No Outcasts

The Most Reverend Edmond Lee Browning, 24th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church died today. His death is a loss to Integrity USA as an organization and to me personally. Bishop Browning’s stance that there would be no outcasts in The Episcopal Church was a costly position for him to take. He was criticized by those in our church who considered themselves to be of a more traditional bent. His ministry is summarized here: RIP: Bishop Edmond Lee Browning, 24th Presiding Bishop He made room in The Episcopal Church for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people who found their way to a faith community where they could be who God created them to be.

Presiding Bishop Edmond Lee Browning with Integrity leaders
L to R: The Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton, The Most Reverend Edmond Lee Browning, The Rev. Michael Hopkins, The Rev. Canon Susan Russell

Bishop Browning’s vision of no outcasts was a broad vision. In addition to including those who were LGBT, he also embraced those affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. He was the chief consecrator of the first woman bishop in the entire Anglican Communion, The Right Reverend Barbara Harris. As an African-American, Bishop Harris would break even more boundaries to the full inclusion of all in our church.

I met Bishop Browning during the General Convention of 1991, held in Phoenix, Arizona. Ours was an "official/unofficial" meeting brought about by some of the nastiness being directed at LGBT folks at that convention. My “poker face” proved to be more revealing than I thought at one of the morning Eucharist’s and a bishop at our “table church table” shared his concerns about me with my bishop who got in touch with me. Out of all of that I found myself in a meeting with Presiding Bishop Browning, my bishop, and the officers of the House of Bishops. When asked what was wrong and what we wanted, I had a few simple requests on behalf of my kindred LGBT souls. We were weary of the nastiness being directed at us by clergy and laity alike who really did not want us included in the life of The Episcopal Church. The world and the church were very different then. We wanted to be treated with the respect accorded us in the vows of our baptismal covenant. Progress had begun and with it came some of the first positive legislation about LGBT issues, not to mention the fact that the first openly LGBT Deputy to General Convention came out on the floor of the House of Deputies. This was also the General Convention where the first true public hearing on LGBT issues was held. We had as a church begun talking about who we were. The speakers were The Reverend Sam Candler and The Rev. Kendall Harmon. Sam was our champion.

Some months later I would become the first President of Integrity to meet with a Presiding Bishop. I traveled to New York and proceeded to 815 Second Avenue and was escorted to the Offices of the Presiding Bishop. I was a little nervous, but I need not have been. Bishop Browning embraced me with his loving aura and sat with me on a sofa in his office as we talked. It was not unlike carrying on a conversation with one’s grandfather. (Although I realized later that he was only twenty years older than I….it must have been the trappings of his office that made me think he was older than he was.)

Subsequent to that meeting would happen the first and historic meeting of an Integrity Board of Directors with The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. He was, at least at first, a bit hesitant to have the meeting publicized, but we were clear that it would be documented in "The Voice of Integrity" which was our official publication at the time.

Another first and an expression of his vision of no outcasts was his acceptance to be our speaker and guest at our next Integrity Convention (yes, we used to have those regularly!). When he stated from the pulpit at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, that he really didn’t care what the press thought, we got a glimpse of his ardent support for us and his refusal for us to be outcast by the church.

We (and I) have lost a great friend and ally with the death of Bishop Browning. The Episcopal Church has lost one of its giants. Edmond L. Browning now rests in the bosom of the God who created, redeemed and sustained him throughout a long and productive ministry. By now he has heard the words “well done, good and faithful servant.” May he rest in peace and rise in glory. May we ponder our loss even as we celebrate a ministry from which we received innumerable benefits.

Bruce Garner, President
Integrity USA

World AIDS Day - 2015

The date was June 5.  It was a Friday – and it was 1981.  The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) would list the first cases of what would later become known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS – a word that still brings chills when it is uttered.  Some years ago I read a copy of that MMWR  - I had never seen it before.  As I read the description of the conditions of the first five cases, I shivered involuntarily.  Knowing what was to come didn’t help any.  The name of the condition would later become known as HIV – Human Immunodeficiency Virus once the source of the condition was identified.

Today is World AIDS Day, an international acknowledgement that this disease is still with us and has a global impact like few things have ever had.  It is always December 1.  That’s unfortunate for us Episcopalians because it gets eclipsed by the beginning of Advent and the prayers and lessons that go with our liturgical New Year.

The Episcopal Church was the first church to address the AIDS epidemic at a church-wide level.  It began with a gathering at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in February 1987 when those of us who had been involved in various aspects of the issue came together for a national conference.   It was several days of tears.  There were tears of loss.  There were tears of relief that none of us was doing what we did alone, despite the fact that we were just learning about each other.  There were tears of anger at the failure of government to respond to this epidemic when it was still new.  There were tears of grief over the thousands we knew who had already lost the battle with AIDS.  There were tears…..cleansing and refreshing, helping us each to sort out where we were and what was next.

From that gathering the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition (NEAC) was born.  From that gathering emerged an “AIDS Desk” at the Church Center at 815 2nd Avenue in New York City. From that gathering a response was begun that would last for years and spin off various other ministries and programs around the country.

When the staff at the Church Center was reorganized, the AIDS Desk was eliminated but NEAC became the contractor to provide for the ministry of The Episcopal Church in the HIV/AIDS arena. Over the years there were funding challenges but The Episcopal Church continued to fund at least a minimal effort through NEAC.

Unfortunately, the funding for any HIV/AIDS ministry provided by The Episcopal Church will end as of midnight, December 31, 2015.  The budget for the triennial ending in 2015 is the last budget to include such funding.  At that sad moment, The Episcopal Church will have bowed out of a church wide response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The only other source of potential funding might be through the Executive Council, but that is doubtful.  And without a commitment to sustained funding, NEAC nor any other agency is likely to take up the baton for prevention education, ministry and hope.

From my perspective, the loss of funding is another aspect of the manifestation of racism in our church.  Most congregations no longer see those ill from AIDS in their pews.  It isn’t that such folks do not exist.  It is simply that the majority of new infections are now people of color and most of our churches are very white.  The time of the handsome gay men dying among us is long past.  What is out of sight soon becomes out of mind.

There have been, sadly, few changes in the situation over the years.  The infection rate is on the rise among young gay men again.  Province IV is the most heavily impacted geographic area of our nation and our church.  Province IV is where the costly and often deadly combination of ignorance, poverty, illiteracy, racism, stigma and homophobia happens so readily.    Statistics are alarming in that the fastest rates of increased infection rates are in Province IV.  Some areas exhibit rates comparable to sub-Saharan Africa.  (Even some truly honest sex education could have a huge impact but this area is also the home of “abstinence only” sex education in schools.  It works so well that many of the states in that area remain near the top of the charts of infections from HIV and other STD’s as well as teen pregnancy.  No one seems to make the connection between these statistics and the lack of basic and honest sex education.

June 5, 2001 was the 20th anniversary of the beginning of this terrible pandemic.  At the end of this article, you will see an address I delivered on the occasion of an observance of the 20th anniversary….it was an observance….no celebration was appropriate.  As I re-read what I had said I was saddened and dismayed at the situation we are still in as a church and a nation.

