Box Turtle Bulletin

Blue Power Ranger talks about leaving show, going through ex-gay ministry

David Yost, the Blue Power Ranger in the 90’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers discusses leaving the show due to blatant homophobia and struggling through ex-gay ministries.

From nopinkspandex:

Atlanta loses an asset

From the Journal Constitution:

An organizer of Atlanta’s annual Black Gay Pride celebration was shot dead in southwest Atlanta early Wednesday morning, police said.

Durand Robinson, co-owner of the popular gay nightclub Traxx, was found dead in the middle of Hadlock Street around 1:30 a.m., Atlanta police said. Officers said he had been shot in the chest.

Robinson, 50, will be honored during a candlelight vigil on Sept. 1, according to In The Life Atlanta, the nonprofit group that organizes Atlanta Black Gay Pride.

Welcome Out, Ken Mehlman

In bringing to an end what was probably the worst-kept secret in politics, former GOP chairman Ken Mehlman has publicly confirmed that he is gay:

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” Mehlman said. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.”

Obviously, this brings up a host of questions concerning Mehlman’s role in the President George Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, as well as his role in some of the GOP’s anti-gay activities in 2006. According to The Atlantic’s Mark Ambinder:

Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.

Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.

“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”

“What I do regret, and think a lot about, is that one of the things I talked a lot about in politics was how I tried to expand the party into neighborhoods where the message wasn’t always heard. I didn’t do this in the gay community at all.”

He said that he “really wished” he had come to terms with his sexual orientation earlier, “so I could have worked against [the Federal Marriage Amendment]” and “reached out to the gay community in the way I reached out to African Americans.”

Mehlman had been publicly outed by LGBT advocate Mike Rogers in 2004 and 2006, and he was one of the subjects of the documentary film Outrage, which discussed the phenomenon of closeted gay politicians who work against LGBT rights, and even LGBT dignity. Mehlman at the time refused to address questions surrounding his sexuality. He now admits that he mislead several people who had asked him directly.

Now that he is out, his goal is to become an advocate for gay rights within the Republican Party.

I hope that we, as a party, would welcome gay and lesbian supporters. I also think there needs to be, in the gay community, robust and bipartisan support [for] marriage rights.”

I think this is a good time for me to interject my own thoughts here. I definitely think that Mehlman should have come out earlier, and I fully believe that harsh criticisms of his tacit support for GOP gay-bashing during the 2004 and 2006 campaigns are fully warrented. I further believe that Mehlman has a lot of ground to cover in order to make up for his past sins.

But the first step in making up that ground comes in his coming out. Ambinder likens it this way:

The disclosure at this stage of Mehlman’s life strikes one close friend as being like a decision to jump off of a high diving board: Mehlman knows that there is plenty of water below, but it is still very scary to look down and make the leap.

I’m no longer religious, but this reminds me of a proverb in Luke, “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Any time someone serves as a stumbling block to LGBT equality and dignity changes course, our best response would be to welcome the good news. Unfortunately, we’re not always up for our best responses. Mehlman does have a lot to make up for, but this first step is not insignificant.

And his second step isn’t small potatoes either. He is chairing a fundraiser for Americans for Equal Rights (AFER), the organization behind the lawsuit which has successfully challenged Prop 8 in Federal Court. That fundraiser has already needed $1 million for the effort. According to Andy Towle:

The fundraiser is co-chaired by prominent Republican donors Paul Singer and Peter Thiel and will be held at Singer’s home. A large number of other Republicans are co-hosts of the fundraiser including Mary Cheney, Margaret Hoover, John Podesta, and Steve Schmidt. Dick Gephardt is also among the hosts.

AFER board member and Academy Award winning filmwriter for Milk, Dustin Lance Black, described Mehlman as “an incredible coup for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.”

Mehlman has a lot to make up for. The 2004 and 2006 campaigns that he was directly involved in — and in which he colluded or directed terrible vilificaiton directed toward fellow LGBT people — caused considerable damage to to his fellow Americans, and they will rightly demand accountability. In order to truly heal those wounds, that does need to be his next major step. 

