This is another item that dropped during CNN’s disastrous LGBTQ town hall on Thursday night, but I didn’t notice it until yesterday evening. There were plenty of painful moments, including when Joe Biden started rambling on about “round-the-clock sex at gay bathhouses in San Francisco.” But in the midst of all that, CNN’s Anderson Cooper got some of the candidates to weigh in on an actual policy issue that is somehow being considered by Democrats.

Should the intentional withholding of a persons HIV positive status from a prospective sexual partner be decriminalized? Shockingly, several of the candidates agreed with that idea. This, as Brad Palumbo at the Washington Examiner explains, isn’t just bad policy. It’s insanity.

Should it be a crime to knowingly expose someone to HIV without disclosing it?

Most sane people would say yes. But a widely panned Vox article published this week said that state laws making it a crime to not disclose your HIV status “have only increased stigma and abuse.” And apparently, many 2020 Democrats agree with this ludicrous, insane point of view.

This was a common theme at Thursday night’s CNN town hall focused on gay and transgender issues, sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign. Host Anderson Cooper, for example, called laws criminalizing HIV nondisclosure “antiquated” and based on “old science.” Presidential contender Pete Buttigieg agreed, saying, “It’s not fair and it needs to change.” And both on the CNN stage and in her new LGBT issues platform, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has endorsed decriminalizing HIV transmission as well.

It wasn’t just Buttigieg and Warren saying this. Cory Booker jumped on the bandwagon as well, saying such laws are “archaic” and claiming they have “no scientific basis.” Um, weren’t the Democrats supposed to be the “party of science” at one point? Clearly not medical science.

The party has already almost entirely abandoned any foothold in reality when it comes to transgender issues, each one rushing to dive headlong to the far left faster than the next. But this is an “issue” that shouldn’t even be on the table. Thankfully some great progress has been made in recent years for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, but that doesn’t mean that the disease isn’t still a deadly threat.

If someone is unaware that they are HIV positive and they accidentally transmit it to someone else, we shouldn’t be tossing them in jail. But if you test positive and don’t inform a prospective partner about it you are knowingly endangering their life. Brad Palumbo calls it a form of sexual assault. I think it’s closer to attempted murder, or at least manslaughter, and should be handled accordingly.

Sadly, the Democrats are in the midst of a rush to decriminalize nearly anything and everything. And if it’s an issue that can be tied to the LGBTQ community and their powerful political lobby, you can bet that the 2020 hopefuls will be jumping through hoops to prove how woke they are on the subject. Of course, decriminalization has rapidly proven to not be such a hot idea in most cases. Remember that California decriminalized theft of goods worth less than a thousand dollars a while back. How did that work out for them? Retail theft and the practice of mass smash and grabs shot through the roof.

I’m not suggesting that decriminalizing intentional HIV non-disclosure is going to create a spate of people doing it. (Or good Lord, I certainly hope it wouldn’t.) But it’s still a very serious matter and people should know that they will be held accountable if they fail to take the proper precautions.