Yes, of course, we have PreP as a way of helping stem infections.  But rising infection rates of other STD’s indicates that condoms are not being used by those on PreP as is dictated by the regimen for the medication.  False security lures many into peril.  Maybe some day in the not too distant future we will actually deal realistically with HIV/AIDS.

So, I invite you on World AIDS Day 2015 to pause and remember those who have died, pray for those still struggling, and commit to doing something to get the attention of elected officials and others that might actually slow the infection rate and make this truly a chronic condition rather than a deadly condition.  It is possible.

Bruce Garner, President
Integrity USA

AIDS: Remembering 20 years The date was June 5 – same as today. It was a Friday – and it was 1981. The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) would list the first cases of what would later become known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS – a word that still brings chills when it is uttered. A few days ago I read a copy of that MMWR - I had never seen it before. As I read the description of the conditions of the first five cases, I shivered involuntarily. Knowing what was to come didn’t help any. The name of the condition would later become known as HIV – Human Immunodeficiency Virus once the source of the condition was identified. Yet from the start, the scientific/medical community would perpetrate a travesty on those infected with this virus. They would initially call it GRID – standing for Gay Related Immune Deficiency. In doing so they would, from the beginning, forever make AIDS a political condition instead of a medical condition. They would affix to a medical condition a stigma that remains associated with it to this day – 20 years later. It should have been unconscionable to even think about connecting a medical condition to a specific group of people. Tay Sacs has no reference to people of Jewish or Mediterranean descent in its title. Sickle cell anemia is not, by its name, connected to people of African descent. Yet it was done with AIDS – and all who are infected with HIV continue – one way or another – to pay the price for initially associating the condition with a particular sexual orientation. By 1982 people had begun dying in noticeable numbers. It wasn’t clear why except that they all had diseases such as pneumocystis pneumonia and Kaposi’s sarcoma. And these were not diseases that killed people under normal circumstances – as we were to learn, people with immune systems that were intact. These were the two most well known infections at the beginning of the epidemic. Time would reveal exotic, nearly unpronounceable viral and bacteriological infections that caused dementia, wasting syndrome, diarrhea, and a host of situations ultimately resulting in a way of death as horrible as any imaginable. Typically at the time of death, the victim looked for all the world like a victim of Auschwitz or some other Nazi concentration camp from the Holocaust. I saw it all – and not long after it began. In the early years, those thought to be at risk were often referred to as the four H’s: hookers, homosexuals, Haitians, and hemophiliacs. Again – labels associated with people were used to identify a disease. It would be several years before we learned that the method of transmission of the virus had nothing what so ever to do with who you were. It was plainly and simply a matter of something that one did – an activity that put one at risk for becoming infected with HIV. None the less, the stigma still lingers. My involvement with the epidemic began through the Social Security Administration. A friend was having problems with his disability claim. Things were not as efficient or well-defined back then as they are now. Months went by without a decision. In July 1984 when I learned that Tom was in Emory hospital again and no decision had been made I got involved. I was finally able to determine the source of the problem with the claim: the doctor had waltzed all around a diagnosis of AIDS but had never written the definitive words in the medical evidence. I took it upon myself to drive to the Emory Clinic, obtain the proper medical and take it to the Disability Determination Services in Decatur. The examiner said he would let me know the outcome. I got a little pushy and advised that I would wait, explaining that Tom was near death and I wanted to tell him before he died that his claim had been approved. The examiner went away for a short while, returned, and told me that Tom’s disability claim was approved. I rushed to Emory Hospital and told Tom. He could not speak. The tracheotomy tube was still in his throat, even though life support had been removed. It would be just a matter of time. But Tom was alert and smiled when I gave him the news. And he knew his children would be receiving survivor benefits as well as his retroactive payments. It would be many more hours before Tom would leave this world. He died shortly after midnight on July 4, 1984. Watching him take his last breath is a scene permanently etched in my memory. 1984 Was the year that the mode of transmission of the virus were identified. As the summer of 1984 wore on, I began to see another friend, Gene, begin to exhibit symptoms that would become all too familiar to me over the years: fatigue, shortness of breath, no energy. In September, Gene was diagnosed with AIDS. That same weekend I began my career as an AIDS volunteer with AID Atlanta. In October I joined the board of directors of AID Atlanta, where I would remain for six years serving as Treasurer, Secretary and two terms as President. I have been on at least one and as many as three AIDS service organization boards at the local and/or national level since that first association began. Gene died a year later – in October of 1985. Gene’s and Tom’s deaths were only the tip of an iceberg of death and grief that would impact me and thousands of others for the rest of our lives. The first International Conference on AIDS was held in Atlanta in 1985 – SSA was there. It took a small fight with HHS but we were there! Friends began dying at a horribly fast rate. For many years I lost an average of two dozen friends a year. I once kept a list. When it topped 200 names, I stopped entering names in my death log. There was no point. With one or two exceptions I lost one entire generation of friends then made and lost another. Almost all of the people with whom I had expected to grow old died. The numbers of cases continued to rise, as did the numbers of deaths from AIDS. Even after the virus was isolated and named HIV, infection and death continued. And even the discovery of the virus was embroiled in politics: French and American doctors fought and argued over who discovered it first! Who gave a damn about who found the virus first, people were dying! In 1986 Surgeon General C. Everett Coop called for AIDS education in children of all ages. And he called for the widespread use of condoms. My closest, dearest, and best friend was Walter Alan Morgan – Alan to me, Walter to his family. We met when he came to the Savannah District Office as I was leaving the Savannah Southside Branch Office to come to the Regional Office. We discovered that we were soul mates – we were brothers born to different families. It was a relationship between friends that few are privileged to ever have. Thirty seconds into any telephone conversation either of us could tell if something wasn’t going right with the other. We truly communicated like siblings. Alan went on to become an Operations Supervisor in the West Palm Beach District Office and then the Branch Manager of the Pompano Beach office. As fate would have it, we never lived in the same town: Didn’t matter, ours was a friendship not dependent on proximity. Alan hid his condition from me for a long time. During a period of my life when I was experiencing the loss of so many friends I had commented to him that I wasn’t sure if I could handle it if it happened to him. So he kept his own illness from me until he was already very sick. The last time I saw Alan, he was in a hospital bed in Broward County Hospital. I sat by that bed all night long praying that he would die – that God would take him home. It didn’t happen that night. The following Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1987 I received the call telling me that Alan had died earlier that morning. 1987 was the year AZT received approval for use in fighting AIDS. Too late for Alan. I learned about grief more intense than I could have imagined – despite having already gone through so many deaths. I also learned the danger that comes from not dealing with that level of grief. Making the panel you see here was a cathartic experience for me. I was finally able to say good by to Alan, to let go. In May, 1988, when I turned the panel over to the Names Project, the moment of presentation had been preceded by hours of gut wrenching sobbing. When it was over – I was cleansed and finally ready to move on. The panel I had made for Alan was presented to the Names Project at the 1988 display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. The display committee would later become the Atlanta Chapter of the Names Project. I would have the honor and privilege of serving on and chairing its board of directors several years later. Dozens of us were bitten by the Quilt Bug! It was a bite that would provide some of the salve needed to help heal the wounds inflicted by the AID epidemic. Once the virus was isolated, there was new hope that drugs could be found and developed that would fight the disease. The first, as mentioned, was AZT. AZT was a gamble. It was not initially clear what the dosage should be, how often it should be taken, what the side effects were, or what the long-term effects might be. It all began with 4 pills every four hours around the clock. There were jokes about gay men “beeping” every four hours. It was the pill timers that everyone used to keep up with their medicines. You could be in a group and someone’s timer would go off. There was this mad scramble until the one pill timer that had actually gone off was located. It was a simple touch of humor for an increasingly sad situation. During the early years, AID Atlanta, founded in 1982, was the only service provider in Atlanta and the entire state for people with AIDS. Later Project Open Hand was founded – a spin off from AID Atlanta’s meals on wheels program. Similarly the Atlanta Interfaith AIDS Network sprang from AID Atlanta’s Department of Pastoral Care. We could not get grant funds to support the department, so we spun it off on its own. A former AID Atlanta board