But as we wait for that to come (and we shouldn’t have to wait too long for it) , let me say this: welcome out, Ken Mehlman. And let the rejoicing — and acts of contrition — begin.

California no longer looking for “causes and cures of homosexuality”

After decades of gerrymandering, California’s legislature consists pretty much only of the far left and the far right. So it is not often that you get agreement on much of anything; and it’s very rare indeed that you get agreement on a gay related issue.

But Republicans and Democrats came together on an issue that, while obsolete and amusing, does tell us one important thing. I’ll get to that in a moment.

In 1950, the legislature passed the following law:

8050. The State Department of Mental Health, acting through the superintendent of the Langley Porter Clinic, shall plan, conduct, and cause to be conducted scientific research into the causes and cures of sexual deviation, including deviations conducive to sex crimes against children, and the causes and cures of homosexuality, and into methods of identifying potential sex offenders.

And as of this week, the legislature has changed that language to

8050. The State Department of Mental Health shall plan, conduct, and cause to be conducted scientific research into sex crimes against children and into methods of identifying those who commit sexual offenses.

Now there is no reason to believe that California, either through the Langley Porter Clinic or anything else, has at any point in the past several decades attempted to conduct any scientific research into the causes and cures of homosexuality. But it’s nice to know that they officially have given up.

But more importantly, this bill passed unanimously in the Senate (where it was sponsored by the newly reformed Roy Ashburn) and nearly unanimously in the State Assembly (except for this guy). And that is big news.

In general, California’s Republican legislators just vote “no” on anything that gay folks want. No real reason, often, just a desire to say “no”. So it’s kind of surprising that they said “yes” this time and, for me, it’s interesting and important that the issue on which they finally said “yeah, that’s too wacky even for us” is ex-gay therapy.

Greg Gutfeld on marriage

Lately a number of conservatives have been making statements that throw all of our assumptions out the window. Those we expect to be the most obnoxious about gay issues suddenly announce that they don’t care in the slightest whether gay folk get married. You’d think we’d learn when Glenn Beck put gay marriage in the “meh, whatever” category.

But presumptions are a hard thing to kill and I’m no less guilty than others. So when I heard (via snippet) that Fox News’ Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld was proposing a gay bar for Muslims (specifically to annoy the builders of the “Ground Zero Mosque”), I jumped to the immediate conclusion that Gutfeld was, at best, not sympathetic to gay rights. I jumped too quickly.

Now, I’m not without cause. After all, GLAAD declared Gutfeld “one of the worst voices of 2008” saying that

Gutfeld criticized Ellen DeGeneres for announcing her upcoming wedding, saying Ellen should “shut the hell up about it.”

And I foolishly took GLAAD’s word rather than go hear the clip for myself, so I didn’t realize that Gutfeld’s monologue was on how talking about your marriage will doom it – which is why he doesn’t talk about his own. Today, I listened hard to hear the homophobia, but it appears that GLAAD’s ear may be better fine-tuned than mine.

The Daily Caller followed up on Gutfeld’s satirically proposed bar and reports the following:

5.) I heard you have a proposal to build a gay bar near the Ground Zero mosque with fun names like “Heaven and Halal.” Where does that currently stand?

I actually haven’t decided on the name yet. I like the name — and this is Bill Schulz’s idea –”Dialogue” because that way I really am building dialogue and I think that is a really smart idea.

6.) Have you had any financing offers for the bar?

I’ve had literally hundreds, maybe a thousand offers anywhere from $10 to thousand and thousands of dollars, from all over the world. This thing hit a nerve. I spent the last week just trolling through my emails and dividing them into files, “okay this guy is serious, this guy doesn’t have any money but wants to get involved, this person is offering to be my bouncer.” This guy, a former Green Beret, I think, offered to be my bouncer. Other people are offering real estate advice, people from the hospitality business offering consultation. After almost 18 years of being in the media, I’ve never seen this kind of a response to a story or an idea or a proposal. It’s really great because people get the idea. They understand what I am talking about. Because really, what is true tolerance? What is real tolerance? It is not about words. It’s about deeds.

7.) Along with all this gay talk, I’m wondering, where do you stand on gay marriage?

