There is information below on this page about GLBT Issues affecting YOU.
Be sure to check it out!
Currently however, Dave Crafts is our official advisor. We are also considering looking for a professor to be an advisor along with him, so that way they can co-advise when one or the other is busy. We will update you soon on the details as they come to us.
this is the year that we are really trying to get our name and message out that
we are here, and
In this section of the webpage, I have included several bits and pieces of information that have come directly from the HRC website, as well as other useful sites (which will be mentioned as I go along). These are the GLBT issues that affect you and those you love, and that's why it is so important that we learn about them, as well as teach about them to those who are ignorant to them.
"Joe proposed to me one day and I said would I marry him. When he said those words we understood marriage was not really a possibility for us. But nobody says 'would you be my registered domestic partner.' It doesn't have the same ring."
— Kevin Bourassa of Toronto, in the Philadelphia Daily News on April 27, 2004. He and his partner, Joe Varnell, were the first same-sex couple legally married in Canada.
This was a quote taken from the HRC website. I want you to sit there and think about what that quote truly means:
Should marriage really be considered a "Right?"
Isn't it more of an honor? Or an act of love? When in this great nation of ours did somebody say that equal rights disqualifies you from the ability to be married.
Millions of African Americans contested the ruling that "Separate but Equal" was anything but, and they were all right. They were not equal in any sense of the word.
The passing of Issue 1 in Ohio should mark a time in all of our lives where we should feel the need to speak up even more than that which we have been doing and fight even harder for all that we believe in.
There is a verse in the Bible, in I Corinthians 13:7 that goes like this:
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
I think this quote really sums up a lot. Many people who are against gay marriage argue that it goes against the Bible. Personally, I feel this is a huge cop out. The Bible was written not to be taken literally but to be open for interpretation, and just as often as it describes Homosexuality as a sin, so does it describe Heterosexuality as a sin.
Another excuse people like to say is that "well, gay people only want to get married because of the benefits that go with it." They say that the benefits are only financial. However, the benefits of being married go much further than just financial. They include emotional benefits as well. Listed below are just a FEW of the 1,138 federal rights, according to the HRC's webpage, that same-sex couples are denied:
It doesn't get any easier than that.
Unfortunately, AIDS is a growing epidemic all around the world. This is one of the reasons that, since 1988, December 1st has been known as "World AIDS Day." This is a day that is full of activities in your local community, as well as globally, that attempt to reach out and teach the surrounding population about AIDS and its growing number.
According to UNAIDS (www.unaids.org), The United Nations Programme on AIDS, the number of people living with AIDS in 2003 was 38 million, already 3 million people higher than the statistic taken in 2001. Studies have shown, according to the same source, that females "can be 2.5 times more likely to be HIV-infected as their male counterparts." In hearing this, many people may be concerned that this is a bias statistic, but when you sit down and think about it, it makes a lot of sense. You see, women in America actually have it quite easy. Even though it wasn't always this way, and women at one point in the USA were treated as inferiors (and sometimes are still to this day, though not the same here as others), there are women all around the world that have to have sex in order to keep food on their table.
UNAIDS states that another reason that AIDS is 2.5 times more prevalent in women is that there is inadequate knowledge about AIDS in many countries, and many women in these countries have the inability to negotiate safer sex. All this may sound weird to you, but imagine this following scenario: All you want to do is go to school. I don't mean college, I just mean middle school. But, in order for you to go to middle school, your family has to pay $5 per semester. Your father works as much as he possibly can, anywhere from 12 to 18 hours a day, and still he can not make enough in that time to send you to school, because the wages he works for are sometimes only 50 cents a week. However, the schoolteacher says that if you have sex with him on an almost daily basis, he'll let you go to school for free. What you don't realize, is that several of your classmates are in the same situation, so not only is he having sex with you, but many other girls in your class.
Does this repulse you at all?
If it doesn't, maybe you should re-evaluate your thoughts. This is why AIDS is able to spread so quickly through areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia; People are poor, therefore there are women who are willing to give up a part of themselves in order to benefit their family.
Makes you feel pretty privileged, doesn't it?
Like I said earlier, World AIDS Day was established to bring about awareness and education of the growing AIDS epidemic. This past year's theme for that day was "Women, Girls, HIV & AIDS." As UNAIDS said on their website, the World AIDS campaign 2004 "explores how gender inequality fuels the AIDS epidemic, and is conceived to help accelerate the global response to HIV and AIDS by encouraging people to address female vulnerability to HIV."
