Only two days after signing the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill into law, President Obama today signed an extension to the Ryan White Act which provides assistance and support to nearly half a million people suffering from HIV/AIDS.

“If we want to be a global leader in combatting HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it,” Obama said at the White House before signing a bill to extend the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. Begun in 1990, the program provides medical care, medication and support services to about half a million people, most of them low-income.

The bill is named for an Indiana teenager who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion at age 13. White went on to fight AIDS-related discrimination against him and others like him and help educate the country about the disease. He died in April 1990 at the age of 18.

His mother, Jeanne White-Ginder, attended the signing ceremony, as did several members of Congress and HIV/AIDS activists.

Obama also said he will be finalizing an order on Monday that will lift the HIV immigration and travel ban that has been in place for 20 years.

Video of the ceremony below…

My friends… it was a very good week. First hate crimes and now this. It gives one hope for the future. Let’s hope the vote in Maine doesn’t erase all that.

At a separate ceremony late today President Obama gave additional remarks about the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act which he signed into law earlier today as a part of the 2010 Defense Authorization bill.

Update: The White House disavows the statement. From the Plum Line:

“That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we’ve held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth.”

Oh. No. They. Didn’t.

Nice try invalidating our march. Sure, we’re just like the fringe that believed women should have the right to vote. And the fringe that demanded civil rights for blacks.

From John Avarosis @ Americablog:

So the gay community, and its concerns about President Obama’s inaction, and backtracking, on DADT and DOMA, are now, according to President Obama’s White House, part of a larger “fringe” that acts like small children who play in their pajamas and need to grow up. (And a note to our readers: The White House just included all of you in that loony “left fringe.”)

I wonder how the Human Rights Campaign is going to explain how the White House just knifed our community less than 24 hours after he went to their dinner and claimed he was our friend.

Ditto.

If standing up for equality means I’m part of the Internet Left Fringe, then I wear the badge proudly, & so should everyone else. Badge below.

Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black speaks at the National Equality March rally.