What's wrong with this picture? You don't get cancer by engaging in promiscuous sex. Funding should not be based on sexual behaviors.
Government shouldn't be funding medical care at all. However, deciding what to fund on the basis of some moral judgement is folly. Cancer, diabetes, and strokes *ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS*;AIDS is. That makes it far more of a 'public' health threat, and thus, by the logic of 'public health care', the most likely target. Besides -- you get strokes from eating hamburgers, cancer from smoking, and adult-onset diabetes from too much chocalte and not enough exercise. All of these are sins (Gluttony, laziness, etc) in the Christian morality as well -- shouldn't we be "punishing" those sinners as well as gay people?