I have no problems with it. Look, gays deserve everything straights have, that’s just the bottom line. If it makes it easier for everybody, just remove the whole idea of marriage from government. I think it’s more of a religious question. They attach marriage to their religious beliefs and I can understand, it’s about the word. You know, I don’t care what they call it. And this thing out in California — so confusing to me. But you know what, whatever makes you happy and doesn’t hurt anybody — which sounds really contrived — is basically the way it should be, in my mind.

David Bahati’s Plan for Genocide

Ugandan MP David Bahati

Jeff Sharlet, author of the upcoming book C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, will appear on Terry Gross’ Fresh Air today on NPR. Sharlet also has an article appearing in the September issue of Harmer’s. It’s behind a paywall, so I haven’t seen it, but NPR reveals that when Sharlet spoke with MP David Bahati, the sponsor of Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Bahati said that his plan was to “kill every last gay person.”

Bahati said ‘If you come here, you’ll see homosexuals from Europe and America are luring our children into homosexuality by distributing cell phones and iPods and things like this,'” Sharlet recounts. “And he said, ‘And I can explain to you what I really want to do.'”

Sharlet accompanied Bahati to a restaurant, and later to his home, where Bahati told Sharlet that he wanted “to kill every last gay person.”

“It was a very chilling moment because I’m sitting there with this man who’s talking about his plans for genocide and has demonstrated over the period of my relationship with him that he’s not some back bender — he’s a real rising star in the movement,” Sharlet says. “This was something that I hadn’t understood before I went to Uganda, that this was a guy with real potential and real sway and increasingly a following in Uganda.”

Gay Navajo Man Elected To Arizona Senate

Former state representative Jack Jackson Jr. has won the Democratic party’s primary for nomination to the Arizona state Senate. According to the Victory Fund:

In 2005, Jackson was appointed by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as the Executive Director of the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs. In April 2000, he was appointed by Secretary Donna Shalala to serve on President Clinton’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Jack serves on the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise Board and the Obama Administration has selected him to once again serve on the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

There are no Republican challengers in the race to represent the Northern Arizona district covering the Navajo Nation and Flagstaff.

Rekers Failed To Lift McCollum’s Luggage

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, the GOP establishment’s favorite in the race for governor, lost to former insurance executive Rick Scott in Florida’s GOP primary. He conceded the race at almost 1 a.m. via a press release.

“No one could have anticipated the entrance of a multimillionaire with a questionable past who shattered campaign spending records and spent more in four months than has ever been spent in a primary race here in Florida,” McCollum said.

“While I was disappointed with the negative tone of the race, I couldn’t be more proud of our campaign and our supporters for fighting back against false and misleading advertising when we were down by double-digits,” he added.

Among the more contentious issues in the race was McCollum’s hiring of anti-gay extremist George Rekers to the tune of more than $120,000 to serve as a star witness in a lawsuit challenging Florida’s adoption ban for gay couples. That fee was almost double the amount that had been agreed to in a Purchase Requisition between McCollum’s office and Rekers. The court found that Rekers testimony was “motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science,” and “the court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.” Following the trial, Rekers was discovered returning from a European vacation in the company of a male escort. Rekers insisted that he didn’t hire the escort for sex, but needed someone to help him “lift his luggage” during their extended vacation.

McCollum defended his decision to hire Rekers, saying that he performed a “thorough search” for witnesses but “there wasn’t a whole lot of choice.”

McCollum lost the race 46%-43%, in a primary race that badly split the state Republican Party. Democrats were happy with Scott’s victory, seeing him as their preferred opponent going into November’s general election.

In Their Own Words: Ugandans Talk About LGBT People

This email just popped into my inbox:

Mr. Burroway and Mr. Kincaid – I have followed your coverage of the homosexuality issue in Uganda on Box Turtle Bulletin for some time. I traveled to Uganda this April to film a short documentary about this issue through a grant from the journalism school at Northwestern University. My interest was to profile the Ugandan activists and their role in this struggle. The film is now viewable online, and I thought you (and your readers) may be interested.

