Strong Words From Archbishop Tutu

[catmac]

Not that I have any truck for any organised religion, but I was pleased to read of Archbishop Tutu's call for the ending of the criminalisation of gay people. Sadly, I feel his words will go largely unheeded in the rest of Africa.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18913497

[isanbirder]

Good for Archbishop Tutu.... a genuinely Christian approach. I wish the Catholic hierarchy was as concerned about people instead of sticking to the mores of the past.

[tombkk]

While I appreciate his advocacy of tolerance for gay men and MSM, it tastes a bit funny as he says this in a context that mostly sounds like "we should tolerate HIV positive people". MSM and HIV+ comes out as synonymous.

In Europe and the US, it was established several decades ago that HIV/AIDS is not a gay men's disease but concerns all, and I am very sure that also in Africa, many women are affected.

Why amalgate MSM and HIV/AIDS? I don't think this helps the case of changing the fact that many African countries still outlawing homosexuality.

[Morakot]

While I appreciate his advocacy of tolerance for gay men and MSM, it tastes a bit funny as he says this in a context that mostly sounds like "we should tolerate HIV positive people". MSM and HIV+ comes out as synonymous.

In Europe and the US, it was established several decades ago that HIV/AIDS is not a gay men's disease but concerns all, and I am very sure that also in Africa, many women are affected.

Why amalgate MSM and HIV/AIDS? I don't think this helps the case of changing the fact that many African countries still outlawing homosexuality.

Yes, that's a fair point, but was he not responding to the new evidence in the Lancet that made this connection?

In a way, it sounded to me he was trying the opposite: to carefully move away from this amalgamation by making the connection to apartheid and the discrimination of homosexuality.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Morakot

[Jingthing]

While I appreciate his advocacy of tolerance for gay men and MSM, it tastes a bit funny as he says this in a context that mostly sounds like "we should tolerate HIV positive people". MSM and HIV+ comes out as synonymous.

In Europe and the US, it was established several decades ago that HIV/AIDS is not a gay men's disease but concerns all, and I am very sure that also in Africa, many women are affected.

Why amalgate MSM and HIV/AIDS? I don't think this helps the case of changing the fact that many African countries still outlawing homosexuality.

Careful with over politicizing the gay - HIV connection. Inconvenient truths can get in the way. It is not a matter of is HIV a gay disease or is it not. Obviously it is not, it is a human disease, but it has hit gay people very severely. And it STILL does!

It's interesting to read about the current Aids crisis in the American south which isn't sounding all that different than parts of Africa.

The disproportionate number of cases in the South has many causes: widespread poverty, a shortage of health care, a lack of HIV testing and education, a shortage of accessible medical specialists for the many who live in small rural areas and a persistent prejudice by many in the Bible Belt against homosexuals, the group most affected by HIV/AIDS.

...

The situation in Mississippi is typical: African Americans make up 37 percent of the state’s population, but they account for nearly three-quarters of those with HIV. Rates are especially high for gay black men in the South; a 2011 study by researchers at the Florida Department of Health calculated that one in five were infected with HIV.

http://www.washingto...Z6xW_story.html Edited July 20, 2012 by Jingthing

[isanbirder]

While I appreciate his advocacy of tolerance for gay men and MSM, it tastes a bit funny as he says this in a context that mostly sounds like "we should tolerate HIV positive people". MSM and HIV+ comes out as synonymous.

In Europe and the US, it was established several decades ago that HIV/AIDS is not a gay men's disease but concerns all, and I am very sure that also in Africa, many women are affected.

Why amalgate MSM and HIV/AIDS? I don't think this helps the case of changing the fact that many African countries still outlawing homosexuality.

In fact, to my understanding, HIV is far commoner among heterosexuals in Southern Africa than among gays.

Yes, many African countries still outlaw homosexuality. For precisely that reason, I think any feelers towards decriminalising it, even for dubious reasons, are steps in the right direction. Another country where an approach has been made towards decriminalising recently is Malawi. Why I think these are positive moves is that they make it one little bit more difficult to regress. Maybe a small step forwards, but a step nevertheless.

[LeCharivari]

While I appreciate his advocacy of tolerance for gay men and MSM, it tastes a bit funny as he says this in a context that mostly sounds like "we should tolerate HIV positive people". MSM and HIV+ comes out as synonymous.

If you read what he actually said in the context of where it was written this is not the case at all.

The Lancet (the world's leading medical journal) was running a series of articles specifically on HIV transmission among MSM as this is one of the few areas where levels of HIV are on the increase. This is evidenced in many countries where statistics are available, but in some countries no statistics and little treatment or advice are available (to homosexuals/MSM) because MSM and homosexuality are criminalised.

The main point of the article was that in those countries where MSM/homosexuality are criminalised and stigmatised MSM and gays have less access both to treatment and to preventive measures such as education, affordable condoms, HIV testing and counselling than other groups (straights, drug users, etc) and that this is the main reason for the increasing incidence of HIV among MSM/gays while numbers are falling in the other groups.

While it looks from the OP and the link that this is a change in direction for Archbishop Tutu, it is not - the articles in the Lancet were about the increasing rates of HIV among MSM/gays and consequently that is what he was talking about. He has spoken out for years about LGBT rights, most recently last month with three other Nobel laureates after Uganda banned a number of human rights organisations that allegedly "promote homosexuality" - this time, though, the subject wasn't LGBT rights.

[LeCharivari]

... In fact, to my understanding, HIV is far commoner among heterosexuals in Southern Africa than among gays.

As you'd expect it to be, given that there are probably rather more heteros than gays in Southern Africa; the problem is that while HIV rates are falling among heteros, they are rising among gays.