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Obama at 100 Days
By: Michael Weinstein, Frontiers IN L.A.
Los Angeles, CA - May 4, 2009
People concerned about AIDS in the U.S. have been waiting a long time for presidential leadership. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like we are going to get it anytime soon. One hundred days of the Obama administration have passed without the president saying word one about AIDS.
Let me make it clear from the out- set that I was an early and strong supporter of Obama when most of the LGBT community was supporting Hillary Clinton. Also, I am not giving up hope. You can argue that the first 100 days is an artificial deadline. But it is an American political convention that a new president defines his presidency by the program he lays out in the first 100 days. And, judging by the prime-time press conference the president had on the 100th day, he subscribes to this notion.
Among the other excuses that have been given for the neglect of AIDS is that the economy and Iraq were the immediate priorities. Well, the problem is that this administration has launched dozens of new initiatives—stem cell research, lifting an abortion gag rule, carbon emissions, Cuba, etc. If all of these are a greater priority than HIV, which afflicts 1.2 million Americans and is still spreading rapidly, then that tells us a lot about the president's thinking.
If having a Democratic president and huge majorities in the Congress we still cannot abolish abstinence-only programs that have hobbled HIV prevention efforts, when will it happen? If having the first black president cannot implement routine testing, who will do it? If not now, when will the federal government start actively promoting the use of condoms—the only effective method of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV?
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck—it is probably a duck. This administration is taking a dive on AIDS. From the moment I heard that right-wing pop evangelical Rick Warren was giving the invocation at the inauguration I knew we were in trouble. It is my guess that a political calculation has been made that Obama can attract more of the Christian right in 2012 and that blacks and gays, who are most affected by HIV, have nowhere else to go.
Also, with the waning of AIDS activism, the Democrats assume that they can easily get away with ignoring the issue. With the recent announcement that Washington, D.C., has a higher rate of HIV infection than West Africa, a golden opportunity was lost to highlight the huge domestic AIDS problem that this country has. I personally campaigned to get $400 million in the stimulus package for HIV testing, which was deleted with the support of the White House. Not one Democrat in Congress protested.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation recently ran an ad on CNN in D.C. and New York saying: President Obama, we hope you are the change we can believe in on AIDS. In this one-minute spot—which you can find on YouTube.comoraidshealth.org—we went throughthe record of all of the presidents since AIDS came on the scene in 1981. It is not a pretty picture.
So those of us who care about AIDS need to decide what we will do if the president's silence continues.
- Frontiers IN L.A.
http://www.frontierspublishing.com/2801/consliving/cs_hivliving.html