member, Sandra McDonald founded Outreach, INC., to provide a program of services focused toward intravenous drug users. Later Jerusalem House was founded. Then AIDS Education Services for Minorities and others would be founded to deal with the needs of those affected by the epidemic. It was also during those years that we witnessed people with AIDS being bodily removed from airplanes and left to crawl across a sidewalk to a taxi – if one agreed to take them. We witnessed housing evictions – not because of inability to pay rent – but because of being ill with AIDS. Some dentists, even some doctors, refused to treat AIDS patients. Ignorance and fear were the orders of the day. Some of that never changes. In 1989, I reached a milestone age: forty. It was time for complete physical exams and time to begin watching for those things that can go wrong with the human body as it begins to age. Part of that exam was to be an HIV antibody test. But I chose to go a different route – a T-cell count. If the count was below a certain number, it would be pretty certain that I was infected. The T-cell count wasn’t high enough. I took the HIV antibody test. The test confirmed what, in my gut, I already knew: I was infected. There was no screaming or crying, no hand wringing. I was well versed in the subject of HIV at that point in my life and I would simply deal with it. By looking at the T-cell levels and a medical event that took place in my life in 1982, it became clear that was when I became infected and sero-converted. Later during that same year, 1989, the drug protocols would indicate that anyone with a T-cell count lower than 500 should to on AZT. Mine was and I did. I went on AZT. I washed down my very first doses with a Michelob beer as I stood in my dining room. And I started beeping every four hours! Time and AIDS marched on. The drugs changed – new ones came out – some worked better than others, some not at all. And some people could not tolerate the side effects of any of them. More people died. I remained involved in AIDS work – partly from a sense of obligation; partly with a fervent hope that someone would be there for me if I needed them. I developed new circles of friends. Not everyone was dead – most were. I attended funerals, I conducted funerals, I buried friends. Ryan White died from AIDS in 1990 at age 18. His name lives on in the Ryan White CARE Act – now the major source of Federal funding for services for people living with HIV/AIDS. New classes of drugs became available and I’ve been on a good many of them. Most worked for me quite well – no side effects of any consequence. One notable exception occurred when we had to smuggle DDC into this country from Mexico. Our own FDA had not yet given it their seal of approval despite its use in several places elsewhere in the world. Apparently one shipment of DDC came into Atlanta that was about twice the usual strength. The side effect of DDC is neuropathy. So when hundreds of us started losing the feeling in our toes, we stopped taking it immediately. By 1995 HIV became the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. In 1996 protease inhibitors and multi-drug therapies were introduced, bringing new optimism. At the moment I’m on a three drug combination or cocktail. I take four pills each morning and three at night. To those I add half a dozen other pills during the day. Some control the potential side effects of others – some deal with other issues. But I no longer beep! In many ways, HIV is becoming a chronic, manageable medical condition rather than a health crisis leading to an eminent death. The pills keep many of us healthy. But they still don’t work for everyone. I still lose a couple of friends each year to AIDS. And the situation in the less developed areas of the world remains a serious health crisis, generally leading to an early death. The drugs either are not available or are too expensive to buy. In those parts of the world, AIDS still means death. It also means millions and millions of orphaned children. I saw that face to face several years ago on a visit to Honduras for the National Commission on AIDS of the Episcopal Church. I sat across the table from four young adults, all HIV infected. There I was, with access to all the drugs available for the treatment of HIV. There they were, they had access to virtually nothing. The drugs that are available are targeted toward infected children. Talk about guilt! Educational efforts in the gay community in this country slowed the rate of new infections to a standstill several years ago. But by 1999 there was evidence that the infection rate is once again on the rise. A new generation of young gay men didn’t have the preventive education provided by the deaths of dozens of friends. Youth equates with invincibility and immortality for so many. Add to that the false sense of security the drug regimens appear to bring and you have a recipe for disaster. They don’t always understand the necessity of not engaging in risky sexual behaviors, much less the necessity of not sharing needles. Both behaviors still spread HIV. Sadly, it is rare for children to receive an adequate education about HIV prevention in school, or at home, or at church or synagogue. Teaching them to “just say no” has never worked. Kids need to know in terms they understand, however explicit and direct they need to be, what causes HIV infection and how to prevent it. Talking to them about sex, teaching the use of condoms, will not increase sexual activity among young people. The high rates of teen pregnancies and STD’s are obvious indicators that kids are having sex regardless of whether or not we are talking to them about it! The most powerful educational tool that school administrators seem to find safe enough to use is the AIDS Memorial Quilt – but that alone is not enough. It may be clear to you now that I’ve reached the point where I have stopped preaching and gone to meddling! Well I’m going to meddle some more. And I am going to be blunt. There are powerful myths out there about AIDS and HIV. Those myths are powerful and they are dangerous. I’ve mentioned one – the myth that talking to kids about sex makes them have sex. Last week the results of a national study showed clearly that safe-sex programs do NOT increase sexual activity – a reason often cited by some groups for not using them. There is another myth that there are no African American men who have sex with men. None are gay. If anything, they are all bisexuals. Hogwash! The same lie is told in the Latino community as well, and to some degree in the Asian community. Those myths kill! No minced words, no apologies – those myths kill people daily. Recent CDC studies show AIDS is now the leading cause of death in African-Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. And in a study done in six large cities, nearly one third of the young black gay and bisexual men are testing positive for HIV – one third, one out of three! If you take nothing else away from here today, at least take the truth. Take the truth that more than 20 million people have died from AIDS worldwide and over 8,000 more die each day. Take the truth that HIV infects 40 million people and that number increases by over 14 thousand every day. Take the truth that unprotected sexual activity spreads HIV. Take the truth that the virus doesn’t care what sexual orientation, social or economic status, race, creed, or religion its host might be. Take the truth that there are men who have sex with men in all racial and ethnic groups. Take the truth that denying the existence of those men can condemn them to death. Take the truth that your children and grandchildren, your nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters need to know that having unprotected sex can infect them with HIV regardless of the gender of their sexual partners. Talk to them. Share that truth. Take the truth that 4.3 million children under the age of 15 have died from AIDS. Take the truth that there are over 18 million children who have been made orphans by AIDS. Take the truth that sharing needles also shares infection. Take the truth that needle exchange programs slow the spread of infection and they don’t increase intravenous drug use. Take the truth that AIDS is not a divine punishment for anything anyone did or did not do. Take the truth that AIDS is caused by a virus and that virus is spread through the actions of human beings: good people, bad people, rich and poor, black and white, red, yellow and brown and all shades between. Being infected is not the consequences of who you are. If it is the consequence of anything it is the consequence of doing something out of either ignorance or stupidity. Being infected with HIV has nothing to do with the worth or value of the human being that hosts it. If any of us truly believes that having HIV reflects a consequence of someone’s worth as a human being, we had better be ready and able to explain why someone gets the flu or cancer or emphysema or leukemia or polio or Hodgkin’s disease or sickle cell anemia or Chrohn's disease or any other disease we could name. The truth remains that there is no connection between any diseases we might get and our worth as human beings. Disease is not punishment. The final truth I want you to take away is the truth of my survival. You know, I can’t state with certainty why I am still on this earth. I wasn’t supposed to still be here by now. But I am! I attribute my continued good health and survival to a number of factors: I didn’t give myself an opportunity for further infection. I’ve engaged in protected sexual activity for the last sixteen years. I’ve had good quality medical care that involved me in the decisions that were made. The various drugs I’ve taken did what they were supposed to do. I have a good self-image of myself as who I am as a gay man. I don’t believe and never did believe the garbage that there was anything flawed about me. I have a firm resolve. That’s another way of saying I’m hard headed – at least according to my parents! And I have a very strong faith in the one who created me. I know that the one who created me did not inflict this virus upon me. For me, these are the factors that sustain me and contribute to my continued survival. My goal is to live to be a hundred years old – and I’m over half way there already! My reasons for sharing my story with you are simple: To let you know there are those who are surviving with HIV. To let you know that there is hope. And finally to let you know that you can do something about HIV/AIDS: Learn about it! Teach about it! Debunk the deadly myths about AIDS! Save people’s lives! Maybe 20 years from now, AIDS will be a disease of the past. Thank you!

