The Totally Normal Reason This Baby’s Trapped in a Tube

What’s cuter than a squishy, rosy-cheeked baby? A squishy, rosy-cheeked baby squeezed into this bizarre x-ray machine!

The image—which no, isn’t Photoshopped—popped up on Reddit earlier this week, and quickly spread around the Internet, with people questioning what was going on and whether this kiddo was safe.

As it turns out, the cherubic baby is in the oddly-named Pigg-O-Stat device, which securely holds a child in place during X-rays to minimize their squirming so technicians can get the image they need the first time rather than exposing a baby to continued radiation over multiple tries. (The child’s legs are dangling below him, out of frame.)

RELATED: Is It Too Late For A Baby?

The Pigg-O-Stat has actually been in use since 1960, though not universally, and numerous commenters who saw the photo on Imgur confirmed that their own infants have had to wedge into the tube-like device, and were shocked at this lil’ goober’s calm and cool attitude during the process. One commenter noted: “Had a scare last year, can confirm: babies do not like this contraption.” From another: “My daughter lost her mind when she had to have a chest xray in one of those. I think I cried more than she did.”

While the results of said x-ray were not posted, hopefully they showed that this sweet chubster is totally fine, and will live a long life filled with endless good-natured ribbing about having been a real-life, Internet-famous test-tube baby.

RELATED: Choose the Sex of Your Baby (and Other Myths)

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Deadly Fungus Killing U.S. Snakes Similar to That Seen in Bats

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — For years, a deadly fungus has been decimating bat populations across the United States. Now scientists say a similar, often fatal, fungal infection is killing snakes as well.

The snake fungus, called Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola and the bat fungus, known as Pseudogymnoascus destructans and called “white-nose syndrome,” both emerged about a decade ago.

The fungi inhabit different environments and prefer different temperature and humidity ranges, the scientists said. However, they do share traits that allow them to live in a variety of habitats and infect various species of snakes and bats.

“The fungus killing these snakes is remarkably similar in its basic biology to the fungus that has killed millions of bats,” study co-author Andrew Miller, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said in a university news release.

“It occurs in the soil, seems to grow on a wide variety of substances, and it possesses many of the same enzymes that make the bat fungus so persistent,” he explained.

“The snake fungus has the ability, just like the bat fungus, to live as a saprobe, consuming dead organic matter,” Miller said. “It doesn’t need the animal to live, but it’s out there attacking the animal now. Why is it doing it? I don’t know.”

Both types of fungus emerged in North America in the mid-2000s and are sweeping across the United States and parts of Canada. The fungal infection in bats has a death rate of more than 90 percent.

The fungal infection in snakes feeds on keratin, found in snake scales. Infection causes scabs, nodules, abnormal molting, ulcers and other skin and tissue damage, the researchers said, and the death rate is 100 percent.

Whether every North American snake is vulnerable is unclear. According to the researchers, snakes affected by the fungal disease include northern water snakes, eastern racers, rat snakes, timber rattlesnakes, Eastern massasaugas, pygmy rattlesnakes and garter snakes.

“We know that the fungus is out there, we know that it’s killing snakes, but is it killing healthy snakes or is it killing snakes that are already weakened from some other cause?” said study co-author Matthew Allender, who was the first to report the snake fungal disease in rattlesnakes in Illinois.

Habitat loss, pollution, severe weather and stress from human encroachment may all worsen snake health, potentially making them more susceptible to disease, he said.

The beleaguered snakes do have human allies: Allender co-chairs a recently formed group, linked to Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, to help research and fight the fungal threat.

“This is a collaborative effort among biologists, veterinarians and habitat managers to actually assess the risks and minimize the effects of disease,” Allender said.

The study was published recently in the journal Fungal Ecology.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has information about fungal diseases in people.

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Kate Hudson’s Workout Secrets for Sculpted Abs

Did you happen to catch Kate Hudson in that barely-there bikini photo she recently posted from her vacay in Greece?

