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| The price paid by HIV-positive prisoners |
| By washingtonpost.com |
| Published: 09/17/2012 |
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If you want to know what it was like to live with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, state prisons in Alabama or South Carolina in 2012 offer some tragic examples. In the ’80s, people infected with the AIDS virus faced horrendous, daily discrimination and injustice. Today, Alabama and South Carolina are blatantly and dangerously discriminating against HIV-positive prisoners. It’s a policy that simply makes no sense. In Alabama, prisoners with HIV are made to wear a white armband to distinguish themselves from other inmates, a modern-day scarlet letter. In South Carolina, the 400 or so HIV-positive prisoners, even those convicted of minor offenses, are housed in maximum-security facilities alongside those on death row. Both states segregate HIV-positive prisoners from the rest of the prison population and arbitrarily exclude them from important opportunities to rehabilitate and re-enter society. Of course, prisoners waive certain rights when they break the law. But HIV is no longer a death sentence; simply having the virus merits neither cruel and unusual punishment nor the denial of opportunities to earn one’s way back into society. When I established the Elton John AIDS Foundation 20 years ago, one objective was to reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS. These policies are a reminder that our work is far from over. Read More. |
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We are born equal. After that the way we are respected and our prosperity is up to us and His Will. The poor we will have with us always.
The scarlet letter concept will be with this society and will change for different groups at different times because the Wilsonian concept of administrative law is still with us and that root of self righteousness runs quite deep. As long as individuals elect presidents who believe in administrative law above the separation of powers the AIDS issue is really fodder for trial lawyers and activist judges. Once we had the woman that broke wedlock as the scarlet letter. Our society wants equality and justice at the same time. Those that yell about inequality today most are those that always vote for one of the two progressive presidents offered to them. Speaking about egalitarianism and the Constitution at the same time is metaphorically like a woman who is partly pregnant. After this issue is solved there will be a new candidate and a new group for the scarlet letter to be applied as necessary for the enablers of Wilsonian principle to stay in power. The ACLU was birthed out of the concept of the progressive root out of Chicago. If we were still under our Constitution we would not be embracing administrative regimes on both sides of the party line. Abnormal use (relativism) administrative law is incrementally replacing natural law (immutable) and these two principles will never make peace. Hopefully the most progressive on either side of the present two parties may solve this one specific scarlet letter dilemma of inequality. Looking to the Federal Government to violate separation of powers is like putting gas on a fire and then another group will then take the scarlet letter symbol until the economic downward spiral remedies the issue once and for all of us. In prison it is those in politics and fallen authorities that seek protective custody first. Once the economic principle of reaping starts this will seem like a small issue. I pray this issue is remedied.