Sean Glenn: My Meditation for World AIDS Day

Although I have often commented on the subtle nuances of World AIDS Day's placement in close proximity to the first Sunday in Advent, this year I was confronted––perhaps more than ever––by the jarring and peculiar ways that both of these days resonate with and read each other.

PHOTO CREDIT: Christian Paolino
All rights reserved. Used with permission.

A strange and marvelous thing happened to me yesterday morning. While singing the final hymn for the Eucharist at Christ Church, Cambridge, Mass.  ("Lo! he comes with clouds descending"), these peculiarities caught me off-guard. While I always appreciate the ways a sophisticated Advent hymn will prefigure the crucifixion and resurrection, I had seldom read this kind of imagery in the context of my own status as an HIV-positive person. The incarnational reality of my life with HIV––a new life-long embodied Advent of patient waiting and longing for the redemptive release of a cure or, at the very least, the dismantling of unjust and uninformed social stigma––washed over me in waves as verse three began:

"Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body bears..."

Those dear tokens––those wounds inflicted by a brutal imperial hegemony––remain a core feature of the Body of Christ, in both his resurrected visage, as well as us, his Body in the world.

Yet despite my own on-going sense of daily death and resurrection, I still find myself (as I am sure do so many others) walking the path of (im-)patient expectation. Much in the same way Jesus' own wounds reflect a certain degree of choice, so too I begin to feel the sense that the wounds we experience as HIV-positive people also reflect a degree of choice. This is, by no means, an indictment of the manner by which we become HIV-positive; the wound there is in no way something self-inflicted. Rather, at least in my own meditation on the matter, the "dear tokens" which confront me daily are a matter of my own choice around disclosure. I am wounded no matter my choice: I can hide, attempt to pass through the world untouched by this peculiar bodily companion, or I can do what I have done and give the thing a face in the world. If I hide, I am crushed by the closet of shame and fear. If I disclose, I am rendered and read as many things, none of which I truly believe I am: a victim, one inflicted, something to be pitied, a body to be feared and avoided, the manifestation of one of our epoch's great and terrible specters, dirty.

We are none of these things, though. We walk our path of living Advent, but we do so knowing that "what God has made clean, [no one can] call dirty."

To the sero-negative, ponder this during Advent. Be a light for those you know (or may not know) are sero-positive. Lay down the banner of fear.

To my fellow sero-positive, resist the labels that others might want to apply to us. Wear these wounds with pride, knowing that God has transformed them––just as peculiarly as on Easter––and, as a result has transformed us by them and through them. Show your pierced hands and open sides to the world; give birth to a new reality.

Amen.

Sean Glenn is Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

Sean Glenn: HIV and Undetectable Transmission

During a therapy session a few weeks ago, my behavioral health provider asked me a question, "Why do you remain compliant?" (That is to say, "why are you taking your anti-retroviral medications?") To my surprise, my answer left him at a loss for words. After considering every possible vantage, I responded, "I take my medication for the sake of and as an act of service to the community around me."

I could discern the look of perplexity on his face at once. "Really?" he asked, "You don’t take it because of the health benefits and the guarantee of a greater longevity of life? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a patient respond that way."

"No," I responded, "because none of that is really up to me. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow; there are an innumerable myriad of ways that I could die unprepared, and a good 99% of them have nothing to do with the fact that I’m HIV-positive. I give my mortality up to God — we were all ordained to return to the dust one day. I just don’t know when. As such, I think it is more important for me to take my medication to ensure that no one around me contracts the virus from me. It’s the small role I can perform in an effort to eradicate the virus. Nothing would thrill me more at the end of my life than to know that this thing dies with me. That, I guess, is why I work to remain undetectable."

Of course, the virus will likely not die with my passing body, but we are getting closer to such a reality.

As Arthur Campbell Aigner’s eschatological hymn declares, "God is working his purpose out as year
succeeds to year: God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near; nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be, when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea."

For those living with, and among, the reality of HIV, the qualifier "undetectable" is a step to this divine purpose.

Yet, there exists, within the LGBT community at least, a long standing suspicion of the HIV sero-marker "undetectable." Conversations with some (as well as comment threads on HIV-related articles) display, even in the face of overwhelming scientific findings, a readiness to stigmatize the sero-positive and read "undetectable" as an excuse to "behave poorly and selfishly."

The science, however, may be in and my long standing beliefs seem to hold true in the face of the empirical evidence: treatment as prevention works. In a world where abstinence education simply will not hold among many communities, and where (despite the vast accessibility of condoms) unprotected sex continues its appeal for many partners seeking such a level of intimacy, treatment as prevention is demonstrating a long-ranging efficacy for the reduction of HIV transmission rates.

A landmark Partner study, which "tracked HIV transmission risk through condomless sex [where] the
HIV-positive partner is on suppressive antiretroviral medication—has so far found not even one case
of an HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a partner." This is
enormous news for both the sero-positive and sero-negative communities. Although researchers fully
disclose the fact that these findings are not yet the final telos for the study of transmission, the results
so far are telling.

As I mentioned in an article a few months back (HIV and Corporate Profit: Recognizing the needs of a Community), treatment as prevention is a method of preventing HIV transmission by ensuring that those who are sero-positive are receiving regular medical care and are taking an anti-retroviral medication so that their viral load (the measurement of viral duplications per milliliter of blood) remains suppressed.

