This year is the 22nd an­niver­sary of the Northwest AIDS Walk. A whole generation has passed. Twenty years ago, AIDS was a gay man's disease and a death sentence. The Reagan ad­min­is­tra­tion was just beginning to ac­knowl­edge the existence of AIDS, half a decade after it had first been recognized and thousands had died.

AIDS is still a serious problem, but the de­vel­op­ment of an­ti­retro­vi­ral drugs a decade ago means that people with HIV are living longer, healthier lives than before. More than 1.5 million Americans are now living with HIV/AIDS: 9,000 of them in King County. 40,000 people are infected every year, and most new infections are among African-Americans. The U.S. is getting …continue.

This year is the 21st an­niver­sary of the Northwest AIDS Walk. A whole generation has passed. Twenty years ago, AIDS was a gay man's disease and a death sentence. The Reagan ad­min­is­tra­tion was just beginning to ac­knowl­edge the existence of AIDS, half a decade after it had first been recognized and thousands had died.

AIDS is still a serious problem, but the de­vel­op­ment of an­ti­retro­vi­ral drugs a decade ago means that people with HIV are living longer, healthier lives than before. More than 1 million Americans are now living with HIV/AIDS: 9,000 of them in King County. 40,000 people are infected every year, and most new infections are among African-Americans. The U.S. is getting …continue.

I'm traveling in Europe at present (Ireland last week, Italy this week and next), so I have little op­por­tu­ni­ty to keep up with U.S. news, but the Larry Craig case leapt out at me. Craig is the second U.S. Senator to be exposed in the last few months as a major sexual hypocrite who espouses 'family values' but can't keep his pecker in his pants. Schaden­freude is just the right term for the pleasure I take in seeing these dickwads hoist on their own petards.

David Vitter (brother of one of my professors at Brown, Jeff Vitter) repeatedly consorted with pros­ti­tutes. Larry Craig has pled guilty to soliciting sex in a men's restroom, joining …continue.

Last year, the Washington State Supreme Court handed down its wrong­head­ed decision on same-sex marriage.

In a delightful piece of political theater, WA-DOMA has just filed ballot initiative I-957:

If passed by Washington voters, the Defense of Marriage Initiative would:

• add the phrase, “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;
• require that couples married in Washington file proof of pro­cre­ation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage au­to­mat­i­cal­ly annulled;
• require that couples married out of state file proof of pro­cre­ation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as “un­rec­og­nized;”
• establish a process for filing proof …continue.

As I mentioned last month, I par­tic­i­pat­ed in this year's AIDS Walk on Saturday.

I raised over $1300 online, handily exceeding my goal of $1,000. I also raised another $300 in cash and checks at the fundrais­ing barbecue that we threw on September 1st.

I've lost count, but I believe that in the last 15 years, I've raised about $10,000 for charity. Most of it has been for the Northwest AIDS Walk. The last few years that I was at Microsoft, I raised $2,000-$3,000 each year, thanks to the power of Microsoft matching, which doubled the amount of money that I raised. I've also raised money two years running for Ugandan orphans sponsored by …continue.

This year is the 20th an­niver­sary of the Northwest AIDS Walk. A whole generation has passed. Twenty years ago, AIDS was considered a gay man's disease and a death sentence. The U.S. government was just beginning to ac­knowl­edge the existence of AIDS, half a decade after it had first been recognized by health au­thor­i­ties, and thousands had died.

AIDS is still a serious problem, but the de­vel­op­ment of an­ti­retro­vi­ral drugs a decade ago means that people with HIV are living longer, healthier lives than before. More than 1 million Americans are now living with HIV/AIDS: 9,000 of them in King County. 40,000 people are infected every year in the U.S., and most new …continue.

I found this opinion piece on bi­sex­u­al­i­ty by Matthew Parris in The Times of London:

In my Notebook column in The Times I have been recording, in an occasional way, candidates for inclusion in a spec­u­la­tive list of truths or nonsenses staring us in the face that we somehow cannot see: things future ages may dismiss with a snort — just as we look with in­creduli­ty at our forebears’ faith in the theory of the four bodily humours or possession by demons. Here is another modern candidate: the idea that there is a set of males called ho­mo­sex­u­als, and another called het­ero­sex­u­als, plus a handful in the middle called …continue.

Well, fuck! The Washington State Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision today on the con­sti­tion­al­i­ty of the state's Defense of Marriage Act. Somehow, they found that it didn't violate the state con­sti­tu­tion's Equal Protection clause.

No same-sex marriages in Washington state anytime soon.

I attended the rally at the First Baptist church earlier this evening. (Find me in the photo!) Some anger, some dis­ap­point­ment. Mostly upbeat. The young Latina couple were very affecting. The Serkin-Pooles invited everyone to join their club, as they announced their formal engagement to each other. One speaker pointed out that even if the court had handed down a favorable decision, the process would not have been …continue.

Amer­i­ca­Blog links to a CNN segment on the quacks who claim they can "cure" ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty.

Very creepy. Very bogus. And typical of so-called reparative therapy.

I believe that those "ex-gays" who do manage to make a go of it are bisexual rather than gay. In other words, they're no more than-5 on the Kinsey scale.

And I'm not the only one.

I just listened to This American Life on the radio. I am con­tin­u­al­ly amazed at just how good this show is. They find so many compelling stories.

This week, Ira Glass in­ter­viewed Gene Cheek, who wrote a memoir, The Color of Love: A Mother's Choice in the Jim Crow South.

In the early 1960s, Cheek's divorced mother fell in love with Tuck, a black man. They lived in a small town in North Carolina, and the mis­ce­gena­tion laws were still on the books. They dated clan­des­tine­ly, but eventually their re­la­tion­ship become known. The police would stop by regularly to harass them. After she had a baby by Tuck, her …continue.