Senate Approves Repeal of HIV Travel Ban
This is great news about another relic from Jesse Helms' era. The Human Rights Campaign is reporting that the Senate just an hour or so ago approved repeal of the ban on allowing people with HIV to come to the U.S., a ban approved in 1987 amid fear, hysteria and homophobic in this country. Says HRC:
Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) secured a provision to repeal this ban in the Senate’s legislation to reauthorize PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The PEPFAR bill passed the Senate today with the Kerry-Smith provision by a vote of 80 to 16 and now moves to conference committee before being sent to the President.However, the efforts of Senators Kerry and Smith in addition to robust advocacy from HRC and our coalition partners secured enough opposition to the Sessions amendment that the Senator agreed not to bring it forward for a vote.
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