It's about time that this country had a serious conversation about our nation's prohibition on HIV-positive people from entering the United States. Andrew Sullivan -- who is British by birth and unable to apply for US residency because he's poz -- just wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post arguing for the repeal of this ban. Sullivan writes:

It seems unthinkable that the country that has been the most generous in helping people with HIV should legally ban all non-Americans who are HIV-positive. But it's true: The leading center of public and private HIV research discriminates against those with HIV.

HIV is the only medical condition permanently designated in law -- in the Immigration and Nationality Act -- as grounds for inadmissibility to the United States. Even leprosy and tuberculosis are left to the discretion of the secretary of health and human services.

Last week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for countries with restrictive measures to eliminate these travel restrictions on Poz folks. He said:

Six decades after the [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] was adopted, it is shocking that there should still be discrimination against those at high risk, such stigma attached to individuals living with HIV. This not only drives the virus underground, where it can spread in the dark; as important, it is an affront to our common humanity.

One of my most moving experiences as Secretary-General has been my meetings with the UN's own group of HIV-positive staff, UN Plus. They are wonderfully courageous and motivated people. I am determined to make the UN a model workplace in embracing them, and all our staff living with HIV.

In the world as a whole, I call for a change in laws that uphold stigma and discrimination – including restrictions on travel for people living with HIV.

As Sullivan and Greenwald point out, there are only TWELVE countries that prohibit entry to HIV positive folks: Armenia, Colombia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sudan, the United States and Yemen. Yes, that's right, we're on a very short list with those bastions of the human rights community, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Time for change, folks! Glenn Greenwald has a nice blog entry linking this ban on poz travelers to the State Department's hypocritical critiques of violations of human rights in Russia and Zimbabwe.