Five Years On: My Diagnosis and Mission Living As HIV-Positive

By Scott Foval, Huffington Post. Posted December 29, 2008.

World AIDS Day meant more to me this year not because of what I have experienced, but because more than ever, I realize my purpose on this earth to keep hammering on the agents of intolerance that contributed to my own story in a very personal way, so as to help free others from having to suffer the pain, discrimination, quiet despair and downward spiral that I fell into over the past eight years. This year, I'm telling my story to fight back, letting everyone know that we're only halfway down the path to real equality and justice for all Americans, and a very long way from winning the battle for equality for all human beings.

I hope you'll join me in fighting back, by demanding from our elected officials, community leaders, religious leaders and friends and neighbors that they take action to join us in erasing discrimination in all its forms and to give GLBTQ couples like Tim and me the same rights to marriage as everyone else. We need to keep reminding people, through action and visibility, political pressure and vocal peaceful protest, that we will not be the one group of people in our country who are left out of Obama's plan to change our country and establish a fair, unified, committed nation of laws and social equality. We must not rest until everyone is truly treated as equals, without condition, and that those who endorse policies that divide or discriminate have no place in a civilized society.

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Scott Foval is a writer, media host, presenter and producer living in Chicago.

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