If you’re not from NYC you may not have heard of him, but Rev. Al Sharpton is a bit of a fixture around here – he’s even run for mayor (and I voted for him). The man says things that are so true and says them with a frankness that’s wonderfully refreshing. Here’s the latest from him…

It amazes me when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when the they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being delegated into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners. There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people’s bedrooms and claim that God sent you.

Can we clone him? Maybe make a few white versions of him and put them in places like Kansas so his message reaches a broader audience?

Needless to say guys like him are another reason why I love New York. Find me another place where a prominent black minister is saying things like that… And then there’s our blind, black governor who is trying his hardest to get us gay marriage, and the new (black) state senate majority leader who decided he’d rather lose his position than compromise his principles on things like his support for gay marriage (3 anti-gay Democratic senators were threatening to caucus with the Republicans if they didn’t get a vote on gay marriage taken off the table – in the end they lost and he won but the point is he wouldn’t use our civil rights as a bargaining chip for him to get a great deal or power)…

I really can’t imagine living anywhere but NYC…

I haven’t been finding John Stewart all that funny lately (Colbert seems to be a lot funnier), but damn – this segment on Gay marriage with Mike Huckabee shows politically he’s right where he needs to be. Maybe he should morph more into a Rachel Maddow sort of program, though being on Comedy Central sorta makes that difficult.

I especially love the bit where Huckabee says gay people need to prove why they deserve marriage and Stewart challenges him on the fact that people need to prove they deserve equality… Good stuff!

And sorry for not posting hookups – life’s been crazy lately and I just haven’t had the time or energy to fuck anyone. Maybe this weekend…

The FBI has released it’s hate crime statistics for 2007, and they say there were 1460 hate crimes based on sexual orientation. If you take out the 27 that were anti-heterosexual crimes, there were 1433 crimes against the LGB community last year (transsexuals don’t seem to be included as a category). That’s 3.9 every day…

The FBI statistics reveal that hate crimes against our community are on the rise, whereas other types of hate crimes are going down.

But I’m a little suspicious- the homicide numbers seem low. They say only 5 LGBT people were killed last year. But the video from FightOutLoud.org I mentioned back in early March documented 7 deaths in just the first two months of this year: Shanesa Stewart, Adolphus Simmons, Alexio Bello, Patrick (“Patricia”) Murphy, an unidentified transgender woman in Detroit, Lawrence King, and Simmie (“Beyonce”) Williams Jr. How can only 5 have been killed in all of last year when we had 7 die in just two months this year?

I haven’t been tracking the stats very well since then, but just the other day two elderly gay men were bludgeoned to death in their home – Milton Lindgren, age 70, and Eric Hendricks, age 73. I’m sure there are others as well.

I’m guessing the FBI’s standards for calling something a hate crime are a bit too stringent. Looking at who’s been killed so far this year it’s overwhelmingly black, hispanic and/or transgendered people getting killed. It makes you wonder if those killings are getting handled properly and correctly labeled as hate crimes.

Also, given how the campaigns have gone, it’s pretty clear which presidential candidate will be more likely to A) have the FBI report the data correctly, and B) take meaningful steps to reduce the violence against our community.

I’m swamped with work and it’s making me not so horny… Guys want to hookup and I just never seem up for it. I’ll get back in the swing of things in a couple days, but I thought I’d share a study I found through LifeLube (possibly the only pro-condom site I’ll say good things about).

The gist of the study is that repeated exposure to other strains of HIV maintains a strong anti-HIV immune response in the bodies of guys who are already poz. While super-infection is theoretically possible, it’s extremely rare. What’s more normal is for the poz bottom to actually benefit from the poz cum he’s getting in his ass…

We found that individuals, who regularly engaged in unprotected receptive sexual intercourse with an HIV-1 infected viremic partner, displayed higher T cell responses to HIV proteins compared to those who were not regularly exposed to a viremic partner. None of the individuals within this study showed evidence of systemic super-infection. Exposure had limited impact on general activation or poly-functionality. These results are clearly of importance for HIV-1 infected individuals who chose to engage in unprotected sexual activity with other HIV-1 infected individuals. These data also reveal a more general mechanism that occurs in infectious diseases: immune responses to chronic viruses are influenced not only by the virus within the host, but also by exposure to the virus from without.

So from an HIV perspective, poz guys apparently will stay healthier if they take loads up their ass from other poz guys, at least on average. Of course you also have to factor in the negative effect of the other STDs you’re likely to get – it’s not 100% beneficial.

Read the study

Get this one… A 23 year old DJ in Raleigh North Carolina named Josh Weaver is under house arrest for barebacking – complete with one of those electronic ankle bracelets. He had plead guilty earlier to having sex on three occasions without disclosing that he was poz and received probation that stipulated that he wasn’t allowed to have any unprotected sex. Well, he got an STD the health officials said could have been prevented with a condom and now he’s under house arrest for violating his probation.

Personally, I don’t get it. I can see criminalizing lying about your HIV status, but I don’t get how it’s the poz guy’s responsibility to tell if the neg guy doesn’t ask especially in anonymous situations. What happened to the concept of personal responsibility? NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR HEALTH EXCEPT YOU!

He’s living with his father, so if he’s really lucky his dad is cool with him having guys over. Once his probation is up I’d suggest he come to some place like New York where disclosure isn’t mandatory.

I mean, a guy who’s that hot should have all the sex he wants…  I know I’d fuck him  😉

ADDITION:

One thing I want to add here… If he’s on meds and has an undetectable viral load. He’s safer to have sex with than a “neg” versatile guy who’s running around barebacking and not getting tested regularly.

The laws were written in an era where poz guys were pretty infectious pretty much all the time. That’s not the case any more and I’d love to see one of these laws challenged on the basis of the person in question had an undetectable viral load.

To say that all poz guys have to disclose all the time and not require neg guys who haven’t been tested in say the last three months to disclose that their status is actually “unknown” simply makes no sense. The current policy is a lot like a scarlet letter.

Saw this video on Towleroad – it’s brilliant. It reminds us once again why it’s important to vote for gay and gay friendly candidates this year. It’s about giving future generations visible options, letting them know they can be who they want to be, achieve what they want to achieve.

Now compare that to this…

There’s so much I could say about that clip, but the point is many of us grew up around people like that (in my case they managed to state their bigotry a bit more tactfully, but the bottom line was about the same). It’s vital that young gay teens see that when they get the opportunity to get out from under those circumstances there’s a life waiting for them that’s worth living.