Ron Paul: Anti-Gay, Anti-People of Color, Anti-Woman, and Republican/Libertarian.

Here is a bunch of information you may not know about a Man I once thought was a good guy, his name is Ron Paul, and he ran in the 08 Election.  Than I started to listen carefully to what he was saying, and he is very misguided in a lot of his ideas.  Even if you believe humans are fundementally good,this is dangerous thinking, and would give nutcases the ability to get away with anything.  It would mean Republicans, like the nutcase in Oklahoma, whom want to ban Gays, and force them into camps could get away with it.  Most states would ban fundemental rights under Right Wing local Governments, and not resist to do something horrible to minorities rights.  Hell, it is the Fed that usually makes the States have better laws towards Minorities.  Why should I be banned from a State? That is outright descrimination, and homophobic bigotry.

Anti-gay discrimination still in place on organ donations PROVINCIAL NEWS / Donations drop in year following new rules

Krishna Rau / Toronto / Monday, January 26, 2009

Organ donations in Ontario have dropped sharply in the year since Health Canada imposed stricter rules on organ donations from gay men.

According to Gary Levy, the director of Canada’s largest organ transplant program at Toronto’s University Health Network, the number of deceased donors in the province dropped from 199 in 2007 to 175 in 2008. Levy says there are no definitive statistics on how much of the decline was linked to the new rules for gay men.

In December 2007, Health Canada quietly enacted rules that prevent any man who has had sex even once with another man in the past five years from donating organs. Health Canada already bans any man who has had sex with another man (MSM) even once since 1977 from donating blood.

Doctors are still able to use organs from gay men if they get the recipient’s consent and the doctor signs an “exceptional release” form.

Levy says the drop in donors has meant deaths in Ontario.

“Potentially you can get seven organs from each person,” he says. “At least 120, 130 or 150 people died who could have benefitted from organs.”

Levy says there are no statistics to show to what extent the rules on gay men contributed to the drop in donations, but that the system can’t afford to lose any potential donors.

“How much it hurt us we can’t tell at the moment,” he says, “but organ donation is a very precarious thing. When things like this happen, I don’t think it turned out to be a positive. It didn’t help us to work with the public.

“I worked tirelessly to get the federal government to understand that it was unnecessary and it did nothing for safety.”

Levy says the 199 donors in 2007 was a record year for organ donors in the province. In 2006 there were 162 donors in the province, but Levy says the drop is still disappointing.

“The 199 could be looked at as a blip,” he says. “It’s not that substantive but it certainly was moving in the right direction. It’s very disappointing because people died.”

Neither Health Canada nor Canadian Blood Services (CBS) — which took over the national administration of organ donations in April, as well as controlling blood donations — could provide national figures for 2008.

Levy says he will continue to sign exceptional releases for donations from gay men, as well for donations from other groups who have to undergo the process.

“Age is one factor,” he says. “Over the age of 55 is considered an exceptional release. If they were a drug addict, which is not the ownership of any element of society, that’s an exceptional release.

“I sign exceptional releases at least 60 or 70 times a year. There are at least 100 to 150 exceptional release forms signed in Ontario each year.”

Joshua Ferguson of the group Standing Against Queer Discrimination (SAQD) — which has been campaigning against the blood and organ donation policies — says those policies are unlikely to change any time soon. He says things are worse since CBS took over.

“The MSM policy is now being regulated by the same source that is unwilling to change an outdated, stagnant policy based on ideologically founded fears rather than current epidemiological evidence,” states Ferguson in an email.

Ferguson says he was recently asked to take part in a consultation with CBS. He says CBS appears to be ignoring medical and scientific research.

“The organ and blood donation policies are now imbricated in political and public relation reasons rather than ethical and epidemiological ones,” he states.

Ferguson says participants in the consultation told CBS that policies should focus on risk rather than sexual orientation.

“A general consensus from the meeting is that the MSM permanent deferrals need to focus on behavioural-based questions that would articulate the actual risky sexual behaviours that actually places someone at a higher risk, regardless of their sex and/or sexual orientation,” he writes.

Winnipeg doctor refuses to treat lesbian couple NATIONAL NEWS / Activists say Canada’s healthcare system is homophobic

Krishna Rau / National / Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A lesbian couple in Winnipeg say a local doctor refused to treat them because of their sexual orientation.

Andrea Markowski and her partner Ginette recently moved to Winnipeg from Yellowknife and used a provincial hotline to find a physician who was accepting new patients. But when the couple went to the Lakewood Medical Centre to see Kamelia Elias, a doctor trained in Egypt, they ran into problems.

“We started running through my medical history and [the doctor] could not look at me,” Markowski told The Globe and Mail. “She was flustered. She couldn’t focus. I knew something was up so I asked her, ‘Is our sexual orientation an issue for you in terms of your ability to treat us?’

“She said, first thing, that it was against her religion and second, that she had no experience caring for lesbian or gay patients.”

Elias told the Winnipeg Free Press that she had no experience with lesbians and that gays and lesbians sometimes have “sexual problems” and were more susceptible to disease.

“They get a lot of diseases and infections,” Elias told the paper. “I didn’t refuse to treat them, I said it’s better to find someone who has experience and will take this type of patients. There [are] some doctors who can treat them.”