While the scientific findings regarding the efficacy of a suppressed viral load as a part of the treatment as prevention model are indeed exciting, the broad-reaching social implications are somewhat frustrating. As Lucas Grindley comments, "What many experts already know about how HIV is transmitted still holds true: [n]ew infections usually come from people who are undiagnosed, who don’t know they have the virus, and who are not on treatment."

In my own experience, the day-to-day medical realities of life with HIV are seldom what keep people
from knowing their status. While my last article focused heavily on the imperative that anti-retroviral
medication be made as readily and easily available as possible, I also posit that stigma is an enormous
roadblock in the treatment as prevention model. Treatment as prevention only works when people
are willing to know their status, without fear of the systemic, legal, and historical project of HIV
stigmatization, especially as the greater impetus toward reducing medical and scientific illiteracy is
thrust upon the shoulders of the sero-positive.

It is, to say quite simply, an exhausting reality. I can no longer count the times I, among friends,
colleagues, strangers, and prospective lovers, have had to haul out the facts about transmission rates
among those who know their status versus those who do not. I can no longer count the number of
instances wherein I have heard a young man say, "I would get tested, but I’m too scared to."

These words, "I would get tested, but I’m too scared," could very well have been on the lips of the young man from whom I contracted HIV nearly four years ago. Had he known his status and had he been on an anti-retroviral regimen, the trajectory of my own life may well have looked quite different. But systems of stigmatization stood in the way of his own self-knowledge. Indeed, these same systems often stood in the way of my own self-knowledge. This was by no means his or my fault. It is, however, the reason I refuse to hide. It is the reason that I refuse to let HIV-stigmatization go uncriticized, even if it means deeply questioning the assumptions of some in my social circles.

As a church, both denominationally and ecumenically, we are called by the wounded yet living Christ to deeply question any and all manner of stigmatization. There was a slogan often rung out in the streets of protest in the late 1980s, "Our Church Has AIDS." This is still true. As members of the Body of Christ, we share each other’s wounds, and, as such, we are called into the process of reshaping (though never actually erasing) those wounds. If we share each other’s wounds, we share each other’s stigma. We are bound in the Eucharist to Christ’s own death and resurrection, yet also are bound to each other’s wounds, stigma, death, and resurrection, here and now.

The church can, therefore, lead in the project of treatment as prevention. The realities of HIV in our own communities should be openly discussed, and education about the various ways (not just abstinence) of navigating such a world should be requisite. We can end stigma together; and, if we end stigma, we may just be able to end HIV.



Sean R. Glenn is Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.


Sean Glenn is the Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts

HIV and Corporate Profit: Recognizing the needs of a Community

Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
––Matthew 14:13–21, Lection for Proper 13A [August 3, 2014]

When I first moved to Boston in September of 2011 (some nine months after my diagnosis with HIV), I was not yet on an anti-retroviral medication. To be quite candid, I was afraid to start treatment. Despite the incredible reduction of side-effects caused by anti-retroviral treatment, I was weary of the cost. Starting an HIV medication can be something of a life-long commitment; in order for it to work the most effectively, total (or near total) adherence (that is, taking the medication every day, as prescribed) is requisite. Ceasing treatment often runs the risk of viral mutation and, therefore, resistance to medications. This was a proverbial plunge for which I was not ready.

Once established with a local HIV specialist, however, a medication was prescribed to me. My previous doctor in New York City had leaned on an older model of care. His stance was to wait to begin an anti-retroviral regimen until a patient's CD4 (or T-cell) count had dropped below about 300 (a count of 200 or fewer usually indicates the on-set of AIDS). This meant that, in theory, I could have gone many, many years without beginning medication, depending on my body's ability to handle the virus. My provider in Boston, however, introduced me to the notion of "Treatment as Prevention," a now standard approach to HIV care.

Treatment as Prevention relies on the now clinically verifiable notion that, in order to slow or even prevent the spread of HIV, a patient who is sero-positive should adhere to a medication so that the patient's viral load is suppressed to undetectable levels (or, what is called "undetectable viral load"). Studies have shown that HIV-positive patients who adhere to medication and maintain an undetectable viral load are exponentially less likely to transmit the virus (one researcher has even been quoted saying that the chances are reduced to near zero percent).

With this knowledge in hand, I accepted my provider's orders and began treatment. The results were almost instantaneous: within a month my viral load was reduced from 20,000 copies per unit to completely undetectable levels. As a result, my CD4 count rose, and my last blood panel showed them hovering just over 850––a high, healthy CD4 count for anyone, positive or negative. I, like so many others, now live with the reassurance that it is almost impossible for me to transmit the virus, especially when other precautions are taken. My adherence to anti-retroviral treatment is a safe-guard to the community, as well as myself.

This was the good news. The bad news, however, revealed itself when I needed to find away to pay for treatment. When I started taking medication in October of 2011, I had to rely on student insurance. While I am now fortunate enough to have coverage through MassHealth, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts public insurance, I did not qualify for it in 2011 because the university had enrolled me with Aetna. This presented a major problem. Not only did Aetna not adequately cover my doctor visits or blood work, they maintained a $2,000 yearly cap for medications. That might sound like a reasonable cap, but a 30-day supply of Atripla (the anti-retroviral medication prescribed to me) costs just over $2,000.

I'll repeat that: a 30-day supply of Atripla costs just over $2,000. I was (and continue to be) fortunate enough to live in an area of the U.S. where there are many resources for someone living with HIV. Although it was, by no means, an easy feat to get my medication covered during the first year, thanks to the incredible medical social workers in Boston I now have full coverage. This, however, is not the case universally, both at home and abroad. Treatment can be hard to come by, and this often prevents those living with HIV from receiving adequate access to medicine--medicine which not only allows patient to live longer, but also prevents the spread of HIV.

We will never live in a post-HIV/AIDS epoch unless this changes. Until there is a vaccine or a cure, Treatment as Prevention is the only sustainable model that benefits both the HIV-positive and HIV-negative communities. At a certain point, we have to ask ourselves (especially as communities of faith) how much longer we can allow the corporate profit made off of those living with HIV to outweigh the imperative that anti-retroviral therapy be made readily and affordably available to all, for the sake of all. Medications do not simply save individual lives; they save communities.

"Loaves and Fishes Mosaic"
PHOTO CREDIT: James Emery
Used under Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved

The Gospel pericope cited above serves as a cornerstone of this imperative. In this enacted parable (the historicity of which is not my purpose here), Jesus gives his disciples a command –– he gives us a command: "You go and feed them." The responsibility here is not Jesus’; it is ours. The necessary resources are already abundant by God's good grace, and we simply have to recognize that. But, in recognizing this abundance, we are also forced to ask where this abundance frequently ends up. Does it end up serving the good of the community, or does it end up in the hands of a few? The responsibility is ours.

Let's take Jesus at his word in this parable: "You go and feed them."

Sean R. Glenn is Integrity's Diocesan Organizer for Massachusetts. He is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music, and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

Has the Church Forgotten It Has AIDS?

June 4 - 6, the Fourth Province of The Episcopal Church held its regular synod meeting at Kanuga Camp and Conference Center near Hendersonville, NC. Bruce Garner, Integrity's Province IV Coordinator, attended the synod in his capacity as a Lay Deputy to next year's General Convention from the Diocese of Atlanta.  He is one of three openly LGBT Deputies from that deputation.