The red ribbon is a sign of AIDS awareness. Make sure that on December 1st especially, you wear one to show that you are aware of AIDS and its ever-growing affect on the world in which we live.
Along with informing you all about World AIDS Day, I also wanted to give you some more facts about AIDS itself. Even though AIDS is no longer considered the "gay disease," it is still a problem that we all need to be informed about. So, with nothing else to say, I shall begin.
Africa is home to just over 10% of the world's population. In sub-Saharan Africa there are 25 million people living with AIDS. In 2003, it is estimated that 3 million people became newly infected with AIDS and 2.2 million other people died from it. This figure amounts to 75% of the 3 million AIDS deaths annually. On average in these regions of Africa, there are 13 infected women for every 10 infected men. In other parts, such as is the case in Kenya and Mali, there are as many as 45 infected women for every 10 infected men, just going to show that the reason behind this year's campaign being based on women and children is for good reason. In the worst-affected countries of eastern and southern Africa, as stated on unaids.org, "if current infection rates continue and there is no large-scale treatment programme, up to 60% of today's 15-year-olds will not reach their 60th birthday."
In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, about 1.3 million people, according to the UNAIDS website, are living with HIV as compared to about 160,000 just 9 years ago in 1995. More than 80% of this number of people are under the age of 30 as well. Estonia, Latvia, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine are the worst affected of these countries but it also continues to spread throughout Belarus, Kazakhstan and Moldova. Injecting-drug use is the main driving force behind this region's epidemic, with more than 3 million people in Russia being users. Russia also happens to be one of the countries hit hardest in this region, with women accounting for an increasing share of newly diagnosed cases of HIV each year.
Latin America is home to around 1.6 million people with HIV. The main form in which HIV is spread in Central America is through sex, both heterosexual and homosexual.
There are three Caribbean countries that have national HIV prevalence rates of at least 3%. These include the Bahamas, Haiti, and Trinidad. Around 430,000 people in the region are living with HIV and the epidemic is mainly heterosexual, in many places concentrated among sex workers. The worse affected country is Haiti where national prevalence is the highest outside of Africa at 5.6%.
There is always a lot to learn about AIDS. Because HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is just that, a virus, it is constantly changing. Unfortunately, until medical professionals can figure out a way to cure the common cold, there will more than likely be no cure for AIDS.
Avert.org has a site called "The Origins of AIDS & HIV, & the first cases of AIDS." Below, I have listed just a small amount of information coming directly off of their page.
I apologize for the massive amount of information about AIDS, but there is so much to learn about it that many people don't even know about. I have just listed a few things that I thought needed to be brought about, and I hope that you will take it upon yourself to search throughout the world wide web, as well as through other sources, to learn more about this growing epidemic.
(Look for Information about Coming Out to be put up soon!)
Thank you for visiting our Homepage!
please e-mail all comments or suggestions to Natalie Davis at ndavis2@capital.edu
Last Updated on March 2, 2005
Capital University's
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender,
and Ally Organization
"Discrimination is wrong no matter who the victim is. There are no 'special rights' in America; we are all entitled to life, liberty and happiness' pursuit."
— Julian Bond, chairman of the national NAACP, in a letter to members of Louisiana’s Legislative Black Caucus urging them to vote against a proposed state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, May 10, 2004.
TO READ THE STORY IN WHICH GOVERNOR JEB BUSH OF FLORIDA PUBLICLY ANNOUNCES HIS OPPOSITION TO CREATE A STATE AMMENDMENT BANNING GAY MARRIAGE, CLICK>>>Here<<
Please be aware that our meeting time has changed! We will now be meeting weekly at 8pm on Thursdays in the South Conference Suites!
CAPITAL UNIVERSITY
What PR
IDE is here for:
Pride meets every Thursday at 8pm in the South Conference Suite of the Campus Center.
Some members of our board are being rearranged. Currently, Daniel J. Coleman and myself, Natalie H. Davis, are what would be called "co-interim directors." We are in the process or reconsturcting this board and are looking at people to help us run the organization. We sincerely will miss our President Jami Harris who resigned recently due to a conflict of schedule and time. She was absolutely amazing and ruled with a gentle heart and a firey spirit. We will miss you Jami!
PRIDE is currently in the process of a change. Our advisor from first semester of the 04/05 year no longer teaches at Capital. We miss our Dr. Tom greatly but wish him the best of luck in his life outside Caiptal.
