Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is the second GOP presidential contender to officially embrace same-sex marriage, making the announcement tonight during a town hall hosted by the pro-gay Republican group GOProud. From his statement:

As a believer in individual freedom and keeping government out of personal lives, I simply cannot find a legitimate justification for federal laws, such as the Defense of Marriage Act, which ‘define’ marriage. That definition should be left to religions and individuals – not government. Government’s role when it comes to marriage is one of granting benefits and rights to couples who choose to enter into a marriage ‘contract’. As I have examined this issue, consulted with folks on all sides, and viewed it through the lens of individual freedom and equal rights, it has become clear to me that denying those rights and benefits to gay couples is discrimination, plain and simple. [...]

Today, I believe we have arrived at a point in history where more and more Americans are viewing it as a question of liberty and freedom. That evolution is important, and the time has come for us to align our marriage laws with the notion that every individual should be treated equally.”

Johnson, known for his Libertarian leanings, had previously “advocates for ‘gay unions‘ as an extension of personal freedom.” Significantly, Johnson was also one of the first GOP candidates to condemn a debate audience’s booing of a gay soldier who asked a question about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

He strongly spoke out against a conservative group’s marriage fidelity pledge over the summer, chiding the document — prepared by the FAMiLY Leader — as “offensive to the principles of liberty and freedom on which this country was founded.”

Political operative Fred Karger is the only other GOP presidential contender to endorse same-sex marriage. He is also openly gay.

In commemoration of Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, here are five things the United States can do to help usher in the administration’s goal of creating an AIDS-free generation:

1. Issue a global challenge to join the United States in creating an AIDS-free generation. At the beginning of 2011, 34 million people around the world were living with HIV. In 2010, 1.8 million people died of AIDS-related causes, and 2.7 million were newly infected with HIV. Currently, more than 6.5 million people have access to effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), but this represents less than 50 percent of the more than 14 million people who need it. The majority of people affected by the AIDS epidemic worldwide are women, poor people, and people of color, and the disease continues to follow other faultlines of social inequality. Both in the U.S. and internationally, marginalized communities such as gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), as well as transgender women, bear a vastly disproportionate burden of the epidemic.

2. Invest in high-impact AIDS prevention strategies, including treatment as prevention. HIV is a preventable disease. Over the last decade increased access to appropriate HIV prevention mechanisms, including condoms, treatment for pregnant women that prevents mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and voluntary male circumcision, have resulted in a 15 percent reduction in new infections worldwide. New scientific breakthroughs in antiretroviral therapy have also demonstrated that ART not only improves the health and well-being of people with HIV – it also stops further HIV transmission. Simply put, treatment is prevention: we now know that treating a person living with HIV reduces the risk of transmission to a heterosexual partner by 96 percent.

3. Commit to defending, optimizing, and increasing PEPFAR funding to reach a U.S. treatment target of 6 million by 2013. In 2008, the U.S. recommitted to its leadership in ending the global AIDS epidemic by setting aside up to $48 billion over five years to fund the President’s Emergency Fund for HIV/AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). These funds directly support ART for more than 3.2 million people and care and support for 11 million, including 3.8 million vulnerable children, in more than 30 countries. In the current deficit-focused U.S. fiscal climate, we cannot fail in our commitment to finding the resources needed to continue existing treatment, care, and prevention efforts and to expand these services to everyone who needs them. Read more

In The Life Media, in partnership with Freedom to Marry and Equality North Carolina, has released a series of three web videos featuring same-sex couples that will run as TV advertisements in North Carolina and across the country. These “Marriage Matters” ads are the first big push in the campaign to reject North Carolina’s proposed constitutional amendment that would ban recognition not only of same-sex marriage, but of civil unions and domestic partnerships as well. The ads follow three same-sex families who face different challenges in securing their life-long love. Watch:

George and Farid:

Tobi and Janee:

Cristina y Monica (en Español):

President Obama challenged the world to usher in an AIDS-free generation during a panel discussion in George Washington University this morning to commemorate World AIDS Day, and announced that the administration is committing an addition $50 million in increased funding for domestic HIV/AIDS treatment and care: $15 million for the Ryan White program that supports care provided by HIV medical clinics across the country and $35 million for state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs. Obama also set a new target of helping six million Americans obtain access to HIV treatment by the end of 2013.

Citing the success of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program in providing anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS around the world, Obama admitted that new infections are still increasing in the United States and specifically identified the LGBT community:

The infection rate here has been holding steady for over a decade. There are communities in this country being devastated by this disease. When new infections among young, black, gay men increase by nearly fifty percent in three years, we need to do more to show them that their lives matter. When Latinos are dying sooner than other groups; when black women feel forgotten even though they account for most of the new cases among women, we need to do more. This fight isn’t over. Not for the 1.2 million Americans who are living with HIV right now. [...]

Now, I want to be clear about something else – since taking office, we’ve increased overall funding to combat HIV/AIDS to record levels. With bipartisan support, we reauthorized the Ryan White CARE Act. And, as I signed that bill, I was so proud to also announce that my Administration was ending the ban that prohibited people with HIV from entering America. Because of that step, next year, for the first time in two decades, we will host the International AIDS conference. So we’ve done a lot over the past three years. But we can do more.

Watch it:

Indeed, in the United States, medical progress now ensures that HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence, but only for those who can access good medical care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that almost three out of four Americans with HIV are not receiving enough medicine or regular health care “to stay healthy or prevent themselves from transmitting the virus to others.” Out of the 1.2 million Americans with HIV, 850,000 aren’t receiving regular treatment to keep the virus at a low enough level to prevent transmission or hurt their own health and 240,000 Americans don’t even know they’re infected with HIV.

Next year, “the CDC will require 75% of about $359 million in annual HIV prevention grants to state and local health departments to go toward programs that get more people tested and into regular care.” It is also spearheading a $2.4 million campaign “to promote testing among black gay and bisexual men, who account for 22 percent of new infections.”

Michele Bachmann told a group of supporters in Waverly, Iowa yesterday afternoon that gay and lesbian people should have “no special rights” to marry people of the same sex, insisting that “the laws are you marry a person of the opposite sex.” Iowa actually began allowing same-sex couples to marry in 2009, but Bachmann, oblivious to the growing acceptance of marriage equality, explained that prohibitions against such marriages don’t discriminate against gay people since they can always marry partners of the opposite sex:

JANE SCHMIDT: Then, why can’t same-sex couples get married?

BACHMANN: They can get married, but they abide by the same law as everyone else. They can marry a man if they’re a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they’re a man. [...]

JANE SCHMIDT: So you won’t support the LGBT community?

BACHMANN: No, I said that there are no special rights for people based upon your sex practices. There’s no special rights based upon what you do in your sex life. You’re an American citizen first and foremost and that’s it.

ELLA NEWELL, a junior at Waverly High School: Wouldn’t heterosexual couples, if they were given a privilege then, that gay couples aren’t, like given that privilege to get married, but heterosexual couples are given a privilege to get married?

BACHMANN: Remember every American citizen has the right to avail themselves to marriage but they have to follow what the laws are. And the laws are you marry a person of the opposite sex.

Ironically, Bachmann preceded her answers with a call to tolerance, telling the crowd, “True tolerance means allowing people to express themselves and their beliefs. There might be people in this room that have no faith at all. You’re welcome here. Everyone is welcome here. But that doesn’t that mean that we squelch people’s speech that have religious-based values either. And we need to allow people to speak.”

Six states plus the District of Columbia now allow same-sex marriage.