While we admit that the locale is pretty sweet, we are WAY more interested in the Oscar-nominated actress’s perfectly taut core. So we did some digging and found out that the 36-year-old attributes her sizzling bod to a few key workouts:

RELATED: 3 Sculpting Moves to Try From Our Red-Carpet Favorites

“I do all kinds of stuff. I get really bored, so I’ll do anything, I’ll try anything,” the mom of two  told E! News. “There’s this thing called Heartcore in London that I love. And so I do that when I am there. And then I do hot yoga a lot in London because when it’s rainy I just want to go somewhere warm. I spin—I love a SoulCycle class. I love to dance. I work out like four times a week,” the Fabletics founder said, while also noting that what she eats also plays a huge role in her knockout physique: “Food plays a big role.”

Another sculpting trick that Hudson lives by: trying to stay stress-free. “I really believe that when you are holding onto stress, you body does the same thing and when you start to let all of that go, [the weight] just starts to fall [off],” she told E! News.

RELATED: The Hottest Ways Hollywood Lives Healthy

We also know that Hudson is a Pilates devotee. In fact, she’s been practicing with her trainer Nicole Stuart for over 15 years. Here’s a move straight from Stuart that will help you tone and tighten you own tummy, Hudson-style.

Sculpt killer abs like Kate Hudson

Trainer: Nicole Stuart

The move: The Criss Cross

Why it’s so great: This exercise, which works the entire midsection but especially the obliques, will always challenge you because it never gets easier, Stuart says.

How to do it: Lying faceup, pull knees into stomach. Place hands behind head and bring elbows and knees to touch, or as close as possible (A). Bring left knee to right elbow, pressing both together as hard as you can, and extend right leg (B). Hold for 3 long counts, then return to “A” and hold. Repeat motion with right knee and left elbow while extending left leg. This is 1 rep. Do 10 reps a day to see a flat, toned belly in as little as a month.

Illustration: Remie Geoffroi

RELATED: A Core Workout for Flat Abs in 4 Simple Moves

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Sleep Problems May Contribute to Health Disparities in America

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Undiagnosed sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, are common among older U.S. adults, especially among certain minority groups, a new study finds.

The researchers — who looked at 2,230 men and women aged 54 to 93 — say troubled sleep may play a role in health disparities in America.

Black, Chinese and Hispanic Americans were more likely than whites to have sleep problems, including nighttime breathing disruptions characteristic of sleep apnea, the study found.

“As sleep apnea has been implicated as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and mortality, our findings highlight the need to consider undiagnosed sleep apnea in middle-aged and older adults, with potential value in developing strategies to screen and improve recognition in groups such as in Chinese and Hispanic populations,” the study’s senior author, Dr. Susan Redline, said in a news release from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Redline is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Participants were evaluated for sleep issues such as sleep apnea, poor sleep, snoring, daytime sleepiness and insomnia, which is trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.

Data gathered over three years revealed that about one-third had moderate or severe sleep-disordered breathing. Thirty-one percent got too little sleep (fewer than six hours a night), while nearly one-quarter suffered from insomnia, and 14 percent had excessive daytime sleepiness.

Yet, despite the prevalence of sleep issues, fewer than one in 10 participants was formally diagnosed with sleep apnea, the findings showed.

After taking other factors into consideration, such as gender and age, the study showed that black people were most likely to sleep less than six hours each night. They were also more likely than white people to have sleep apnea, poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness, the study published in the June issue of Sleep found.

Meanwhile, Hispanics and Chinese Americans were more likely than whites to have breathing problems at night and get too little sleep. However, Chinese study participants were the least likely to have insomnia, according to the report.

“Our findings underscore the very high prevalence of undiagnosed sleep disturbances in middle-aged and older adults, and identify racial/ethnic disparities that include differences in short sleep duration, sleep apnea and daytime sleepiness,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Xiaoli Chen, a research fellow at Harvard’s School of Public Health, said in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Sleep Foundation has more on sleep problems and disorders.

