Democrats are rallying around a new bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco,(where else?) that would make it a misdemeanor instead of a felony to intentionally expose someone to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Under current laws , if someone who knows they are infected with HIV infects someone else deliberately - say, with unprotected sex or even sexual assault - it's a major felony and can lead to years of jail time if they're convicted. Wiener's bill wants that repealed.
Wiener's bill, SB239, would also repeal California laws that require people convicted of prostitution for the first time to be tested for AIDS and that increase penalties for prostitution if the prostitute tested positive for AIDS before after a previous arrest.
The rationale for this? Believe it or not 'science.' And equality, of course! Here's the Sacramento Bee quoting Wiener:
"These laws were passed at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic when there was enormous fear and ignorance and misinformation around HIV," Wiener said. "It's time for California to lead and to repeal these laws to send a clear signal that we are going to take a science-based approach to HIV not a fear-based approach."
The last time I checked, 'Science' hadn't yet found a complete cure for HIV or AIDS and it still kills people. According to the last figures we have from the Center For disease Control, in 2014, there were 12,333 deaths of people with diagnosed HIV infection from various causes attributed to effects of the disease and 6,721 deaths were attributed directly to HIV. Thankfully, the number is going down because more of the population most directly affected, male homosexuals, are practicing safe sex and treatment has improved. But ask yourself...how many of these 19,000 people were unknowingly infected? How many were infected by people who knew they had HIV but simply didn't give a damn? And what about the people who were unknowingly infected with HIV by someone who knew they had it, and who didn't die but whose lives were changed forever? Shouldn't people willing to do that to another human being be punished for what amounts to 2nd degree murder or manslaughter at worst and playing Russian roulette with someone else's life at best?
Wiener also claims that the current laws deter people from getting tested for HIV and seeking treatment. Impossible to see how that could be true...unless we're talking about people who are prostitutes and already got caught and were tested once but continued to practice their trade anyway. Or people so self centered and irresponsible that they don't care that having unprotected sex with an unknowing partner could be a death sentence for that person.
Even the most ancient law codes we know recognize that someone deliberately causing injury or death to another person is guilty of a serious crime, and that concept is deeply embedded in common law today worldwide...except in Crazyfornia, a bizarro land where things are different.
I can't imagine homosexuals supporting this lunacy, but given where Wiener's district is, enough of them must be. Given that this is Crazyfornia, I expect the legislature to pass SB239.
1 comment:
He is not looking very healthy in his picture?
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