Tribute

I'm not big on funerals, or any of the rituals of death that our society has built up over the years. Odd, then, that I found myself closely watching the funeral of Jack Layton, the recently deceased leader of the NDP (and leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition … do not like that term, but that's the reality for the moment). I'm glad I watched something that turned out to be both personal and political, moving and mobilizing. And I wonder how much of this has gone over the heads of many in this country.

Let's go back to that scary press conference where Mr. Layton announced that he was stepping down temporarily to deal with a second cancer. We were all frightened by the dramatic change in his appearance and the sound of his voice as he calmly made his recommendations (not final decisions, but recommendations) about what the party should do in the interim. Here's where the disconnect started to manifest itself, as media pundits predicted a terrible infight for power inside the NDP because he had recommended someone who had just been elected over his two deputy leaders for the interim role. And that fighting didn't happen, as it might have in one of the "traditional" parties. The process set out in the party rules was played out, a decision was made and the party members rallied to it.

Then our highly motivated press "dug up" the information that Nycole Turmel had been a member of the Bloc québécois and was a current member of Québec solidaire! Scandal! Those two parties both having Québec sovereignty in their platforms, how could she now assume the post of interim leader of the opposition? Did we all forget that Gilles Duceppe, as leader of the Bloc québécois, was the leader of the opposition in the past? Do we all expect all federal politicians from Québec to emerge from the provincial Liberal Party (because everyone else, progressive and not, has some connection with the sovereignty movement)? I was almost as offended by Ms. Turmel's defenders, who told us we should all be happy that she came back from the "dark side" to join a federalist party.

When Jack Layton died and his family released his letter to Canadians, I found myself very moved by a real expression of positivity that has really not characterized politics in Canada in the recent past. The Tories seem to be taking us down a path that looks very American, airing attack ads against the Liberal Party's last leaders to undermine them outside of the election periods, and the NDP under Jack Layton really didn't go that way, even under fire from the others. The message is positive, it is mobilizing, it is not centred on a person, but on a movement. (I was critical of the leader focus of all the campaigns in the course of the last election here.)

I worried with friends that the lead-up to the funeral was suggesting that the right was trying to bury the NDP with Jack Layton, to portray him as a person separate from his party and from his political convictions, worthy of remembering and celebrating, but not really worthy of following. You could see that in some of the choices of individuals being interviewed for their "person in the street" reactions: "I never voted for him or his party, but I always liked him." If you can look past an image, you will see that it would be impossible to separate the person from his politics. It is precisely his appreciation of people and their issues and differing realities that made him easy to talk to and likeable.

I was very moved by the chalk messages written seemingly all over Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, where he was a city councillor for 20 years before making the leap to federal politics. Moving and personal messages about the impact of a man in a political movement, written in environmentally friendly chalk which washes away in the rain.

After all the efforts to exceptionalize and personalize his impact, I was very pleasantly surprised that his funeral itself was also very political. Not just the eulogy by Stephen Lewis, but all of it. Married gay pastor of a very LGBT-identified church, music reflecting a breadth of appreciation of the arts, including some political messages. I couldn't help thinking that some of the Conservative and Liberal frontbenchers in the room must have been a bit uncomfortable with some of the content. That made me smile (how mean-spirited of me!).

And now it all becomes about moving forward, because the movement survives its members. And we will see, too, how much Mr. Layton's leadership was about sharing the power and not hoarding it to himself: if that was the case (as we all hope and want to believe), then the NDP will continue to be in the good hands it has been in, minus one pair of good hands that gave it a big boost on the way out.

That was very well done and a fitting tribute to a man for whom — like many on the left — the personal is political.

The Language of Fear

Last weekend, I was shocked to see and hear a report on the CBC News Network about the police looking for a teenaged girl with HIV in Edmonton. The report was in high rotation, top of the news every half hour.

I have become unfortunately numbed to the horrific practice of reporting details about accused persons (i.e.: no verdict, just accusations), more outraged when the police allow themselves to seek other 'victims' of people with HIV who are accused of exposing partners to a risk of HIV transmission without disclosing their status. This report had all the elements of a complete outrage, however. A minor, whose identity is supposed to be protected from publication, photo, name and status announced every 30 minutes on the CBC and published in print media, too, and the cherry on top: an oversimplification of the applicable law on disclosure and HIV. (The CBC repeated each 30 minutes that having sex without disclosing your status if you are HIV positive is a criminal offence. In fact, there also has to be a significant risk of transmission, which is no small difference from what the newsreader was saying.)

