Mr. Kincaid mentioned:

There were about 33,750 new cases of HIV infection in 2007.

And then today an AP writer Edith M. Lederer said: Michel Sidibe, the head of UNAIDS,: “… said it is “shocking” that more than 50 percent of new HIV infections last year [in the United States] occurred among homosexuals.

Maybe we need the alarmist headlines.

If 0.75% are seroconverting every year and 12-13% are living with HIV, that puts the number at 20% in a decade if things stay the same.

That’s an awful trend in my book.

This means that most poor people are unlikely to be black and most black people are unlikely to be poor. It also means that black people are at a much greater risk of poverty than white people. The innumerate, however, can’t tell the difference.

This can lead to stereotyping. While it’s true that stereotypes seldom have zero basis in reality (e.g. the Jewish blood libel or the gay pedophilia libel) it’s also true that most stereotypes don’t follow the “51% rule.” Most stereotyped traits, while they’re more common inside rather than outside the stereotyped group, are still uncommon inside it (Gordon Allport, in his classic The Nature of Prejudice, called this a “categorical differential.”

Also, as others have been mentioned, the risk is inhomogeneous: not all gay men, or MSM, are at equal risk (and trying to be “inclusive” by saying “LGBT” is even less accurate). It’s quite possible for a group as a whole to have a high risk of something at the same time that the majority of the group has a low risk for that same thing. That’s a form of Simpson’s Paradox in which aggregates behave statistically differently than individuals (consider, for example, a city that has 10 times the murder rate of the nation as a whole, but where almost all murder victims are gang members).

http://mostfunnypictures.com/pictures.php?id=3143

The stats on the above-linked graphic (which is hardly funny, but I didn’t create the site) come from the CDC:
For 2008

Deaths from
AIDS: 8,423
Lung Cancer: 96,835
Heart Disease: 316,968
Car Accidents: 17,463
Suicide: 26,132

Using Hurley’s reasoning, smokers should be barred from marriage, and so should obese people, people who drive or ride in cars – their activities are more dangerous for those who engage in it than unprotected sex.

And since societal condemnation is a leading factor in the depression that leads to suicide, condemning homosexuality is more dangerous to society as well.

So the rate for MSM was much higher than for other people, but still very low: about 0.5% to 1%. The “still very low” aspect is part of the balance that’s being left out of the reporting by mainstream media (also MSM for short), and possibly not made clear enough in the CDC report.

Because they represent new diagnoses, these rates are a very current indicator. If we looked at the total number of HIV cases instead, we would be including a large number of people who were infected years ago, and the results wouldn’t necessarily be indicative of current risk.

Nonetheless, the rates are a few poor basis for comparing MSM with other groups – which is exactly what the conservatives and seemingly the CDC are doing. Group comparisons require, firstly, a good indicator of HIV cases as a proportion of the different populations. These rates don’t provide that, because only a few HIV cases are included.

Incidentally, it’s anal intercourse that actually is a high-risk behavior, whether between men or between a man and a woman. The CDC doesn’t seem to be acknowledging this. Maybe they still have Bush appointees at the helm.

On the other question – I’m not sanguine to the CDC’s use of MSM to represent gay and bisexual men. This approach, even if technically sound, could add fuel to antigay and antibisexual rhetoric. Plus, two percentages can be about equal without actually representing the same group.

Interestingly enough, when the CDC released their huge study in 2005 (based on 2002 numbers) they found that the percentage of men who identify as gay/bi was very similar to the percentage of men who have sex with men.

When I looked at the numbers to try and get a good sense of the gay population, I came up with similar conclusion.

I don’t think that 4% is the definitive answer and that we can just accept it and use that figure from now on. But I do think it is the best current estimate for the base minimum of people who are gay/bi.

While I understand the need for the term, I wish they would include stats for those who actually identify as gay to show the disparity between the two..