Bruce set up a display in the lobby of the meeting room that included Integrity USA's tri-fold back drop, an assortment of brochures and a couple of baskets of buttons.  He also included a sign-up sheet for anyone who might be interested in being the contact person for their
diocese.

During a synod plenary session, Bruce made a presentation on the Province IV Network of AIDS Ministries Annual HIV Retreat, which would follow the synod on June 6-8.  This presentation included some startling statistics about HIV/AIDS in Province IV.  (He is Vice Chair of the planning committee that produces the retreat, now in its 23rd year.)  He then co-facilitated a workshop that went into more detail about how HIV/AIDS was affecting
Province IV with a much greater proportion of infections than the rest of the country and church.  (His co-facilitator was Lola Thomas, who chairs the Planning Committee and is Executive Director of a semi-rural AIDS service provider.)

He writes:

"Of the ten cities in the US with the highest HIV incidence rates, six of them are in Province IV.  Of the 20 highest, 12 are in Province IV.  And of the 50 highest, 19 are in Province IV.  The fourth ranked city for incidence rates is Jackson, Mississippi.  These figures were eye opening to those at the synod....as well they should be.

The sad reality is that The Episcopal Church has essentially abandoned domestic HIV/AIDS ministries.  As far as I know, the Kanuga Retreat is the only major HIV/AIDS activity undertaken as a Episcopal event anywhere in the church, beyond a handful of parish and diocesan ministries.  We have gone from being on the cutting edge to dragging up the rear.  Yet infection rates continue to rise with the fastest growing group being young men in their 20's and 30's, about half of whom are African American.  Most Episcopalians do not see many folks of color in their pews and thus do not realize we still have a problem."

The National Episcopal AIDS Coalition  provides some resources for individuals and congregations who seek to include HIV/AIDS concerns in their ministry.  The Welcoming Parishes Initiative provides guidance on how to become better educated about prevention, treatment and pastoral care, ideas for community involvement, and media for making your intentions known.

The Slaughter of our Holy Innocence: HIV Criminalization in the New Century

by Sean R. Glenn

Although, as I have indicated in previous work, I try my best not to allow my HIV positive status to define me by writing about it too frequently, I’m going to set that penchant aside for a moment. What I want to discuss right now is not an easy matter; there are no clear-cut either/or binaries here, and I worry that I’m likely to make some people uncomfortable in the language to follow. What I want to talk about is far more frightening for those living with HIV than rejection or health complications: the criminalization of HIV positive individuals, a new dimension of unjust and, frankly, scientifically illiterate HIV stigmatization. Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents—an uncomfortable occasion that marks events that may have occurred following the birth of Jesus, and, perhaps more importantly, events that continue to this day: the violence of systematic oppression, stigmatization, and our own culpability therein. To some, a discussion concerning HIV criminalization may not seem an appropriate topic for such a feast day, yet on the eve of Epiphany (and the eve of my three year anniversary) there are connections I can no longer ignore.

Despite medical advances over the past two decades, HIV positive people remain a stigmatized group that reveals serious lacunae within the confines of our language. That is to say, while conventional wisdom holds that HIV is “a gay thing,” the facts tell us that HIV confronts every single one of us: the virus is entirely unaware of the age, gender, sexual orientation, race, economic status, or religion of those it marks. That said, in the United States there are certain communities that do bear more statistical risk than others: intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men (gay, straight, or otherwise), and communities of color, particularly women thereof. Life with HIV spans many categories, revealing that clear-cut grouping of peoples and conditions doesn’t work; to address it is to declare that one must always engage in conversations about HIV carefully, and always with an eye toward the broader issues social justice that the virus thrusts before our (often unwilling and unprepared) eyes.

In the months following my diagnosis I was asked several questions by friends and family, including “are you angry at the man who gave you HIV?” and “You know you can take legal action. Are you going to press charges?” The answer to both was, and continues to be, an emphatic “no.” In a matter such as this there is no room for finger pointing—that simply distracts us from more systemic issues. I made a mistake, as did the individual who likely transmitted the virus to me.

I recently came across a lengthy article on BuzzFeed detailing the state of HIV criminalization in the United States, which focused primarily on a case of HIV criminalization in Iowa. This is just one of many such cases that have found their way across my path in recent years. According to data collected by the organization ProPublica, the last decade has seen at least 541 recorded cases “in which people were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, criminal charges for not disclosing that they were HIV-positive.” The data goes on to suggest that this number could actually be higher because in at least 35 states have laws which make it a criminal offense to expose another person to HIV; in 19 states, it is a felony. Yet, peculiarly enough, these laws can be executed and punishments proscribed even if the virus is not transmitted. Let me repeat that: these laws do not require transmission to occur. Possible exposure is enough to land an individual in prison.
I must confess, when I first learned of this, it was almost impossible to contain my rage and indignation, especially given that there are numerous other infectious conditions that are, in the age of retroviral therapy, much more deadly and far more communicable than (controlled) HIV for which no such laws exist.

This does, of course, force us to deal with issues of consent and ask the question “who bears the burden of responsibility here?” In the case of consensual sexual encounters (because, let’s face it, non-consensual sexual encounters are criminal), I would argue that, insofar as HIV transmission is concerned, the burden of responsibility is shared. Conventionally, the burden is placed squarely upon the HIV positive individual, but this, I would argue, is dangerous (and opens a complicated can of worms concerning credibility, honesty, and self-knowledge). Now, before the readership erupts in shocked dismay, let me qualify this by saying that, under the best of circumstances, I believe that an HIV positive individual should always disclose their status. I always make a point to do so because only in my silence does the virus win. However, the reality of social stigmatization and stratification complicates this wildly. As a result, it is also my stance that an HIV negative individual should always protect themselves; always. Always use protection and, as terrible as this might sound, never presume a person to be HIV negative—that person might not know their status. This also means, however, that protection does not include avoiding HIV positive people. I have found in the past that the best protection has been to openly engage with HIV positive individuals. I have always felt safer with HIV positive people who have openly disclosed their status to me. Honest disclosure means several things:

1) You can be sure of this person’s status; there is no doubt.

2) You can also likely be sure that this person, having disclosed, is receiving treatment and is taking medication to suppress their viral load, making it significantly more difficult to transmit the virus. If someone has recently contracted the virus and does not know it, presuming the safety of a previous negative HIV test, the chances of transmission are significantly higher.

3) You can also assume that this person who has disclosed has likely undergone a complicated internal dialogue about the consequences of their honesty. This is not something to take for granted, and this is where I feel the greatest danger of HIV criminalization laws lies: if people do not feel safe enough to disclose their status, they won’t. If the fear of being stigmatized by a systematically prejudiced legal system aligned with conventional societal ignorance is present, it is safer to either claim ignorance of one’s status or, more dangerously, avoid getting tested for HIV altogether.
This is a sure recipe for the continued presence of HIV for generations to come, and it is a guarantee that unjust stigmatization will win. If people are afraid to get tested—afraid to know about what might be happening within their bodies—then we can be sure that infections rates will climb. As I have often said, “HIV is something one rarely gets from someone who knows they are positive.” If people know they are positive, treatment is sought; if treatment is sought, the risk of transmission is significantly reduced.

