{"id":80013,"date":"2019-02-27T20:25:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T01:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/mike-pences-new-chief-of-staff-regrets-past-anti-hiv-views-but-is-still-a-danger\/"},"modified":"2019-02-27T20:25:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T01:25:56","slug":"mike-pences-new-chief-of-staff-regrets-past-anti-hiv-views-but-is-still-a-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/mike-pences-new-chief-of-staff-regrets-past-anti-hiv-views-but-is-still-a-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Pence\u2019s New Chief of Staff Regrets Past Anti-HIV Views But is Still a Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Pence\u2019s New Chief of Staff Regrets Past Anti-HIV Views But is Still a Danger<\/b><\/p>\n

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Last year the Human Rights Campaign released a video highlighting the Vice President\u2019s failures in protecting Americans from HIV<\/a>, calling him one of the most dangerous individuals when it comes to public health initiatives vis a vis HIV.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike Pence has spent his career putting people in danger by denying them access to HIV prevention and treatment,\u201d said Ashland Johnson, HRC\u2019s Director of Public Education and Research in a statement last year<\/a>. \u201cFrom spreading misinformation about condom use, to contributing to a major outbreak of HIV and AIDS in his home state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPence,\u201d Johnson continued, \u201chas been reckless with the health and lives of those he is sworn to serve, choosing to promote a dangerous ideology overmaking the right decisions for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In light of that, the appointment of Pence\u2019s new incoming chief of staff, Marc Short, who wrote a series of virulently homophobic, anti-AIDS, right wing columns in college, is terrifying in its potential impact on HIV policy.<\/p>\n

Short, \u201cdisparaged people living with HIV and AIDS and claimed that the transmission of the disease was largely the result of \u2018repugnant\u2019 homosexual intercourse in an early \u201990s column for his college newspaper according to <\/a>The Daily Beast<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in this context that Short\u2019s subsequent apologies, and suggestion that his college views and have since \u201cevolved\u201d and don\u2019t reflect his current views ring dangerously hollow.<\/p>\n

The media mea culpa also obfuscates his role as one of the most powerful behind the scenes Republican Party operatives.<\/p>\n

It also suggests that his personal and religious views potentially compromise any objectivity in shaping HIV policy while we are in the midst of a calamitous HIV epidemic among Black gay men in the South<\/a>, where, \u201cDowntown Atlanta is as bad as Zimbabwe or Harare or Durban [All in Africa],\u201d Dr.\u00a0Carlos del Rio, the co-director for the Emory Center for AIDS research,\u00a0said in 2016.<\/p>\n

Pence\u2019s \u201clackluster public health efforts are what led to the defining moment of Pence\u2019s one-term Indiana governorship: a massive HIV outbreak spurred by public health funding cuts and Pence\u2019s moralistic stance against needle exchanges,\u201dreported the <\/a>Huffington Post<\/a><\/em> in 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact Pence\u2019s response to Indiana\u2019s HIV outbreak,\u201d\u00a0the worst in state history<\/a>, reads like a plan of what to do if you want to create a public health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the county\u2019s one Planned Parenthood clinic was shut down in 2013, it was in the midst of one of the worst intravenous opioid crisis in the country. People were sharing needles, leading to an explosion in HIV transmissions and no one was getting tested because Scott County\u2019s Planned Parenthood was also the county\u2019s\u00a0only HIV testing center.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of HIV infections could have been drastically reduced in Indiana\u2019s Scott County and the state\u2019s belated response in March 2015 came after the peak of the epidemic, likely having little effect on its trajectory, reported<\/a> The Lancet<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Short, like his new boss, is a fundamentalist Christian, who once blamed AIDS on the \u201crepugnant\u201d homosexual lifestyle in his college writings.<\/p>\n

Short can stuff his apologies. <\/p>\n

As Maya Angelou famously said, \u201cWhen\u00a0someone shows you\u00a0who they are,\u00a0believe them\u00a0the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the HRC produced video<\/a>: The Pence Report: HIV Issues, below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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The post Mike Pence\u2019s New Chief of Staff Regrets Past Anti-HIV Views But is Still a Danger<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Mike Pence’s New Chief of Staff Regrets Past Anti-HIV Views But is Still a Danger<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n