Washington Blade - November 24, 2006
Katherine Volin

The relationship between gay blacks and the Christian faith is tumultuous, but Covenant Baptist Church in Southwest D.C. has established itself as a place of acceptance for black gay men and lesbians. Beginning this year, Us Helping Us has held HIV/AIDS testing there each Thursday, so when straight married pastors of the church, Rev. Dennis and Christine Wiley, asked the group to participate in their World AIDS Day event, Us Helping Us didn't hesitate.

"It has been very affirming of African-American gay people," says Us Helping Us' director of programming Kenneth Pettigrew about Covenant Baptist Church.

For World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, Us Helping Us will be offering free HIV testing at the church from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and will participate in the church's evening programming, which will focus on remembering those who have died of AIDS and on HIV prevention. Speakers from local organizations will address those and other topics during the evening.

"Part of our goal is just to make sure we're in different quadrants of the city," Pettigrew says about Us Helping Us. "Our presence in terms of the Southeast, though the church is technically in Southwest, isn't as robust as it is for example, in the Northwest, Northeast. It's just a good opportunity to get in touch with ... that group of people over there."

IN OTHER PARTS of the city, Whitman-Walker Clinic, the largest area gay-focused HIV/AIDS organization, will offer a range of activities for the day, beginning on Thursday, Nov. 30.

The Clinic is holding a cocktail hour fundraiser at Hotel Rouge, 1315 16th St., NW, which is a member of the gay-friendly hotel chain Kimpton.

"We've never done anything like that to the best of my knowledge," says Whitman-Walker spokesperson Kim Mills. "That's a pretty new idea for us. We've just been developing a closer relationship with the Kimpton hotels, and they offered us some space."

There is no charge to attend the event. The Clinic will host a silent auction that night and a portion of the proceeds from "frou-frou drinks" will go to Whitman-Walker.

The Clinic is hosting its annual candlelight vigil in remembrance of those who have died of AIDS, but is moving the event from its usual location outside the Clinic's offices at 14th and S Sts., NW, to Freedom Plaza, at 14th St. and Pennsylvania Ave., NW.

"[It's a] combination of the fact that there is more space, and it's a more central location for people who work downtown," Mills says about the decision to move the location of the vigil. "[And] just to really more publicly mark the fact that this year is the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the syndrome that would later come to be known as AIDS."

The vigil will include speeches by a rabbi, a minister and an imam, among others.

"We'll have some political leaders, " Mills says. "Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has agreed to speak. [D.C. Councilmember] Jim Graham of course never misses the vigil. We'll have one of our clients with HIV who will talk, too, because we really need constantly to put a face on HIV so that people understand that it's still a crisis in our city in particular. Just because it's also a global crisis, we can't forget to take care of the problem at home."

At the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave., Whitman-Walker will also host a display of photographs of local people that have been instrumental in working to fight HIV/AIDS in the city. The Clinic will also offer free HIV/AIDS testing at various locations.

D.C.'s Administration for HIV Policy & Programs is planning to support local organizations' observances, as it did last year on World AIDS Day.

"We're participating and supporting...[financial] grantees of the District, so we're still sorting out if we're going to do something separately or not," says AHPP's spokesperson, Michael Kharfen.

Food & Friends, a local HIV/AIDS service organization, has no special plans for the day.

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