Associated Press - Friday November 27, 1998
Lori Johnston, Associated Press Writer

The AIDS National Interfaith Network, the event's co-sponsor, said several evangelical groups were invited to attend the four-day conference earlier this month.

One group, the Washington-based National Association of Evangelicals said it would have attended if it had been invited.

"No big surprise," said Richard Cizik, acting director of the association's office of governmental affairs, who has been the lone conservative at other AIDS conferences.

"To not get invited exhibits the same mentality that has existed for years. Either we don't care or what we have to say is not acceptable," he said. More than 200 representatives of AIDS advocacy, religious and public policy groups attended the conference at the Carter Center. The event was promoted as the first such meeting in a decade.

The Rev. Kenneth South, executive director of the AIDS National Interfaith Network, acknowledged that the conference needed a broader spectrum. He said 15 evangelical groups were represented, although about half of those participants were writers for religious publications.

"Evangelicals are doing great ministry, as long as they don't try to change people," said South, who is gay.

Evangelicals, many of whom consider homosexual practice sinful, are not going to change their views to be part of things, Cizik said.

"If that's the criterion for having a voice in this gathering, then I guess we won't have a voice," he said. "You must not ask us to do that."

J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, left the conference early after experiencing what he called a hostile attitude toward evangelical views. He attended the conference because organizers cared enough to invite him, and he thought his views would matter.

"This wasn't reflected in the speakers," he said. "Charismatics and Pentecostals were definitely not represented."

Grady said it was obvious that a lot of the speakers wanted to promote a view that homosexuality was not a sin.

"What they want to do is to convince evangelical churches to stop preaching that," he said. "You're not going to get charismatics and Pentecostals to teach that."

Some conference speakers addressed the policy split.

The Rev. James Allen, pastor of a multidenominational church in north Georgia, said the crowd needed to hear that "we're not always going to have the same perspective," but that members of religious groups can agree on the goal of helping those with AIDS.

Religious leaders said churches, synagogues and other religious communities are becoming more accepting of HIV-positive people, although beliefs about homosexuality and drug use remain barriers in many faiths. Unprotected sex and sharing of needles by addicts are primary ways that the AIDS virus is spread; researchers first noted the disease among male homosexuals, though heterosexuals area also at risk.

"There is no stigma greater than the one attached to AIDS," said Brahma Das of The River Fund, a nonprofit Florida AIDS organization.

"You've got sex, you've got sexuality, you've got drug use, you've got death," added Rabbi Mark Blumenthal, who is HIV-positive and chairs the board of directors of AIDS National Interfaith Network.

Buddhist theologian Jose Ignacio Cabezon said he began thinking about the AIDS epidemic after HIV-infected Buddhists appealed to him years ago to help them face the challenges of AIDS.

He has concluded that religions must work together, addressing the disease as a problem crossing philosophical and geographical borders. The battle against AIDS, he said, "is not going to be won only at a local, state or national level."

Black religious leaders said their churches are much more involved in AIDS outreach than a decade ago. There are needle exchange programs, outreaches to build hospice centers and on a larger scale, the Black Church Week of Prayer for Healing of AIDS, in which more than 5,000 churches nationwide have participated. "The landscape has definitely changed," said Permessa Seele, who develops programs to educate black churches to become involved in the fight against AIDS. "Still, far more are not involved than involved."

Some churches, she said, "shut people out of the kingdom of God" because those people have AIDS. "They don't want to deal with women, homosexuals, drug abuse and incest."
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