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Sequence of Shots May Lead to Effective HIV Vaccine, Mouse Study Finds

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — It’s unlikely that a single vaccine would ever enable the body to neutralize the HIV virus, but a sequence of immunizations might hold the key, a new mouse study suggests.

The immune system could be guided in a series of steps to develop a special type of HIV-fighting antibody, a team of researchers said.

Each immunization would be customized for specific stages of the immune system’s response to the virus. In the end, the series of shots would result in the production of broadly neutralizing antibodies capable of fighting HIV, the authors said.

“As HIV mutates in a patient, the immune system continually adapts. In some patients, this process produces broadly neutralizing antibodies, which are unusual antibodies that can bind to and neutralize a wide range of globally occurring HIV variants. These are the antibodies we want to try to elicit with a vaccine,” co-first author Pia Dosenovic, a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University in New York City, said in a school news release.

Co-first author Lotta von Boehmer, an instructor in clinical investigation at Rockefeller, said in the release, “Our experiments suggest that by stimulating the immune response with tailored immunizations at specific stages, it may be possible to successfully mimic this process.”

Whether this process could be mimicked in humans remains to be seen, as animal research doesn’t always translate to humans.

The study was published recently in the journal Cell.

HIV is constantly mutating, the researchers explained. That makes it difficult for the immune system to produce effective antibodies — substances made by the immune system to fight specific foreign invaders.

But one part of the HIV virus — the binding site the virus uses to attack immune cells — can’t mutate, the researchers noted. This site can’t change because the virus needs it to attach to healthy cells and infect them. Broadly neutralizing antibodies, which are produced by immune cells called B cells, can target this site and defeat the virus’ attempts to protect it.

B cells undergo many mutations to refine their antibodies. Some people infected with HIV develop these neutralizing antibodies naturally once they are infected, but they are few in number. Scientists have tried to bring about the production of these neutralizing antibodies with a vaccine, but have been largely unsuccessful.

In the current study, the researchers attempted to produce these antibodies in mice with not one, but a sequence of immunizations both early in their immune systems’ initial response to HIV and later on in the process. They pointed out that the mice they used were genetically engineered to produce antibodies closely resembling those of people.

The researchers found that by administering specifically tailored antigens at specific times, the immune system’s response can be coached through the process of developing broadly neutralizing antibodies. Antigens are substances on the surface of a cell that stimulate antibody production.

“While our results suggest sequential immunizations may make it possible to vaccinate against HIV, we have only just begun to understand how this sequence would work,” Dosenovic said. “We know the beginning and the end, but we don’t know what should happen in the middle.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases provides more information on HIV vaccine research.

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Many More Women Than Men Living to 100

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Men are less likely than women to reach 100, but those who do tend to be healthier than their female peers, a new study finds.

Although women are four times more likely than men to hit 100, they are more likely to suffer broken bones or develop more than one chronic health problem, such as incontinence or loss of vision or hearing, the British researchers said. Men had fewer chronic ailments.

“We found a surprising number of 100-year-olds who had no major illnesses,” study author Nisha Hazra, of King’s College London, said in a university news release. “However, as the number of people living to 100 continues to increase, it’s very important to understand the evolving health care needs of the oldest old. This will help to accurately project health care cost associated with the aging population.”

The researchers analyzed public health records of more than 11,000 centenarians in the U.K. to investigate the main health issues affecting these older people, such as diabetes, stroke, cancer and arthritis. The researchers also examined age-related health risks, including falls, dementia, broken bones and vision issues.

The number of women living to 100 increased by 50 percent between 1990 and 2013, the study found, compared to a 30 percent increase among men.

The study was published June 22 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

All of the centenarians were more likely to have chronic, nonfatal issues such as arthritis than more serious diseases such as cancer or diabetes, the study found.

These findings suggest that older people may rely more heavily on medical services in the future, which could have a dramatic effect on health care costs, the authors said. They noted that more research is needed to understand why some people reach very old age without serious health problems and some don’t.