Alyssa Eisenstein has put together an amazing video. For the past year and a half, we have heard from so many prominent and powerful people from all over the world weigh in on the Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. But it has been extremely difficult to hear directly from ordinary Ugandans, whether they are LGBT people or otherwise. This video, at only fifteen minutes, provides an incredible revelation to those of us who have been watching these events unfold from so far away.

This should be mandatory watching.

Breaking the Chains from Alyssa Eisenstein on Vimeo.

Ugandan MP Confirms “The Family’s” Connection to Anti-Homosexuality Bill

This confirms the reporting that Jeff Sharlet has recently done. Speaking to a reporter from Uganda’s The Independent, MP David Bahati, sponsor of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, confirmed the role of the secretive U.S.-based evangelical group known as The Fellowship or The Family:

In an interview with The Independent, MP David Bahati cited his membership in a Ugandan chapter of “The Fellowship” or “The Family”, a U.S.-based Christian political organization, as the key impetus behind the new bill. Every Thursday the members of the local division of The Fellowship, which include a close circle of Ugandan MPs and religious leaders (led by Ssempa), meet to discuss “how to use godly principles to influence public policy.” About a year and a half ago, Bahati reveals, it was decided in one such meeting that the legal framework as it stands was incapable of addressing the urgency of the problem of homosexuality in Uganda. Bahati was chosen and happily volunteered to be at the forefront of developing new legislation.

This matches what Sharlet wrote for the September issue of The Advocate:

When I asked Bahati if there was any connection between the Family in Uganda (where it’s called the Fellowship) and his antigay legislation, he seemed puzzled by the question. “I do not know what you mean, ‘connection,'” he said. “There is no ‘connection.’ They are the same thing. The bill is the Fellowship. It was our idea.”

…When [Family member Bob] Hunter told me his theory of advocacy — reaching out to “the little group around the president” instead of the dictator himself, “the nail on the wall” instead of the man in the presidential portrait, I thought he meant Bahati’s Parliament Fellowship group, which meets on Thursdays. No, Hunter said; “the Friday group is really the power group.” Bahati’s group includes some 60 legislators, and it’s responsible for much of the “morality” legislation that comes out of the Ugandan parliament, but to Hunter it’s secondary. The Friday group, just three or four influential people, “they are the ones we’d go to if we really needed something done.” The leader, he said, is an American named Tim Kreutter, the head of a network of youth homes, schools, and a leadership academy, one replicated in several other countries and designed to create a new generation of African leaders. Bahati, who calls Kreutter his mentor, is one of them.

Bahati also told Sharlet that many American evangelicals secretly support his draconian legislation even when they condemn it publicly. He repeated that assertion to The Independent’s reporter as well:

Even foreign governments like Canada, which have been very active in expressing criticism of the bill, secretly support it, claims Bahati: “Deep in their hearts, [Canadians] don’t support homosexuality.”

A man identified as a gay rights activist in Uganda, Major Rubaramira Ruranga, offers this interesting explanation of why homophobia has caught on so widely:

Major Ruranga argues that, in contrast to Western society, Ugandan society places intense value on communal attachment, even when this comes at the expense of individual expression. As a result, he says, “religion has become more of a culture than a faith.” Instead of promoting sincere belief, the religious establishment promotes outward conformity to standards adhered to by the larger group. In the case of Uganda’s Christian community, Ruranga suggests, the hatred of gays has become one of these unquestioned group standards.

But it was not always so. According to Ruranga, the anti-gay movement in Uganda only gained traction in the 1990s in large part as a reaction to a perceivable rise in gay pride, activism, and the unprecedented occurrence of public disclosures of homosexuality in the Ugandan media. The religious establishment decided this was dangerous and instigated a backlash.

It is not clear how much of a role the U.S. based Fellowship had in fomenting that backlash, but what is certain is that it is now fully supportive of it. According to Bahati, one American Pentecostal friend recently lamented to him that “I wish we [in the U.S.] had done what you are doing thirty years ago; we would be much better off.”

AFAN arrogantly dismisses concerns about CRCC

There is nothing like public criticism to encourage a response. And after Change.org and the Red Ribbon Army and a number of others began to increase a call for explanation, Aid For AIDS Nevada has finally given the weakest of responses to Dr. Throckmorton for why they have not severed ties with Canyon Ridge Christian Church.

