Openly gay and HIV positive New York State Senator Tom Duane delivered a powerful, gripping, sometimes screeching speech on early Friday morning to garner support for his bill that prevents people living with HIV or AIDS and receiving public assistance from having to pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income on shelter costs, rent and utilities. The balance will be paid by public assistance.
Following the speech that was delivered at 3am after the second marathon Senate session in a row, the bill passed by a vote of 52 to 1. The Assembly, however, has yet to approve it.
When Duane was elected in 1998, he became the first openly-gay and first openly HIV-positive member of the Senate.
In his impassioned 20-min speech which got a standing ovation from the floor, the state senator recalled watching “hundreds” of his friends die since the 1980s, and the stigma and discrimination people living with HIV/AIDS had faced and continue to face in the US since HIV/AIDS was first identified in the US.
"Let me take you back to the early eighties. Visiting friends in hospitals. We'd go in. We'd go in one night, in the morning they'd be dead. I'd bring them food. My family, bring them food. My friends bring someone food. But whoever was in bed would be dead before they could eat it.
"We'd leave it - maybe the nurses would take it home. No! They wouldn't eat it! 'Cause it's contaminated. Contaminated! Wouldn't touch it. Wouldn't go into the room. Wearing masks. Gloves! Gowns! Someone gets sick in the afternoon. They'd be dead the next day. Dead! And that went on for months, and then years. Dead! Dead!
"You think if you got sick and your friends were dying that I would sit there and do nothing? No. But that's what happened. That's what happened.”
He also spoke of his personal struggle with HIV. “Every cold. Every virus. Every temperature. I thought I'd be dead, and so did so many people that I knew. Dead! You think you scare me? You think you can make be back off? Nothing scares me."
Veteran AIDS activist and AIDSmeds.com founder, Peter Staley, wrote on his blog about Duane's speech: "All the pent-up rage from what people with AIDS lived through in the 1980’s and early 90’s, and even some of the shit we all live through today, can be heard in Tom’s voice. I’ve always felt we’ve never processed all the pain we went through back then. And we’re all capable of snapping from it - letting it spill out at any moment. There’s a Tom Duane lurking deep down in all of us, waiting to be heard."
In 2001, Duane was the first New York State legislator to introduce a same-sex marriage bill. The current bill, S.4401, is pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee following a vote of 89 to 52 by legislators in May this year.
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Reader's Comments
All power to you Senator Duane! My thoughts go out to those that suffer.
God Bless and protect you Senator Tom Duane!
Screechy self-serving rant. I'm embarrassed for him.
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Nah, u r doing a fantastic job for yourself..;). Keep ranting.ZZzzz
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