Happy Market Days. I'd like to wish everyone a fantastic and memorable weekend. (And just to be clear, by memorable I mean "look back on fondly" and not something you will look back on as "the year of the 3rd degree sunburn" or the "anniversary of my first outbreak of Herpes"). The obvious column here would have been something related to health & safety during the Market Days holiday weekend. But since you're all going to take care of yourselves and each other anyway, there's no need for another harm reduction message... Right? Instead I'm going to talk about something coming up that needs your attention and is of vital importance to your health. You won't need a doctor and it doesn't cost a penny so you don't need health insurance to do it. In terms of importance, it's right up there with quitting smoking and wearing your seatbelt. In fact, if you're not going to do it, I'd almost say don't bother wearing your seatblet.

Three months from now, the GLBT community (along with Reverend Phelps, the entire membership of the NRA not counting the teens and toddlers, the entire "Dr." Laura fanclub, and many others) will be sending a very strong message to the elected officials and appointees who will make the healthcare policies that shape the future of healthcare for decades to come. Policy made in the next few years will have far reaching effects. Literally millions of lives and billions of dollars are at stake. What is at stake for you personally as well as for the GLBT community? Here are some examples:

1. Funding for the study and implementation of EFFECTIVE strategies for the prevention of HIV and AIDS.

2. Affordable prescription drug coverage for everyone.

3. Freedom and protection from bashing and other hate crimes

4. The enactment of meaningful legislation that will end discrimination due to race and ethnicity, disability, and religion (because we know that as long as the rights of any person or group are denied, everyone's rights are in jeopardy) as well as sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status.

Such legislation would include making it mandatory for all employers who provide health insurance to the married domestic partners of their employees to provide the same benefits to the domestic partners of their employees whose marriage rights are, at present, illegally denied by State and Federal governments.

5. Effective Prevention and Treatment programs targeted to GLBT persons with depression, substance abuse, tobacco dependency, alcoholism, domestic violence, and prevention of teen suicide; all of which occur at higher rates in GLTB communities .

6. Legal protection of your rights when your partner is incapacitated due to illness or is deceased.

7. Legal Protection of Parent's Rights and Adoption for same sex couples.

8. The expansion of AIDS Drug Assistance Programs in Every State so that all HIV positive people, regardless of income or geography will have access to all current standard therapies and will be able to see a physician who specializes in HIV.

9. Healthcare policy made in the next few years in the United States could determine the fate of 50 million children worldwide who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Current policy places an emphasis on abstinence, failing to recognize that the majority of the world's people live with economic conditions that make sex a means of survival and societal norms that make non- consensual sex commonplace and rarely criminal

Our policies will have a tremendous impact on how many people will die because of lack of access to therapies that we take for granted in developed nations.

Accomplishing these things and more could help safeguard your health and improve the quality of your life. It is, I admit, optimistic to hope that the items I've listed will all come to pass. It is not optimistic to suggest that if everyone in our community took the time to vote, to know the candidates agendas and ideals and to hold them accountable when they are elected, to write or call or email your representative once in awhile when you encounter injustice, if we do these things, the message we send to the policy makers will be heard loud and clear. And if we do not vote or hold our elected officials accountable, the message we send to the policy makers will be heard loud and clear.