“Future research should focus on understanding these implications to help develop health care services,” said Hazra.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging provides more on healthy aging and longevity.

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Virus Mutation Explains Poor Performance of Last Season’s Flu Shot: Study

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The 2014-15 flu vaccine was less effective than expected due to a new mutation in the flu virus, a new study shows.

The mutation in the H3N2 virus led to a mismatch between it and the H3N2 strain used to create the vaccine, the researchers explained. This meant that the vaccine did not fully prime the immune system to recognize and attack the version of the virus that circulated during the last flu season.

The findings were published June 25 in the journal Cell Reports.

Last season’s flu vaccine was less than 20 percent effective, compared with up to 60 percent effectiveness of other seasonal flu vaccines used in the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It was known that the 2014-15 vaccine was mismatched with most H3N2 strains circulating during the flu season, but this study is the first to pinpoint the mutation that caused the problem.

The finding will help in the development of future seasonal flu vaccines, according to the researchers.

“Flu vaccines work best when they are similar to most circulating flu strains,” study senior author Scott Hensley, of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, said in a journal news release.

“The World Health Organization recently recommended that a new H3N2 component should be incorporated into future formulations of seasonal flu vaccines. Our studies support this decision, since most circulating H3N2 strains are mismatched to the 2014-2015 vaccine strain,” he explained.

Hensley also urged people to continue getting annual flu shots.

“Most years, vaccine strains are well-matched to most circulating strains, and seasonal flu vaccines are usually more effective. The best way to prevent flu infection is by getting a flu vaccine,” he said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about seasonal flu vaccination.

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Supreme Court Upholds Subsidies for Obamacare

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Thursday the legality of tax subsidies for millions of Americans who signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare.

The ruling means 6.4 million Americans in 34 states will continue to receive the subsidies — sometimes called tax credits — that help pay for their health plan premiums under the health-reform law.

The 6-3 decision, which included an affirmative vote from Chief Justice John Roberts, is the second big victory for President Barack Obama and his signature domestic achievement.

“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter,” wrote Roberts in the majority opinion.

The tax credits are a linchpin of the 2010 health-reform law that has been broadly criticized by most Republicans and conservatives. They view the legislation as a gross example of federal intrusion into people’s lives. The main reason: Obamacare requires most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.

Supporters of the law, which was championed by Obama and most Democrats, said Americans deserve affordable, comprehensive health care.

The tax credit showdown — known as King v. Burwell — was the latest in a string of court cases contesting core elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Roberts also was the key vote that upheld the constitutionality of the law in 2012.

The key point of contention in King v. Burwell was whether people in states that failed to set up their own health marketplaces, or exchanges, to buy insurance under Obamacare could qualify for the tax credits if they use the federally run HealthCare.gov online exchange.

Opponents of Obamacare insisted that, as the 2010 law was written, the tax credits could only be offered with insurance purchased through online exchanges operated by individual states. But only 13 states and the District of Columbia created their own exchanges. Most of the states that chose not to create exchanges are headed by Republicans opposed to Obamacare.

The Obama administration insisted that Congress intended to make the tax credits available to all eligible buyers, whether they use the federal HealthCare.gov exchange or a state-established exchange.

The Supreme Court agreed.

A ruling against the tax credits could have also had a major ripple effect, jeopardizing other key provisions of the health-reform law, legal experts said.

For starters, there were the 6.4 million Americans in the 34 states whose tax credits hung in the balance.

What’s more, millions of people would have become exempt from the law’s controversial “individual mandate” — which requires most Americans to maintain “minimal essential coverage” or pay a penalty.

A negative decision also could have potentially weakened the Obamacare mandate requiring employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance coverage.

Under the health-reform law, individuals making up to $47,080 and families of four earning as much as $97,000 a year may qualify for tax credits to make their health insurance more affordable.

