HIV Infection Disclosure Case: Florida Law Aims To Prevent Sexually Transmitted Diseases; 'Targeting Only Straight Sex Is Absurd'

A South Florida appeals court upheld a ruling that a man from Key West who lied about his HIV infection to his gay partner is liable to the HIV infection disclosure law.  The ruling defended Florida's law which applies to both same-sex couples and heterosexual partners.

"The law allegedly violated is Florida Statutes Section 384.24(2), which punishes HIV carriers who don't reveal their status to their bed partners. It has been reviled by gay rights advocates who say it stigmatizes people infected with the virus," the Business Daily Review reported.

Now, the case has been moved to Florida' Supreme Court, where it will be decided what the implications of the term "sex" include, and if the law should be applied to people of all sexual orientaion.

"Because the HIV disclosure law aims to prevent sexually transmitted diseases however they are caused, targeting only straight sex 'makes no sense,' Judge Linda Ann Wells said representing the panel majority. Such a result would be absurd."

Gay activists will be watching the Supreme Court ruling closely since Florida and a dozen other states enforce the HIV Disclosure law.

“It’s a progressive ruling, but the law itself is draconian, ” Norm Kent, a South Florida activist and a criminal-defense lawyer, said in a Miami Herald report. Kent is also the publisher of South Florida Gay News.

HIV Project Director for the gay-rights group Lambda Legal, Scott Schoettes, also said that it was difficult to see something positive in a disclosure law he felt was "unjust."

“It’s nice to have courts recognize relations between two men,” he added. "But it would be nice to recognize granting us our rights in an affirmative sense, not just when it comes to criminalizing our sex lives.”