A request from Xtra for an interview with Elias was referred to Thor Hansell, the lawyer for the Lakewood Medical Centre. Hansell sent Xtra a statement released by Terry Gwozdecki, the medical director of Lakewood.

“Dr Elias at no time refused to accept these women into her practice,” states Gwozdecki. “In fact, she interviewed them, collecting a long medical history for the sole purpose of accepting them into her practice. She was already aware, early into the interview, of their sexual orientation…. It was only when one of the two women became defensive when asked about their relationship, and Dr Elias was pointedly asked if she had a problem with their relationship, that Dr Elias felt it necessary to be up-front with regards to her own religious beliefs and inexperience in treating homosexual patients.

“Please understand that her inexperience stems not from unwillingness to treat these patients, but solely due to lack of exposure to them in her practices in Cairo, Egypt and Steinbach, Manitoba. Her religious beliefs do not prevent her from treating anyone in the gay or lesbian community, and her disclosure of her religious background was in the interest of being as honest and transparent as possible so that the patients themselves could decide if they wanted her as their physician.”

Gwozdecki also stressed that Elias was Christian.

Shelly Smith, the executive director of Winnipeg’s Rainbow Resource Centre, says the couple has filed complaints with both the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons (MCPS) and the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Smith says such situations probably happen fairly regularly.

“I don’t think it’s an unusual occurrence,” she says. “I don’t think it’s reported very often but I had a call from another couple, two gay men, who said they’re going through the same thing with another doctor.”

Bill Pope, the registrar of the MCPS, says the complaint is new to the college.

“It’s the first time we’ve had a complaint about this issue,” he says. “I’m saddened by it but it might also be an opportunity.”

Pope says orientation training for international medical graduates has recently increased from one week to four.

Pope says the program is run by the University of Manitoba but that representatives of the MCPS are involved. He says Elias did not go through the training because she arrived in Manitoba five years ago.

“It’s unfair to an individual to expect them to fit right when the cultural mores are so different,” he says.

But Smith says she worries that such concerns allow Canadian-trained doctors to escape blame for their own ignorance.

“I think they’re scapegoating the immigrant/refugee/newcomer aspect of this,” she says. “This isn’t just a cultural issue.”

Smith says medical students at Manitoba’s one medical school at the University of Manitoba receive one session at the Resource Centre in their first year.

“We do one two-hour session for medical students and that’s it,” she says.

Gens Hellquist, the executive director of the Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition (CRHC), says the problem is Canada-wide.

“Unfortunately it’s very common across the country,” he says. “The medical profession gets very little training on our health issues.”

Hellquist says CRHC did a national survey on education in medical schools on queer health issues.

“We found many medical colleges didn’t even want to talk to us.”

Hellquist says the federal government has no national policy in place.

“Part of the problem is that Health Canada absolutely refuses to take a leadership position on queer health,” he says.

Pope says Manitoba’s medical school sets its own curriculum but that the MCPS has one of its policies that physicians cannot discriminate against patients on the basis on sexual orientation.

Similarly in Ontario the College of Physicians and Surgeons says that it has no requirements for doctors — either graduates of Ontario medical schools or immigrants — to take any sort of sensitivity training.

“We don’t set training requirements at all,” says Kathryn Clarke, the college’s senior communications coordinator. “The requirements are set by the medical schools.”

For international immigrants Clarke says the province has what she calls “bridging programs.”

“There are also programs that have been developed by the provincial government to familiarize doctors with the different cultures,” she says.

Clarke says the college does require doctors to follow the Ontario Human Rights Code and would investigate any complaints it received.

Smith says the lack of a proper educational system for queer health issues leaves many patients afraid.

“It’s very fear-based,” she says. “A lot of people are afraid of even disclosing their orientation. Without having proper education a lot of lesbians find the doctors feel their gynecological health isn’t as important. And when a gay men reveals his orientation almost inevitably the first question is about STIs [sexually transmitted infections].”

Hellquist says the problem is life-threatening.

“We get burned by the healthcare system so we avoid it, usually at the cost of our lives,” he says.

I am now a Member of the ARC Board!

Beyond Gay: The Politics Of Pride!!! (Must See when it is released!!)

The trailer really says it all!!!

Truth Not Tasers!!

I have added a link to a wonderful site I found out about on the CBC Evening News. It is a site dedicated to the Truth about Tasers in Law Enforcement in North America. I am pleased to have this link on my site, and to provide a link to the truth about a horribly overused, and, deadly weapon in Law Enforcement.

Marilyn Manson interviewed by Henry Rollins

PART ONE

PART TWO

Marilyn Manson was the featured guest on the season premiere of The Henry Rollins Show on Friday, April 13, 2007.

 

Henry Rollins – Evolution

Henry talks about Evolution and the lazy pseudo-science of Intelligent Design.

 

The Henry Rollins Show – America Is Under Attack

Henry Rollins on the side of the Little Guy, and the true Democracy wanting citizens in this wonderful clip about Internet Regulations.

 

The Hour: Ex Gay

Psychiatrist and director Alicia Salzar talks about her film Abomination, which condemns the use of electro-shock therapy to turn gays straight. The thought that some people believe you can change a Gay person into Straight people is NUTS. In fact, the mere idea that anyone would think they could do this, and get away with this, and even do is CRAZY!  Who The Fuck does this shit to harmless Homosexuals/BiSexuals?