Posted on 08/27/2004 9:24:39 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Leaders in the fight against AIDS in Alameda County on Wednesday criticized local African-American pastors who have said they will vote to re-elect President Bush because of his stance against gay marriage.
"I'm ashamed to say these pastors have made the situation worse," said Dr. Robert Scott, an Oakland physician who has been treating HIV/AIDS patients for nearly 22 years and is chairman of the AIDS ministry of Allen Temple Baptist Church.
Speaking at a forum on funding, treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, Scott angrily held up a copy of Wednesday's Oakland Tribune story on the announcement by 20 Bay Area black religious leaders that they would vote for Bush. The pastors said they are backing Bush because they believe gay marriage erodes community values and sends a poor message to children.
Scott said the stigma surrounding HIV in Alameda County prevents people from talking about the disease and seeking treatment. By condemning gay marriage and also calling homosexuality a sin, Scott and other AIDS activists said the pastors were losing an opportunity to help control the disease that has hit the county hard.
"There are HIV-positive people in the congregations of each and every (one) of these pastors every Sunday," Scott said. "It's hard enough to deal with HIV when you feel damned without your church telling you that you are. ... People should be able to have sex with anyone they want."
About 6,000 people in Alameda County are living with HIV, though some believe the number is much higher. African Americans are disproportionately affected, with poverty and drugs, experts said.
AIDS is now the 10th-leading cause of death in Alameda County, and among men age 25 to 35, it is the third-leading cause of death. Many of those infected are slow to seek treatment, and some never do, Scott said. Scott emphasized that anyone who is sexually active is at risk for infection. "The risk is sex; you don't have to be gay," he said.
African-American women account for 80 percent of new infections among all women in the county, and experts attribute the high rate to the "downlow" phenomenon of African-American men, who don't see themselves as gay, having sex with other men then bringing HIV home to their female partners.
Gwen Rowe Lee Sykes, director of the Bay Area Consortium for Quality Health Care, said churches should be a haven for everyone.
"I think the pastors are forgetting that all people are affected by HIV/AIDS," Rowe Lee Sykes said. "Somehow we have to help our churches realize that we're all striving on a path towards health."
While not speaking directly about the pastors, Alameda County Public Health Director Arnold Perkins said there is no excuse for such a high rate of HIV in the county and lack of funding to deal with the crisis.
The county lost nearly
$768,000 in care, prevention and education funds this year due to budget cuts out of a total budget of $7 million. In 1998, the county was first in the nation to declare a state of emergency on HIV/AIDS among African Americans.
"We have to put the politics aside and do what's best for people suffering from this disease," Perkins said.
That's it. We've got to get rid of this SOB, fascist, conservative, gay-bashing president. He's trying to turn this country around. We just can't have this! (Denote heavy, heavy sarcasm)
Totally inaccurate. Monogamous sexually active people have zero risk of contracting this disease. (Assuming their partner is also monogamous.)
Bush has provided more funding to fight AIDS than any other president... not that it matters to people trying to "fight AIDS."
"The stigma surrounding HIV" is not the problem.
Suburban Washington DC (Maryland)
Churches should promote fornication and rape! WHERE does the wicked whacked and warped left find these people who have the audacity to say this crap!
This article about the position taken by 20 black Bay Area pastors actually mentions "20 pastors", yet they can't even find 1 of the 20 to at least try to fake balancing out the 3 people critical of the pastors? Pathetic.
I almost agree. It is near zero. There is still the possibility of a tainted needle or blood transfusion. But it is almost zero.
I agree. The problem is the LACK of stigma of high risk activities. Whether that is IV drug use, homosexual activity, or promiscuous hetero sex.
Politically, the black community is an enigma to me. I don't understand how they (as a group, there are certainly exceptions) have stayed so solidly on the DNC plantation for so long. Given that I don't understand it, I cannot predict when it will end. But that said, I see two groups being decisive...black churches and black women. I think there is going to be a serious reaction by black women to the whole 'downlow' thing. And once they start asserting morality...I cannot see how they can stay on the DNC plantation.
BUMP
Looks like one for the list! Good one!
Bush, as well as other Republican leaders, has given in to a lot of things Democrats have wanted. However, Democrats still hate him. Why bother? Let's just be real conservatives, we'll get the same amount of support, the libs will still hate us, and we will get more accomplished.
Will Bill Schneider be discussing this next week with Judy W.????? Probably not....
An assertion almost as popular with Republicans as with Democrats, but still, fifty-five years after Kinsey and the start of Hefner's extended publication of "The Playboy Philosophy", false and lacking in any intellectual or empirical justification.
Assuming the earth is flat, ....
Who's stopping them? Who's forcing them to sit in the congregation? The unspoken key here is that the people he refers to want to be free of guilt or internal conflict. Pastors, or anyone, who dare challenge their behavior are somehow forcing abstenance? Please.
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