We do not partner with Canyon Ridge. In fact, we are simply a recipient of their donations in support of our lifesaving, essential programming for individuals surviving HIV/AIDS…we are not able to cease a partnership that does not exist.

Which still does not answer my questions: “please let me know whether you will continue to allow CRCC to participate in your organization and to display their organization’s name” and just why have you not responded to expressed concerns. And, especially, why have you deleted comments on your Facebook page from now half a dozen or so different activists who simply want answers.

The Red Ribbon Army is wondering something even more basic: “why Aid for AIDS of Nevada is unwilling to condemn Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.” You’d think that would be a no-brainer.

But maybe AFAN doesn’t really care what you think; they don’t really need to. Two-thirds of their funding is from governmental sources and only about 17% of their annual budget comes from the AIDS Walk – and the majority of that is from corporate sponsors.

NY Times: 17 states support marriage equality

The New York Times released a graph in which they claim that 17 states have support for marriage equality at 50% or higher. I think that’s a pipe dream; the polls I’ve seen simply don’t support it.

But, nonetheless, there is value to be found in looking at the progress made in the past decade and a half. And even if their numbers are off by 5 to 10 percent, there are still a sizable number of states that either support equality or soon will.

Ottawa Police disclosed that gay man transmitted “infectious disease”

Gay groups in Ottawa are furious with the police for releasing information about a gay man’s sexual health, so furious in fact that they are refusing funds from a police fundraiser. (Citizen)

Several groups in Ottawa’s gay community will refuse funds to be raised by police at a pancake breakfast Monday, in protest over how officers publicly identified an HIV-positive man.

In an unusual move that infuriated the gay community, police publicly released a photo of Steven Paul Boone, 29, charged in May with aggravated sexual assault. Police say he failed to disclose his HIV status to another Ottawa man who contracted the disease after the two had unprotected sex several times.

The story began in May when Boone was arrested. (CBC)

Steven Paul Boone, 29, remained in custody Friday after being charged with nine counts of aggravated sexual assault, said an Ottawa police news release.

The charges were laid after another man alleged in April that he contracted an infectious disease after sexual contact with Boone in late January and early February. Police said they could not disclose the nature of the disease, including whether it was HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Although the police did not specifically state that the infectious disease was HIV, advocates felt that releasing the man’s photo was inappropriate.

By releasing the photo, [Brent Bauer, of the Ottawa Gay Men’s Wellness Initiative] said, police invaded Boone’s privacy, and spread fear among gays, who might now hesitate to get tested for AIDS.

Okay, to see if I have Bauer’s logic correct, he thinks that because a man who failed to disclose his HIV-positive to sexual partners was exposed by the police, therefore people will not want to get tested.

Oddly enough, that theory was put to the practical test. And failed spectacularly. What Bauer is not acknowledging is that between the photo being released and the pancake breakfast something else happened: five additional victims came forward. (Citizen)

A 29-year-old man accused of failing to disclose his HIV-positive to sexual partners has had his charges upgraded to include attempted murder.

The four counts of attempted murder were laid against Steven Paul Boone in relation to four of his alleged victims. Boone has also been charged with four counts of administering a noxious substance — HIV — to the four men.

Here we have a guy with at least six victims, four of which seroconverted. And Boone did not disclose his status to any of them even though, as it turns out, he had known of his HIV status for at least a year. And it is at least a reasonable assumption that three of them would not have known to get tested if the police had not released this guy’s picture.

Studies regularly confirm that – because most people are not despicable vermin like Boone – the biggest contributor to the continued spread of HIV is ignorance of one’s status. Not only are most HIV+ people responsible, but medications can reduce viral loads to the point where it might not be possible to pass on the virus.

But if these men had not seen Boone’s picture, they may not have gotten tested before endangering others.

I can appreciate that the community in Ottawa is offended in that they believe the police are not considering their complaint about the privacy rights of those who are HIV positive. And I appreciate the value of clear guidelines that protect the privacy of the innocent. But I find the defense of Boone to be difficult to fathom.