Tax credits for insurance premiums reduce monthly premiums of federal marketplace enrollees by 72 percent, on average. People who qualify for those credits pay an average of just $105 a month for health insurance, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

A recent Avalere Health analysis found that consumers’ monthly premium contributions could have jumped by 255 percent, on average, in 2015 if the tax credits were stripped away.

“It’s hard to imagine someone who is young and healthy, who was getting three-quarters of their premium paid for by somebody else, is going to continue to foot that bill,” Elizabeth Carpenter, an Avalere Health director in Washington, D.C., told HealthDay.

If younger, healthier people dropped coverage, “individual” or “non-group” health insurance rates in the affected states — those that didn’t create their own exchanges — could have surged in 2016, affecting even non-subsidized buyers. (Younger enrollees are considered a key to the success of the Affordable Care Act because they tend to be healthier and their premiums are designed to help offset the expenses of older Americans, who are more likely to be sick.)

Only one in five Americans wanted to see the tax credit subsidies eliminated, a HealthDay/Harris Poll released this week found. About 45 percent supported continuing the subsidies and 36 percent said they weren’t sure.

Even Republicans said they were loath to halt the subsidies, the poll found. Only 36 percent of Republicans said they wanted the subsidies ended outright, while 24 percent said people should continue to get the subsidies and 39 percent said they weren’t sure.

More information

For more on the tax credits created by the Affordable Care Act, visit the Internal Revenue Service.

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As U.S. Smoking Rate Drops, Smokers More Likely to Quit: Study

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — As the number of smokers in the United States dwindles, those who still light up are becoming less attached to the habit and more likely to try quitting, a new study has found.

These findings run counter to the theory of “hardening,” which has held that as smoking rates decline those who still smoke will be increasingly committed to their habit, said study author Margarete Kulik, a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.

“The assumption is as smoking prevalence decreases, those smokers who are left will be the hardcore smokers who are unable or unwilling to quit,” Kulik said. “We found out that there is not hardening. There is softening. There is actually more quitting, and people smoke less.”

The study was published online June 24 in the journal Tobacco Control.

Dr. Norman Edelman, senior scientific advisor for the American Lung Association, said the study reflects the success of U.S. anti-smoking policies.

Clean air laws have made it more difficult to smoke in public, cigarette taxes have made the habit more expensive, and education campaigns have convinced the public that smoking is harmful and repellant, he said.

At the same time, smoking cessation programs have made it easier than ever for smokers to get support as they try to quit their addiction.

“It’s conceivable we’ve reached a tipping point, and have really set in motion a cultural event in which smoking is not acceptable and not enjoyable,” Edelman said.

Smoking rates have declined significantly since 1965, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Back then, about 42 percent of the adult population smoked; about 18 percent of American adults are cigarette smokers now, which amounts to some 42 million people.

In the study, researchers evaluated state-level survey data on tobacco use gathered between 1992 and 2011 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The investigators found that for every 1 percent decrease in the fraction of the U.S. population that smokes:

• The number of smokers who try to quit increases by 0.6 percent.
• The percentage of smokers who successfully quit increases by about 1 percent.
• Cigarette consumption among remaining smokers decreases by 0.32 cigarettes a day.

“This goes to show that the policies that are in place right now are working,” Kulik said. “The perception of smoking is changing in the population, and smokers are feeling that influence.”

Anti-smoking policies have not been as effective in Europe, however. The researchers found that decreases in the smoking rate do not encourage European smokers to quit, and that overall cigarette consumption levels have remained stable there.

Kulik and Edelman argued that these findings undermine attempts by e-cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies to sell their products as a way of weaning people away from cigarettes.

“We’re making good progress without them,” Edelman said. “We don’t need them, and we don’t know the health effects or addictive potential of e-cigarettes.”

At the same time, the United States needs to keep up the pressure and either maintain or strengthen its anti-smoking policies, Edelman concluded.

