Pennsylvania State Capitol, in Harrisburg – Photo: Mihai Andritoiu, via Dreamstime.com.
Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an anti-human trafficking bill into law that contains provisions repealing parts of an existing state law that allowed people with HIV to be charged with enhanced criminal penalties if they engaged in prostitution and did not disclose their status to clients.
Previously, people living with HIV could face harsher penalties than people without HIV for engaging in the same illicit activity. For example, a person without HIV who was charged with prostitution would face only a misdemeanor, while a person with HIV who engaged in the same behavior could be charged with a felony.
The bulk of Senate Bill 45, introduced by Sen. Cris Dush (R-Brookville) and passed overwhelmingly by both chambers with bipartisan support, dealt with increasing criminal penalties for those who prey on human trafficking victims who have been groomed, manipulated, or forced into prostitution. The final version incorporated provisions from House Bill 632, which State Rep. Ben Waxman (D-Philadelphia) introduced earlier this year. It did not receive a floor vote.
“The enhanced penalties were something that dates back to the AIDS panic of the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a lot of fear and misinformation — much of it fueled by homophobia — that drove policymakers to put in place policies that were discriminatory and that don’t reflect today’s understanding of the science surrounding HIV,” Waxman told Metro Weekly.
“Now, the treatment and prevention of HIV are very different. People are living for a very long time. People are living with almost undetectable traces of HIV in their system. The medication and the science has really come a long way. So this updates the criminal code to reflect those changes.”
Dr. Kathleen Brady, the director of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Division of HIV Health, issued a statement praising the elimination of enhanced penalties for people with HIV.
“Living with HIV is not a crime, and HIV criminalization laws have been proven, time and again, not to work for the benefit of the community or in the service of justice,” Brady said. “In fact, such laws prevent public health agencies from responding effectively to the HIV epidemic by perpetuating stigma, racism, xenophobia, social and economic injustice — while reducing willingness for people to participate in HIV prevention, testing, and care.”
Waxman told Metro Weekly that, before Shapiro signed the anti-trafficking bill into law, HIV was the only disease singled out under Pennsylvania law for enhanced criminal penalties. He called the repeal a “tremendous victory.”
“I think it’s so important that we challenge the stigma around this illness and end a lot of the political grandstanding that happened over the years targeting people with HIV,” he said. “I have been talking with advocates who helped us craft the legislation and brought the flaws in the law to our attention. And somebody told me that this is one of the only things that they can think of that state legislature has done that has been positive when dealing with the issue of HIV, because so often, legislation is guided by stigma and discrimination and a lack of understanding around the advancements in medical science.”
Waxman said the bill is not retroactive, meaning that people previously convicted of prostitution offenses would not see their charges or sentences reduced. He noted, however, that the enhanced penalties for people with HIV have rarely been used by law enforcement in recent years. Despite their infrequent use, he argued that keeping such provisions on the books left them ripe for abuse by overzealous law enforcement officers or local prosecutors.
“It was such an outdated statute that it basically was never being used by law enforcement,” he said. “So we don’t know of anyone who’s currently serving a sentence that has been enhanced because they have HIV. But we also don’t want there to be future examples.”
Russian television viewers have noticed that a well-known episode of SpongeBob SquarePants was altered to remove a rainbow, apparently as part of the country's sweeping censorship of media and symbols deemed pro-LGBTQ.
According to independent news outlet ASTRA, the Russian television channel 2x2 replaced the rainbow with a solid yellow arc in a scene where SpongeBob waves his arms while talking about the fun of using one's imagination.
The clip of SpongeBob waving his arms to reveal the rainbow has circulated for years as a popular social media meme. Although the scene has nothing to do with LGBTQ identity, there has long been speculation that SpongeBob and his friend Patrick "code" as a gay couple, which may have contributed to the decision to erase the rainbow.
Prosecutors in Uganda have thrown out a case against two women accused of violating the country's Anti-Homosexuality Act by kissing in public.
The 2023 law -- which American evangelicals and Republican lawmakers encouraged Ugandan lawmakers to pass as part of a crackdown on displays of homosexuality and expressions of LGBTQ identity -- imposes some of the world's harshest penalties for same-sex intimacy, including up to life in prison for consensual same-sex relations.
The women -- Wendy Faith, a 22-year-old musician known as Torrero Bae, and Alesi Diana Denise, 21 -- were arrested in February in the city of Arua after neighbors claimed to have seen them kissing in public. The neighbors photographed the women and accused them of hosting "same-sex orgies," a local police spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse at the time.
Niger's military junta has enacted a new penal code criminalizing homosexuality.
The West African nation is the latest African country to criminalize homosexuality, just months after Senegal doubled the penalty for consensual same-sex relations.
The new penal code, which took effect on June 11, punishes anyone who "commits or attempts to commit an immodest or unnatural act or practices lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender, Queer, intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA+) acts" with five to 10 years in prison and a fine. How authorities would determine what constitutes an "asexual act" remains unclear.
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