I have long been an advocate for those impacted by HIV/AIDS. I was privy to the early debates over confidential v. anonymous testing and I am still not convinced that names-based reporting is the most effective policy (or at least not as it is currently administered).

But I believe we should be doing everything in our power to stop the continued spread of HIV within our community. That should drive our policies and our sympathies and if that means that we put the interests of the uninfected – even the irresponsible uninfected – ahead of those who are deliberately endangering others, I have no problem with that.

I don’t wish to threaten the privacy of the vast majority of responsible HIV positive people who would never dream of doing anything that would pass on this virus. But people like Boone are a danger and a threat to the members of our community and we are fools if we put their interests before our own.

Cancer medication may be effective against HIV

Angina medicine made Pfizer a fortune when it was discovered to cause erections and Merck was delighted when they discovered that their prostate drug could regrow hair. So it would not surprise me if a cure for HIV were to be found to exist already posing with as having an entirely different purpose altogether.

And early testing suggests that possibly two cancer drugs may well be such a find. Louis Mansky, Ph.D., and Christine Clouser, Ph.D., of the Institute for Molecular Virology and School of Dentistry, along with medicinal chemist Steven Patterson, Ph.D., from the Center for Drug Design, decided to think outside the box. Instead of fighting the mutation of the HIV virus in the body, they decided to do the opposite. (Science Daily)

The two drugs, decitabine and gemcitabine — both FDA approved and currently used in pre-cancer and cancer therapy — were found to eliminate HIV infection in the mouse model by causing the virus to mutate itself to death — an outcome researchers dubbed “lethal mutagenesis.”

This is a landmark finding in HIV research because it is the first time this novel approach has been used to attack the deadly virus without causing toxic side effects.

Let’s hope for continued success.

Aid for AIDS Nevada ignores concerns about linkage to Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” Bill

As we have previously discussed, Canyon Ridge Christian Church is a Las Vegas megachurch which has been providing financial support for Uganda’s “kill-the-gays bill” cheerleading pastor Martin Ssempa. And previous efforts to encourage the church to either disavow Ssempa or at least oppose the incarceration of gay people in Uganda have come to no avail.

Neither protests nor the public disassociation by the Southern Nevada Health District has dissuaded CRCC from financial and moral support for Ssempa. But it did lead the pastor, Kevin Odor, to obfuscate the nature of the bill in a special presentation to his church as well as to dismiss concerns by self-righteously reminding his flock of thousands that they care about people with AIDS, as evidenced by their participation in the local AIDS Walk.

And, indeed, it seems that 74 church members signed up and perhaps even put on CRCC t-shirts and walked in the AIDS Walk sponsored by Aid for AIDS Nevada. However, considering that only 12 actually raised a cent and that the total which went to AFAN was $1,385, it is rather difficult for me to believe that their primary motivation was the care and concern for people living with HIV/AIDS. Rather, it seems as though CRCC has found a very inexpensive way in which to appear to care about their community without actually having to exert much effort.

I commend those who raise money for HIV/AIDS issues. But I don’t have much use for those who use HIV/AIDS infected individuals as a platform to advance their own personal image. And it was with this in mind that I wrote the following letter to Aid for AIDS Nevada.

I have recently become aware that Canyon Ridge Christian Church sponsors a team during your AIDSwalk. I further understand that CRCC displays their church name and logo on the shirts worn by their team members.

I wish to caution you that this may be extremely offensive to other participants who either are gay or who believe that gay people should not be jailed and executed.

Canyon Ridge Christian Church is one of the most prominent sponsors of Ugandan minister Martin Ssempa. And Ssempa is the primary champion of a bill before the Ugandan legislature that would:

* make it illegal for gay people to congregate

* institute a lifetime sentence for engaging in “homosexual acts”, which include “crimes” so slight as holding hands

* institute a death sentence for certain gay people, including:
* * when one partner is HIV positive, regardless of consent or protection
* * “repeat offenders”, which would include any same-sex couples
* * when one partner is a minor, regardless of the age of the other partner

* make it a crime for family members not to turn over gay people to the police

For the full text, please see http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/10/15/15609
For a comprehensive understanding of the events leading to and contributing to this bill, please see http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/slouching-toward-kampala

Canyon Ridge has been made aware of the law. They consulted with Ssempa and were told that it only applied to pedophiles and those who intentionally spread HIV.