I am left wondering just how much force a homeless teenaged girl wields over her sexual partners that she has to be publicly tracked down and denounced before any proof has been made against her.

The next story that has outraged me and made me reflect on this issue comes from an interview published this week on PositiveLite.com (interview here) of a man who had actually been accused of attempted murder for not disclosing his status until a judge dismissed those charges on the basis that HIV is no longer a death sentence (interesting development). The part that caught my eye, however, was his recounting of his arrest in the interview. SWAT team? Really?! For not saying something?!

I don't claim to know anything more about either of these cases than what I have seen and heard in the media, so don't mistake my commentary for informed analysis of the facts of these cases. But here is the reflection that has been provoked for me: why is our society reacting so violently to the non-disclosure of HIV status? Is it all really about people's perceptions of HIV being stuck in a distant past of not understanding the modes of transmission or the effectiveness of treatment? I think it is at least partly about the language of the criminal law when it comes to HIV non-disclosure.

Assault. Aggravated assault. Sexual assault. Attempted murder. Murder. Bombarded by these words, it is all too easy to conjure up an image of a violent person inflicting his or her infection on a victim trying desperately to avoid it. But that isn't it at all. This is all about someone not saying something to someone else.

Would we be having public searches for someone or calling out the SWAT team if the offence were called aggravated silence? How about fraud, since that's the actual offence from which the courts have constructed the assault charges? (The construction process: fraud means that the consent the person gave when engaging in sexual relations is invalid. No consent means assault or sexual assault.) So is fraud SWAT-worthy? All fraud? I'm having trouble picturing the SWAT team being called out to arrest a white-collar criminal.

So, in case you are wondering why I'm getting worked up, let me summarize. The HIV-positive person is entirely responsible for the other person's decision not to put on a condom. And now, we also get to be treated to violent responses to acts of omission because the public and our journalists can't be bothered to understand the realities of HIV today or even the state of our inadequate, heavy-handed criminal law.

Viagra is So Gay

This is so wrong.

Yes, it is wrong of me to use this expression, 'gay' to denote something about which I am really not happy, but in this case it all just seems appropriate to me. It turns out that Viagra is a principal sponsor of our gay pride activities in Montréal this year.

For those who might be wondering, Montréalers are so proud that we have two gay pride festivals, Divers/Cité (weekend ending with the first Monday in August) and Célébrations de la fierté (two weeks later). This all came about when Divers/Cité decided it didn't want to organize the community day (showcase of community organizations) or the parade, so these vital activities were taken up by a new organization. But that's not what we're here to talk about today.

My ranting is about pharmaceutical advertising. Many of us in the HIV movement have been fighting the advertising of HIV meds for a long time, for reasons that you can read about more fully here, but let me briefly summarize by saying that this is about trying to influence people to pressure their doctors to prescribe certain medications, whether or not they are the most appropriate, based on incomplete, even minimal, information. This creates frictions in the relationship with the doctor and unfounded expectations in the patient, all in the name of capturing (or recapturing) market share.

In Canada, the advertising of prescription drugs is [theoretically] restricted: you can advertise the name of the product and the name of the company OR the condition the drug is intended to treat, but never both together and never each in parallel in such a way that would establish a link between them (colour scheme, images, etc.). Some of the HIV drugs, in my opinion, have been treading close to that line or over it in recent years.

So here we go with Viagra. Now I have combed this advertising for information (pharmaceutical companies often insist that their advertising is 'patient education'), but all I come up with is gay. Rainbow, pill, talk to your doctor. Must be a pill for the gays, right?

I can't really blame the organizers of les Célébrations de la fierté when we are facing not only governments which seem to have less money for funding in general, but some of which have also decided that they don't like to fund the gay, despite our also paying taxes and all. They probably had few choices of corporate sponsors, and had to make this one to make ends meet. I'll tell you what, Mr. Harper, I'll take one fewer hideously overpriced warplane and fund the gay pride festivities across the country for several years, reaching hundreds of thousands of people.

So I have stomped about, fuming about the print advertising, coasters and street columns announcing Viagra and demonstrating how blue doesn't stand for harmony, but for erectile dysfunction (rainbow flag reference). Imagine my surprise, then, to see this same little blue pill pop up, sans rainbow, on the website I use as my TV listings.

So maybe Viagra isn't so much gay as Pfizer is desperate. Levitra anyone? Cialis?