Although Pride has been on Capital's campus in years past,
WE
ARE
HERE
TO
STAY!
>>>>>>There are many issues that are currently affecting the GLBT Community, as well as issues that are an ongoing factor in the community as well. Of these, Marriage and Equal Rights are the two biggest. The Human Rights Campaign, often referred to as the HRC, is one of the largest organizations structured to fight for the rights of all members of the GLBT society, and with this, they have included lots of information on their webpage, which is linked below, that pertains to these different aspects of inequality in the fight for oneness across American society.
~MARRIAGE~
Two People.
In Love.
Wanting to get married.
One proposes to another.
They accept.
They know that they do not have the "right" to get married.
Alright. Now, I know everyone saw the word right in quotation marks. Why is this?
Unfortunately, Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual and Transgender People are Not even considered Equal, thus, the idea of separate but equal would not withstand in this community.
The right to make decisions on a partner's behalf in a medical emergency. Specifically, the states generally provide that spouses automatically assume this right in an emergency. If an individual is unmarried, the legal "next of kin" automatically assumes this right. This means, for example, that a gay man with a life partner of many years may be forced to accept the financial and medical decisions of a sibling or parent with whom he may have a distant or even hostile relationship.
The right to share equitably all jointly held property and debt in the event of a breakup, since there are no laws that cover the dissolution of domestic partnerships.
The right to purchase continued health coverage for a domestic partner after the loss of a job.
The right to inherit property from a partner in the absence of a will.
The right to take up to 12 weeks of leave from work to care for a seriously ill partner or parent of a partner. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 permits individuals to take such leave to care for ill spouses, children and parents but not a partner or a partner's parents.
The right to assume parenting rights and responsibilities when children are brought into a family through birth, adoption, surrogacy or other means. For example, in most states, there is no law providing a noncustodial, nonbiological or nonadoptive parent's right to visit a child - or responsibility to provide financial support for that child - in the event of a breakup.
For a summary on these, and more information related to rights denied to same-sex couples, check out the HRC's Webpage on Rights and Protections by clicking
Here
~AIDS~
AIDS is an issue that digs deep into the heart of the GLBT Community. The reason behind this, as I'm sure many know, is that AIDS was once, and often still is, considered to be a "gay" disease. Thanks to modern medicine as well as the media, it has been brought to the public eye that this is a disease that not only affects the gay community, but also affects the heterosexual community. The reasoning behind this is that the easiest way, and most common way, to get AIDS is to have unprotected sex. Period.
Reflect for a moment.
Asia is home to 60% of the World's Population. Currently, it is estimated that there are 7.4 million people in Asia living with HIV with 1.1 million infected in the last year alone.
HIV is part of a family or group of viruses called lentiviruses. Lentiviruses other than HIV have been found in a wide range of nonhuman primates. These other lentiviruses are known collectively as simian (monkey) viruses (SIV) where a subscript is used to denote their species of origin.
It is now generally accepted that HIV is a descendant of simian (monkey) immunodeficiency virus (SIV). Certain SIVs bear a very close resemblance to HIV-1 and HIV-2, the two types of HIV.
In February 1999, it was announced that a group of researchers from the University of Alabama had studied frozen tissue from a chimpanzee and found that the simian virus it carried (SIVcpz) was almost identical to HIV-1. The chimpanzee came from a sub-group of chimpanzees known as Pan troglodytes troglodytes, which were once common in west-central Africa.
It is claimed by the researchers that this shows that these chimpanzees were the sources of HIV-1, and that the virus at some point crossed species from chimpanzees to human.
It has been known for a long time that certain viruses can pass from animals to humans, and this process is referred to as zoonosis. The researchers concluded that that HIV could have crossed over from chimpanzees as a result of a human killing a chimp and eating it for food.
Some other controversial theories have contended that HIV was transferred iatrogenically, otherwise known as via medical experiments. One particularly well publicized theory is that polio vaccines played a role in the transfer.
Three of the earliest known instances of HIV infection are as follows: A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo; HIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969; HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.
Analysis in '98 of the 1959 sample was interpreted as suggesting that HIV-1 was introduced into humans around the 1940s or the early 1950s, which was earlier than had previously been suggested. Other scientists have suggested that it could've been even longer, perhaps around 100 years or more ago.
There are a number of factors that may have contributed to the sudden epidemic spread of AIDS, including international travel, the blood industry, and widespread drug use.
some GLBT resources
Page Made by Natalie H Davis, October 26, 2004
