AIDS continues to be a major concern for the gay and lesbian community. In 1995, the Tulane Journal of Law and Sexuality decided to compile a comprehensive summary of HIV and AIDS laws on a state-by-state basis for publication in Volume 5. We felt having a list of all laws dealing with the issue and being able to compare them with other jurisdictions could be an invaluable research aid for legal professionals. The summary was updated in 1999 and 2004 and republished in Volumes 8 and 13 in order to keep our readers informed on the current state of the law. The summary will also be updated in Vol. 18, due to be released in April 2009.
The interest in this summary seems to reach much further than just the legal profession, however. There have been requests for these volumes from those in academic areas, especially in the social sciences, that we did not think would have been especially interested in such an article. In retrospect, perhaps we should have expected a much broader interest in our work.
Therefore, recognizing there may well be people who need the information but do not have access to Westlaw or a legal library that subscribes to our journal, the staff of Law and Sexuality has decided to place the article, in its entirety, on the Web site to facilitate access to this important information. In the interest of reducing load time, we have separated the article according to each state and territory; each state's page contains a comprehensive listing of every provision in that state that contains a reference to "HIV," "AIDS," or "sexually transmitted disease." These listings were accurate as of the spring of 2004, and obviously some changes will have been made since then.
We feel it is our duty as an academic journal to facilitate the disbursement of important information to the gay and lesbian community and our friends. As such, we are providing the public with the most ready access to this article that we can. However, we must also sell our journals in order to continue to provide such information. As such, if you have a regular need for this information we ask that you consider buying an issue of Volume 13, which printed the updated summary. Also, if you are interested in other developments in the legal field relating to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender issues, or if you would simply like to support us in our studies of the field, we would be happy to add you to our list of subscribers. Information on getting a subscription to the journal or ordering back issues can be found on the appropriate pages here on our web site.