“If so few people smoke that it’s not part of the culture, maybe it’ll just die out,” Edelman said. “But it doesn’t mean we should stop everything we’re doing. We can’t let up yet. Just because the goal line is in sight doesn’t mean we stop running.”

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on smoking.

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Same-Sex Marriage Offers Couples Psychological Benefits, Experts Say

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 (HealthDay News) — With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to rule on whether same-sex marriage is a national right, many social scientists say an affirmative ruling in the landmark case would also deliver psychological dividends to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

A marriage contract offers many legal protections and benefits. But equally important is the security and sense of well-being it can provide couples, the experts explained.

“We’re a very marriage-prone society,” said Susan Roxburgh, a professor in the department of sociology at Kent State University in Ohio. “If you take a group of Americans in their 50s, something like 90 percent of them will have been married at least once. And part of the reason is that there’s clearly a marriage benefit.

“Part of it is the element of social control and social support,” she said. “It adds a great deal of prediction to daily life. Someone is looking after your health, after your well-being. So married people tend to be in better mental and physical health than the unmarried. They live longer, and they have lower rates of suicide and depression.”

Robin Simon, a professor in the department of sociology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., agreed.

“Marriage is a source of purpose and meaning and security that offers a big psychological and social boost,” she said. “It’s very clear, even when compared with unmarried co-habitators who live together in a committed relationship. Yes, those couples do better than single folks. But married people do the best on all measures of psychological well-being, which is, of course, a main reason why the LGBT community wants marriage.”

There are those who disagree with the concept of gay marriage — primarily religious organizations and conservatives who insist that, for millennia, marriage has been an institution for a man and a woman. Many of these opponents of same-sex marriage endorse the idea of civil unions between gay couples.

However, psychiatrist Dr. Jack Drescher, a gender and sexuality expert in private practice in New York City, said that when it comes to weighing the desire for the social benefits of marriage against the desire for legal protections, “you really can’t separate the two.”

“When gay marriage is legalized, that’s the state giving its blessing, that the relationship is authentic and recognized and has legal ramifications,” he said. “But without that, then who gets to visit in the hospital if someone gets sick? That becomes an issue. How do gay couples move from state to state, when states have different laws? How do gay couples who have children in common handle adoption? How does a child get explained that their same-sex parent’s relationship is, in the eyes of some, less than others?”

“Marriage provides stability, both for relationships and for families,” Drescher added. “But the confusion that arises from denying marriage creates an enormous amount of anxiety and uncertainty.”

Simon echoed that point.

“Preventing people from enjoying the social benefits of marriage is itself distressing, because marriage is a form of social integration, a connection with the broader community,” she said. “So, not allowing a person to marry can seriously erode his sense of well-being. It’s a blatant form of systemic social rejection.”

And that, says psychiatric epidemiologist Ilan Meyer, means that the push to broaden the access to marriage to all Americans is ultimately a symbolic stance against LGBT prejudice.

“Gay people have always formed relationships,” said Meyer, who is a senior scholar for public policy with the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles. “But even if a couple feels satisfied in its own relationship, if it’s relegated to a separate category outside of marriage, then that is society placing a stigma on that relationship. It sends a message that you’re not part of this society, that you’re not equal and your relationship is not valued.

“So to me, the inclusion of the LGBT community in the institution of marriage would reverse this rejection by sending a strong message of respect and dignity and inclusion,” added Meyer. He delivered this argument when serving as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the 2010 federal case that overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage, also known as “Proposition 8.”

“The point,” said Meyer, “is that apart from the very practical protections that come with marriage, the really important element here is that marriage is really a very core thing about who you are attracted to and who you want to build your life with.

“So, the symbolism of normalizing the institution to include gay people will benefit not only those who want to get married but even those who don’t,” added Meyer. “It won’t end homophobia, any more than the 1964 Civil Rights Act ended racism. But it will chip away at it. It will say that gay people are not inferior. It will say that they are equal.”

More information

For more on the debate over same sex marriage, visit openreader.org.

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