Ruling barring discharge of HIV-positive airmen upheld

[Adam Griffin]

https://apnews.com/fb3abd794b5cf39e7a2bc925276838f1

A federal appeals court has upheld an injunction barring the Trump administration from discharging two Air Force members who are HIV-positive.

The airmen sued in 2018, arguing that there is no rational basis for prohibiting deployment of service members with HIV. The men argue that major advancements in treatment mean the airmen can easily be given appropriate medical care and present no real risk of transmission to others.

What’s with this administration and trying to get at qualified members of our armed forces?

Because in the end the people who cheer him the loudest are the ones who think the gays and the hivvy are just ick.

I would be interested in what the military actually had to say about this and whether they supported it. Remember, they didn't want the transgender fan, but Mike Pence and his crew flattered the president of two where he went along and did it anyway.

Though even if the military supported it, I wouldn't consider that dispositive. They very well may want to avoid the increased medical costs like any government agency seeking to cut corners, and may do it under the rubric of supposed Health / safety concerns.

But, of course, if it was YOUR son or daughter that became infected through blood-to-blood transmission of HIV in a battlefield scenario, you'd be angry no end.  

My son has actually served in combat, and if he had contracted HIV through such a scenario, the "major advancements in treatment" would do little to mitigate the impact such an event would have on every aspect of his life.  What would the effect be on his marriage?  On his relationships with his children?  On his own health?  On his finances (to the extent that he would have to pay for the "major advances in treatment"?  HIV isn't the death sentence it once was, but it is what it is, it's transmitted the way it's transmitted, and the military ought to be doing everything it needs to do to protect all of its soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen.  And we're talking about COMBAT DEPLOYMENTS here, where bleeding people are carried off of battlefields, living or dead, by their comrades.

There are solutions that can be implemented so that HIV-infected military can be taken care of.  These people shouldn't be tossed out into the street with an assigned cardboard box and a hollow "Thank you for your service!".  I've spent decades working around HIV-infected persons, and I'm not someone who's paranoid about being infected.  But let's stop pretending that this issue does not interfere with combat readiness.  And serving in the military is not a "right"; it's a privilege and an honor that's awarded based on our nation's need to defend itself.  It's not Federal Civil Service, where I would be in agreement with the above posters if someone were being forced out of their job solely for their health diagnosis.  

Regardless of your experience, your ideas on HIV seem to be out-of-date. Simple daily medication makes anybody with HIV incapable of transmitting the disease. A variety of studies and clinical trials consisting of tens of thousands of sexual encounters (which is the riskiest form of transmission besides perhaps direct blood transfusion) have shown not a single instance of transmission among those on ARTs and whose viral loads are at undetectable levels. There is zero evidence-based risk of somebody who is properly medicated transmitting the virus to somebody else via unprotected sex - let alone because they're "bleeding on the battlefield" or whatever.

Of course, the military and its supporters are filled with religious zealots with a disdain for "those queers" and that is where the actual apprehension on this matter now rests (assuming it's not based on a simple, outdated premise of ignorance on how far HIV treatment has progressed).

[Adam Griffin]

Of course, the military ... are filled with religious zealots with a disdain for "those queers"

do you have a cite showing that this true at noticeably higher levels than the general public?  'cause it's not true in my experience, but that's just anecdotal about my little corner of the USAF.  If you have facts, I'd be very interested to read them.

You excluded the important part ([its supporters]), but as I believe I've mentioned before, your experience in the Air Force likely isn't representative of the armed services at-large in most demographic terms (those who join USAF I can't see being less educated or less secular than the overall military).

Even if it's an indirect connection of sorts, I feel confident in saying that homophobia is more prevalent in the military than among the general population - and the only modern-day justification for such is religious influence, whether it is direct or not. If there is less religiosity among the military than the public at-large, then it's almost certainly predicated on hordes of poor people being absorbed into the Army/Marines that don't attend church services but nevertheless absorb the more toxic elements of its teachings culturally (and if they do believe in a higher power, I'm frankly unwilling to make a distinction, no matter how "nuanced" their arrival at similar antiquated beliefs may be).