The Pew Forum recently released a study about the Sodomy Laws in the USA, arguing over whether or not they should be further repealed:
The laws, which date to the 1980s and ’90s, vary greatly from state to state. Most impose criminal penalties on people who know their HIV status and potentially expose others to the virus. In some states, a conviction can mean up to 35 years in prison.
Twenty-four states require HIV-positive people to disclose their status to sexual partners, while six states require people to register as sex offenders as part of their punishment if they are convicted of an HIV-specific crime. In 22 states, felony laws, which cover assault and attempted murder for example, are used to prosecute people living with HIV who knowingly expose someone to the virus. And 25 states criminalize activities such as spitting, even though they are unlikely to transmit the virus.
Other states have statutes that tack on extra punishment based on the defendant’s HIV status. In Utah, for example, HIV-positive people convicted of prostitution, patronizing a prostitute, or solicitation are guilty of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, if they knew their status at the time of the crime. For an HIV-negative person, those same crimes would be a misdemeanor punishable by no more than six months in prison for a first-time offense.
Critics say the laws are relics of the past and demonize people infected with the virus. Some studies have shown that the laws don’t reduce HIV transmission and may actually drive up HIV rates, because people who feel stigmatized are less likely to get tested. A study published in June by researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no evidence that the laws reduce transmission of the virus.
“It’s very embarrassing and dehumanizing,” said Suttle, 38, who now lives in Harlem, New York, and works as an assistant director for the Sero Project, which advocates to end laws that criminalize people living with the virus.
In 1994, Texas became the first state to repeal its HIV criminal laws, according to the Center for HIV Law and Policy. But since then, people have been prosecuted for HIV exposure under general criminal laws such as attempted murder, which Catherine Hanssens, the center’s executive director, said illustrates why straight repeal of the laws is not enough. Texas courts have upheld that seminal fluid of a man living with HIV may constitute a deadly weapon.
In 2012, Illinois became the second state to revise its HIV crime laws, by requiring prosecutors to prove a defendant intended to transmit HIV and limiting prosecution to a more narrow definition of sexual activity. Iowa followed suit in 2014. Last year, Colorado enacted a law that repealed two HIV criminalization statutes and revised another by requiring that all sexually transmitted infections be treated equally under the law, rather than singling out HIV for prosecution.
California lawmakers are also considering a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to transmit HIV, rather than a felony. A similar HIV bill failed in Florida in May, but is expected to be re-introduced in the next session.
Also in May, the Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the state’s criminal HIV law. The crux of the case: whether or not the law discriminates against people living with HIV, as well as whether requiring disclosure of one’s HIV status violates the First Amendment.
The push to reform HIV crime statutes “has become a national movement, and it’s part of the larger conversation about overcriminalizing people,” said Allison Nichol, law and policy counsel for the Sero Project.
“We need to take this out of the realm of someone committing a sex crime,” said Nichol, who used to prosecute sex crimes in Indianapolis. “These laws continue to feed a false narrative that people with HIV present a danger to public health, when in fact that is no longer true.”
But supporters of the laws argue they protect public health, and some states have moved in the opposite direction.
In May, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, signed a law that, among other things, authorizes a judge to issue an emergency order to get someone tested for HIV if it’s believed that person has “caused exposure to a victim.” The law updates a previous one and is intended to treat rape victims who may have contracted HIV or hepatitis C. The same month, Tennessee enacted a law strengthening a statute requiring anyone who’s been arrested to be tested for HIV/AIDS if a law enforcement officer requests it.
“We’re talking about a criminal,” said Maggi Duncan, executive director of the Tennessee Association of Police Chiefs, who helped draft the legislation. “In the course of being arrested, they could have possibly exposed a first responder.”
The law was expanded to include all forms of hepatitis, which is on the rise in the state, Duncan said, “but HIV could easily become on the rise again with needle use, and that’s a real concern with heroin being on the upswing.”
Activists have pushed for years to change the laws, with a focus on educating lawmakers and prosecutors about how HIV is transmitted. One key fact: An HIV-positive person whose viral load is undetectable has almost no chance of spreading the virus.
“More and more, there’s a realization that HIV criminalization laws have not kept up with science,” said Dan Kirk, a former prosecutor with the office of the Cook County State’s Attorney, which has jurisdiction over Chicago. Last year, then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez called for the law to be revised further.
Today, prosecutors in Illinois have to prove that an offender intended to transmit HIV. Defendants can assert a legal defense if a condom was used, but they cannot use being in treatment as a defense. This despite condoms being less effective — 80 percent — than anti-retroviral drug treatment — 95 percent — at reducing the risk of transmission, according to the CDC.
