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Today, our planet marks another World AIDS Day. It is a day that hits anyone affected by HIV or has had a loved one die from AIDS very personally. It is important that we honor it, it is important that we share it and it is important that we protect it.
World AIDS Day is held on 1 December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988.
Please take a moment and read
sfbob's
excellent yearly diary to gain his own deep and personal perspective on why it is so important we take this opportunity to call attention to our shared, ongoing global AIDS crisis.
Even though we are making great medical headway into fighting HIV and AIDS with varying degrees of success in this country, developing countries remain woefully behind. The ignorance and stigma attached to the disease cripple efforts to combat its spread. As we make strides in this country, so should we be taking the hands of those countries who need our help.
While large coordinated efforts are made, we can all do our own part. I know how I plan to proceed. You see, there is a homegrown impediment to America's ability to play a leading role in aiding countries where AIDS related deaths remains alarmingly high. It has crept in through the back door hoping no one was looking. It is a very real and immediate threat. I'm talking about the leadership of the extreme religious American right who, instead of exporting help and hope, export only hatred and dominance.
Although they still play their frightened American rubes for whatever money is left to be squeezed from their pockets, these people know their efforts have failed miserably in this country. They have huffed, they have puffed, but our American houses have remained standing. Their idea of what governance should be hasn't proven, well, democratic. What to do but take their wind abroad, right onto the roofs of houses they can topple more easily. After all, intolerant Americans aren't the only bank in town.
Consequently, the biggest blowhards we've seen in this country have been popping up across the globe these past few years with alarming frequency. Wherever there has been an opportunity to hate on gay people, familiar American names such as Scott Lively, Brian Brown, and Lou Engle appear over and over again. From the protests over marriage equality in the streets of Paris, to the halls of government in Kampala Uganda, to the mess that is the Sochi Olympics, these people have been consulted, involved.
Even though these self-appointed Ambassadors of God are laser-focused on their unnatural revulsion to gay folks, their welcomed presence in a growing number of countries comes with devastating baggage. While they bring the message that we are satanic monsters coming for their children, they also bring something even more dangerous to people who are vulnerable to propaganda at the hands of their governments. Along with a very full agenda, they come with the deadly insistence on abstinence only education, putting entire sex-having human populations at risk with their theocratic ways.
So, this is my contribution in honor of this year's World AIDS Day. I promise to continue to research, follow and expose these people. In the upcoming year, I will be writing about Scott Lively's upcoming trial for fomenting the raging hatred of gay people in Uganda, and NOM's donor list that Brian Brown has bent over backwards to keep from exposing while he skipped off to Paris, and all the other dangerous extremists who present a real and tangible threat to society.
Even if I only prove to be a gnat-like distraction to their efforts, at least I can put my buzz out there.
And since it is still technically Thanksgiving weekend, I'm thankful to Daily Kos for providing me such an excellent forum to kick some ass. This house rocks.
Now...on to TOPS!
TOP COMMENTS
December 1, 2013
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
From Tara the Anti Social Worker
In Christian Dem in NC's diary Company Slaps $3500 fine on Anyone Who Writes Negative Reviews Online, leevank tries to make sense of the contract clause, "Your acceptance of this sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively prohibits KlearGear.com.", corvo observes that, "just because it's illegal and gibberish doesn't render it any less powerful.", and I strongly suggest you set down your drink before reading JesseCW's response.
From Puddytat:
Jeff Y hilariously summarized the Sunday Talk Shows in Silly Rabbit's always funny Sunday Talk. Don't miss it.
From Youffraita:
LeftHandedMan wrote about how to write in Anton Bursch's writing diary. It's brilliant, imo, and deserves wider recognition than it's likely to get at this hour.
From a2nite:
In Ian Reifowitz's front page Sunday diary Rush Limbaugh and the long, sordid history of pitting whites against blacks in America, Eric Nelson bats a thousand with this excellent comment.
And from your diarist, Steveningen:
This comment by snoopydawg hits home for a lot of us and was inspired by sfbob's yearly commemorative diary to World AIDS Day.
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TOP PHOTOS
November 30, 2013
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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