Ssempa has two messages, one for Uganda and one for their American sponsors. CRCC was provided with evidence of the language of the bill and that Ssempa was targeting gay people, not molesters. This information is readily available on the internet.

CRCC has refused to:

* Break ties with Ssempa
* Read the bill
* Condemn the bill
* Oppose the criminalization of homosexuality
* Oppose the incarceration of gay people

Instead they gave a lecture to their church (which was completely false), justifying their support for Ssempa and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 (which is still before the legislature).

I very much care about whether gay people in Uganda are executed for being gay. I am not alone.

Actually, many conservative evangelical Christians are concerned about this issue and several have renounced the bill and Ssempa’s involvement including Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of A Purpose Driven Life, and Joyce Meyer, author and international televangelist.

Of course, the condemnation is not restricted to conservative evangelicals. A number of mainline churches (the Episcopal Church, for example) and political leaders have weighed in. Barack Obama, the President of the United States, and Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, have condemned this bill. The governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom have officially condemned the bill and warned about international sanctions.

In fact, virtually every decent person or organization that comes to know about the bill opposes it and its sponsors. Except for Canyon Ridge Christian Church.

So please understand that when your AIDSwalk includes CRCC, it is not their faith that is shocking. It is not that they are conservative.

Rather, it is that you have a participant in your event who stands virtually alone in refusing to condemn the incarceration and execution of people for being gay.

This is such an extreme position that the Southern Nevada Health District found it necessary to cease any outreach at the church. They found it not only offensive, but that their support for Ssempa served to endanger gay Ugandans and to harm and hinder the efforts to fight HIV in that country.

I understand that others have brought this situation to your attention, but have not been successful in determining your stance. As I am a writer for a website that has been successful in getting the information about the bill out to the public and which has a large readership and close connections to gay media, they’ve requested that we inquire about your intentions.

So please let me know whether you will continue to allow CRCC to participate in your organization and to display their organization’s name.

Jeniffer Morss, the Executive Director of Aid for AIDS Nevada, does not have her direct email listed on their website, so I directed my letter to:

Jared Hafen – Associate Director
Cira Jones – Director of Finance and Administration
Theresa Mayet – Development Coordinator
Blair Stirek – Development Coordinator

and requested that they “forward to the appropriate person and also please respond to let me know who will be addressing this issue.”

That was Thursday. As of today there has been no response. At all. Not even an acknowledgment of receipt of my letter.

But perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. We are not alone in trying to get AFAN to look at the consequences of their relationship with the church funding a campaign to execute gay people. And their constant response has been silence and stonewalling.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton has also been trying to contact AFAN, and he describes his experience thusly:

When I [contacted AFAN], one staffer I spoke with declined to comment but forwarded my request to the director, Jennifer Morss. I then wrote Ms. Morss two additional emails asking for comment on the relationship with Canyon Ridge and the recent action of Southern Nevada Health to sever ties with the church.

To date, I have gotten no answer. Last week, I went on the Facebook group for AFAN and left a comment on their wall asking for a PR person from AFAN to contact me. Initially, that comment was answered with a recommendation that I contact Terri Maruca, Vice President at Kirvin Doak Communications. When I contacted Ms. Maruca, she replied that someone from the staff would contact me next (now this) week. In the mean time, Michael Bussee also left a request for public comment on the AFAN Facebook group wall. Sometime in mid-week last week, both of those comments were removed by the owner of the AFAN group. Currently, Mr. Bussee has another request for public comment on the AFAN wall.

That request for comment by Michael Bussee has now been removed.

Aid For AIDS Nevada may well have a very good reason for not wishing to confront CRCC (which may or may not have anything to do with their website’s need to assure us that most of their management is heterosexual). But they have no valid reason for ignoring and deleting questions.

We deserve an answer. AFAN owes us the courtesy of replying and letting us know exactly why it is that they are partnering with a church that is sponsoring murder.