If we cannot openly disclose, discuss, and feel safe about our HIV statuses, we let the virus, and the stigma surrounding it, win. Our innocence is accordingly slaughtered and, as a result, HIV won’t go away.

HIV wins only when HIV stigmatization wins.  

Sean R. Glenn is a composer and conductor of sacred choral music. He holds a Masters in Theological Studies from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Music from the Aaron Copland School at Queens College. His home on the web is www.seanglenn.com.

Mary Ray Worley: Personal Connections and Transformations

I was pleasantly surprised this week to read about Senator Rob Portman's change of heart regarding gay marriage. A few comments I read expressed regret that it required a personal connection—Portman's son is gay—for him to reevaluate his position. But I contend that nearly all of our best and most important transformations are prompted by personal connections. What was once theoretical becomes immediately, achingly personal, powerful enough to blast through our preconceived, long-held beliefs. We can all be glad that Portman was willing to let his personal connection to his son change his beliefs. Many of us know of parents who are unmoved and unsupportive when their children come out. Thank God for those who do better.

Few people are able to effect such metamorphoses only on a theoretical basis. It's a big reason why the personal really is political. And it's why, with fewer and fewer gay people staying in the closet, more and more of us are being transformed by those personal connections, to the extent that marriage equality is indeed beginning to look inevitable. These days we all have friends, cousins, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, mentors, and heroes who are gay. If your heart is open to them, then it is necessarily open to marriage equality and justice. Such is the nature of the personal connection.

"Our calling is not to cross boundaries,
defy restrictions, or escape compartments.
 It is to embrace a universe
that does not admit their existence."

"Our Calling," artwork and quotation
by Ricardo Levins Morales.

For example, when I was younger, I was an enthusiastic evangelical Christian (whereas nowadays I'm a mild-mannered, unassuming Episcopalian). I believed that homosexuality was wrong for the simple reason that people I loved and trusted told me it was wrong, and I didn't have any better information than that. One of my very best friends also believed what we were told; only for him, it was anything but theoretical. Because he was gay.

I met Patrick in high school when we were on the newspaper staff together. I went to the same university Patrick did, and seeing as how he was a year ahead of me, he took some pleasure in showing me around the big U. We did the obligatory bar-hopping tour, and he introduced me to the very exciting if somewhat daunting Plato system—my very first encounter with a computer! He was brilliant and funny and always kind. He studied Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Russian, and Arabic just because he enjoyed learning them. He learned American Sign Language and rode a unicycle all over campus. I affectionately called him Petruchio (the romantic lead in The Taming of the Shrew). He was my very best friend from 1974 until he died at the tender age of 32 in 1987.

When I had a religious conversion experience in December of my freshman year (1974), I took Patrick along for the ride. He came to church with me and joined the same Christian group on campus. We had known each other—very well, I thought—for maybe eight years before he told me about his sexual conundrum: he was attracted to men. I was shocked. No one had ever come out to me before. It was totally outside my sphere of experience or understanding. Still, neither of us questioned what we had been taught.

"Our Spirit" is an organization which
provides LGBT youth with affirming
faith-based messaging via web video.
Click the image for more information.

Patrick struggled mightily to resist temptation, and he despised himself because he wasn't able to change. I will never forget him dissolving in anguished tears on my couch. His "failures" consisted of loveless, anonymous sexual encounters, after which he would castigate himself and resolve to do better. It was a nasty, vicious cycle of torment and self-loathing. Only a few months before he contracted HIV, Patrick said how lucky he was not to have come down with some dread disease. Obviously, his luck didn't hold.

Patrick moved to Texas a few years before he died. The first time I went to visit him there we were both struck by how nice it was to be with someone with whom we didn't even have to finish our sentences to be understood. Then he told me about his diagnosis. Back in those days, HIV was a swift death sentence. I went to Texas to visit him twice before he died.

The first time I saw him after he was diagnosed with AIDS, I was stunned by his appearance. He looked like a concentration camp survivor. For the first half hour or so I was with him, I found it difficult to breathe, as though I'd been struck on the back and had the wind knocked out of me. The change in him was so hard to process. While others shunned him, feared contagion, and worried about sharing a salad with him (I kid you not!), I cooked enormous amounts of food for him because I noticed that no matter how much I put in front of him, he ate half. I cleaned his bathroom and organized his cornucopia of prescription drugs. I never considered doing anything less. This was my Petruchio. What else could I have done?

I read as much about AIDS as I could get my hands on (most notably, And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts) in the vain hope that understanding what was happening to Patrick would help me cope. I ran interference between him and his mother. When he lapsed into a coma during the last month of his life, I insisted that his mother hold the phone up to his ear for ten minutes every day so that I could prattle at him, whether he could actually hear me or not. Finally, I picked out where he would be buried and made arrangements for his funeral (the first funeral home I called didn't want to handle someone who had died of AIDS).

Patrick died on July 12, 1987. For years afterward I was furious with God, not because Patrick had died but because he died what seemed to me to be a small, miserable little death. He was in denial about his impending death right up to the end. He never faced himself or his disease. But to me he was so precious, so beautiful, so extraordinary. He deserved so much better. I know now, too, that I was uncomfortable with Patrick's rejection of his gayness, even though I wasn't ready to fully accept it either.

During that time, I began experiencing what is sometimes referred to as cognitive dissonance—my experiences didn't jibe with my beliefs. I talked to some friends who were gay and asked them obnoxious, personal questions like "Do you still consider yourself a Christian?" and "When did you realize you were gay? What made you think that?" I knew a lesbian couple whom I loved very much (still "hating the sin while loving the sinner"). I realized one day that I liked them very much as a couple, and I couldn't imagine them in relationship with anyone else. Gender didn't really even seem to come into it. They were just right for each other.

"Inclusiveness" Window,
McKinley Presbyterian Church,
Champaign, Illinois

The "Inclusiveness" Window at
McKinley Presbyterian Church,
Champaign, Illinois, was
installed in 1997 in honor of my
late mother-in-law, Carolyn
Juergensmeyer Worley, longtime
member of McKinley's Social
Action Committee and a
woman with as kind, generous,
and accepting a heart as anyone
I've ever known.

To our knowledge, this is the only
stained glass window devoted to
inclusiveness as a theme in America.
Symbols abound and the most
dramatic is at the top. A pink
triangle set against a white Celtic
cross recalls the suffering and
repression of GLBT persons at the
hands of the Nazis in Germany in the
30’s and 40’s. Also included are
the rainbow flag, an AIDS ribbon,
and male and female hands
clasping one another and supported by the
hand of God.

In 1991, I moved to Madison, where I began attending an Episcopal church, still pretty mad at God and still confused. There I met Clay, who was our choir director. I learned not long after I met him that Clay was married to his partner, John. When I went to their home, I looked through their wedding album. It was oh-so-ordinary. And lovely. I finally thought to myself, "Well, maybe in an ideal world, people wouldn't be gay. But since when was this ever an ideal world?" I was still processing, still questioning, and not quite ready to fully embrace and celebrate "the gay," but no longer willing to judge or reject just because I was taught to.