Under the measure pending in California, it would no longer be a felony to fail to disclose a positive HIV status. Instead it would be a misdemeanor on a par with failing to disclose any other transmitted disease. To be charged with a misdemeanor, the defendant must have known that he or she has a communicable disease and acted with the specific intent to infect another person, engaged in conduct that poses a substantial risk for transmission, and actually transmitted the disease to another person.
“We want people to get tested. We want people to get on medication. We want people to be honest about their HIV status,” said California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation. “But you don’t accomplish those things by sending people to prison.” (source)
As we have explained many times, our opposition to homosexuality at Shoebat.com is strictly based on the Catholic Faith. We desire to live and speak about our Faith as correctly as we can, and in order to do this we hold to the teachings of the Faith whether they are popular or not. Sacred Scripture and Tradition make abundantly clear the gravity of the sin that is homosexuality. It is a sin that is only one of four in the Bible that explicitly cries out to Heaven for vengeance. It is specifically named in both the Old and New Testaments as a sign of grave evil in a man. It has been roundly condemned by the Church throughout the ages. It is listed as a sin so hateful by the saints that even the demons despise it.
But as the article notes, there is another aspect of the sodomy laws, which is the angle of public health.
Sodomy is the act of masturbating by means of the place where another man has bowel movements. It is essentially the act of masturbating with poop. Poop is the waste product of human biological functions, meaning it contains all of the trash the body cannot use. The rectal region is the biological organ through which waste is safely disposed- it is meant for allowing waste to exit, not having a foreign object vigorously thrust through it and then another man's bodily fluids (which also contain his germs) into it. The act of sodomy, therefore, is an excellent way to cause physical bodily harm as well as through which to directly and effectively transmit disease from one person to another.
The deceased Dr. Stanley Monteith, author of AIDS: The Unnecessary Epidemic, notes that the spread of HIV/AIDS began in homosexual communities, and that while he an a few others recommended shutting down places where homosexual activity is known to take place, it would help limit the spread of the disease. However, this did not happen, and as such the virus has continued to spread.
Likewise, as we have noted in our articles by the direct admission of LGBT activists themselves, HIV/AIDS was normalized in American society and around the world by the LGBT, and that is because they were the ones which bore the primary responsibility for spreading the disease due to their obsession with committing this immoral, unclean, and dangerous behavior. This is combination with the fact that those on medication for HIV continue to engage in homosexual activity has lead to the creation of many forms of drug-resistant bacteria, including stronger forms of HIV/AIDS. It addition to HIV, it has also caused a dramatic increase in other diseases, such as in colon cancer rates.
Make no mistake, the objection that we have to the LGBT is based on the Catholic Faith- if God is the author of all creation, certainly He has a right to designate what is a sin and what is not a sin. Since God is perfect, ordered, and orders all things to a good end, the severe condemnation of homosexual activity is on account of the fact that it is a misuse of His creation, taking that which is meant to transmit life and instead using it to transmit death and disease, for the public health crisis is simply an extension of the moral crisis. This is likewise the reason why these laws have been struck down in the USA and many other nations, not because they are an attempt to stop a public health crisis, but because the licentious behavior of the people naturally gives way to progressively increasing forms of disorder, including homosexual activity.
While no government is perfect, the fact is that Sodomy Laws are in a social sense are as much a reflection of the beliefs of the people and their respect of their Creator as they are about basic public health. While it is ultimately the belief that matters and serves as the basis for the laws, the laws provide the temporal application of this belief and the effect of this application is that by curbing the public license on homosexual activity one of the fruits is a reduction in the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS.
Take note of how in the article it is LGBT activists who are most aggressively pushing to have the Sodomy Laws abolished on the reasoning of 'it's unequal,' when the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. Their opposition is not because they believe there is an objective, scientific reason that says homosexuality does not transmit disease. Indeed, the evidence is far to the contrary. The reason why they are pushing for this is because just a the sodomy laws are a temporal manifestation of a moral philosophy, the LGBT believe license as their morality, applying the Crowlean saying "Do what thou wilt" as their philosophy for life. Such a philosophy is immoral, evil, and ultimately anti-Christian and satanic, which is not a surprise at all considering that the LGBT is disproportionately represented among them.
As with all sin, its wages are death for those who refuse to repent. In this life, unrepentant sin may or not be punished. However, after death, there is no more time.
Choose wisely.
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