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By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN
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Let’s hear it for the Advertising Council — you know, the group responsible for such public service ads as “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
The New York Times reported this week that for the first time since the council was formed in 1942, it will take on anti-gay bias. The campaign focuses on the insulting use of the phrase “That’s so gay.”
It includes TV, print, radio and outdoor ads developed by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network at a cost of $2 million. Hillary Duff and Wanda Sykes are among the celebrities appearing in the ads, which are supported by a website, thinkb4youspeak.com.
“This will be, by a million miles, the largest public education campaign on LGBT issues,” GLSEN Executive Director Kevin Jennings told the Times.
Because the self-esteem of gay youth is also a terrible thing to waste.
Now to something many people may not know: For decades, the United States has officially banned people with HIV from entering the country. The rule was enacted in the early days of the epidemic, before it was known how the virus is transmitted.
Congress finally repealed the discriminatory rule in July, as part of larger AIDS legislation. But to take effect, the Department of Health & Human Services has to issue a new rule through its regulatory process.
But when HHS issued new rules on Monday, it added diseases like cholera and SARS to the banned list — and left HIV on it, according to the gay rights group Immigration Equality.
Shame on HHS for not following the will of Congress, not to mention common sense, to remove this ridiculous ban.
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