I found myself wishing with all my heart that Patrick could have been able to enjoy what Clay and John had: a loving, committed, fulfilling relationship. How vastly better than furtive, anonymous, life-threatening sexual encounters followed by weeks of self-loathing and unremitting remorse. I loved being with Clay and John, because I found their love healing and comforting. I let go of the last of my reservations in the shelter of their love for me and for each other.

In 1997 Clay started Perfect Harmony, Madison's gay and gay-friendly men's chorus. I got to sing the part of Dorothy for "Over the Rainbow" in their very first performance. Imagine being the only woman singing with a chorus of 25 men. It was glorious! At many of the Perfect Harmony concerts for several years after that I got to sing either solos or ensembles with the men. It was thrilling. One year I sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and leaned a little extra on the line "Make the Yuletide — gay," to the audience's delight. Clay said to me at one point, "You know, most of the audience probably thinks you're gay." The thought hadn't occurred to me. I paused for a moment, smiled, and said, "Cool! I'm honored." I think you could say that by then my transformation was pretty well complete.

As it happened, Clay also had AIDS, only by that time treatments were much better, so he lived with his disease for ten years (instead of Patrick's ten months) before he died. And John, Clay's husband, was a nurse, so Clay was very well cared for during his illness. I got to visit him the day before he died. "You're going to die too, you know," he said to me. I assured him that I knew. He also told me he'd look up my friend Patrick when he got there, wherever "there" is. I still love the thought of them meeting each other.

The day before he died, it seemed like the veil was already disintegrating for Clay and he could see well beyond it. He faced his death with courage and even joy, ready for whatever came next. His funeral was one of the most beautiful church services I've ever been to. Because he had picked out all the hymns and the readings, his presence was palpable. I felt so close to him. His was a good, courageous death, unsullied by self-loathing and recriminations. It was the perfect counterpoint to all that had distressed me so deeply about Patrick's death.

I'm no longer angry at God. I celebrate both Patrick's life and Clay's. I'm grateful that God made them exactly as they were. Had they not been gay, they would not have been themselves. And who they were is one of the greatest gifts God has given me. I have been enriched beyond measure by knowing and loving them. And I'm so grateful there was more to the story of "the gay" than what I was first taught. I have had the remarkable experience of personal connection, transformation, and love. I wish Senator Portman—and his son—much joy as they navigate the experience of connection and transformation together.

Mary Ray Worley is freelance copy editor and a member of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, Wis., where she leads the music at the noonday Spanish service. She blogs at http://worleydervish.blogspot.com, where this was originally published.

--

Integrity encourages the use of personal narrative like Mary's to gracefully engage those who are struggling with the concept of LGBT inclusion in the church.  We offer workshops across the country to equip individuals and congregations to do this work.

et cum Lazaro-- a young adult reflection on World AIDS Day

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est…[1]
Et cum Lazaro quondam paupere[2]
Come then, my God!
Shine on this blood,
 and water in one beam,
 and thou shalt see,
 kindled by thee
Both liquors burn, and stream.[3]

S.R. Glenn
December 2, 2012

December 1, 2012 marked the twenty-eighth recognition ofWorld AIDS Day, the first global health day. It was also the second World AIDS Day since my diagnosis with the HIV virus onJanuary 10, 2011 in New York City. It is oddly fitting that the week-longtorment of my seroconversion (which, at the time, I mistook for a severe flu)happened to follow on the heels of the observance of World AIDS Day in late2010. It was at such time that I was working on a Master of Arts in Music atQueens College in Flushing, New York. In the midst of my fever, aches, massivefatigue, chills, and loss of appetite, I was required to conduct a concert ofmotets by the twentieth century composer, Maurice Duruflé, for my privatestudy of choral conducting. It was with great resistance and bodily objectionthat I pulled myself out of bed on December 15, 2010, put on my tuxedo, andslowly made my way from my room in Jackson Heights, down 82^nd streetcatch a train to the Queens College campus. I wondered if I would be able tofulfill my duties that evening. Indeed, I could barely lift my arms to put onmy coat; how was I supposed to conduct?

Lengthy narrative aside, I made it to the pre-concert warmup and managed to work with a fine group of singers through Duruflé’sUbi caritas, a motet that would become an aural signifier of myconversion and eventual diagnosis, some three and a half weeks later. I did notrealize at that time that I would soon become part of a three-decade longstory; that I would shortly be joined by blood, as it were, to a kind ofeschatological community of those living and those departed. I did not realizethen that I would soon, like Lazarus, witness a kind of ongoing resurrectionwithin myself. As a member of a Eucharistic community, I knew long before mydiagnosis the power often signified by blood; yet now it would come to signifysomething more, something quite multivalent.

I had never personally lost anyone to HIV/AIDS, for I wouldonly become conscious of that world long after the trials and tribulations ofthe 1980s and 1990s when I began to identify my queer sexuality as a gay man inthe early 2000s. I did, however, have a role model: Lu, my roommate during mylast two years of undergraduate study in Seattle, Washington. Lu was a reminderof the strength that comes through facing tribulation head-on. He was the firstperson I called after learning of my diagnosis, even before I called my immediatefamily members or informed my now-long-term partner oftwo years. Over the phone, Lu simply said, “welcome, brother.” It was almost abaptismal greeting. Lu had been living with the virus since the mid-90s, andcontinues to live with a vibrancy few can hope to imitate. He broke the wallthat separated me from HIV-positive individuals; I could put a face to thecondition, and a courageous one, at that; a face that I loved and continue tolove. He had lived through the riskiness of early treatments, when medicationshad to be administered every four hours in doses I cannot possibly fathom.Knowledge of those times haunts me nightly as I administer my once-daily doseof Atripla.

During the week after my diagnosis, a week for which fewdetails survive the haze, I attended a daily said Eucharist at my thenhome-church, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, where I had recentlystarted living above the diocesan house. It was at that service that the canonfor liturgy and arts gave a sermon concerning matters of epiphany season. Thedetails of his sermon escape me now, almost two years later, but they resonatedwith my struggle to face the virus head-on. I recall thanking the canon as Ileft the service, for I was quite candid with him and revealed the reasons forhis sermon’s resonance within me. What he said to me thereafter has remainedwith me since: he took my hands, smiled, and said, “We live now, forthis is when God comes to us.

”

And so, his words, coupled with Duruflé’ssetting of the Maundy Thursday hymn, Ubi caritas, changed my renderingof the circumstances. Indeed, I have come to learn through my twenty-threemonths with the virus that it is within our woundedness that God comesto us—that we may, in some way, see the face of the wounded yet eternallyrisen Christ. Through our own wounded resurrection, as once did Christresurrect our brother-in-woundedness, Lazarus, we can make manifest the MaundyThursday trope: Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est (Where charity andlove are, God himself is there). Even though the trials of the 80s and 90s arebehind us, the work has, in many ways, just begun; may God grant that we neversuccumb to the atrophy of apathy.

Amen.   

S.R. Glenn is a candidate for the Master of Theological Studies at the Boston University School of Theology and seminarian for the Boston University Episcopal Chaplaincy. 

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[1] MaundyThursday Hymn at the washing of feet.

[2] From the InParadisum of the Requiem Mass.

[3] HenryVaughan, Midnight.

Anglicans 'obsessed' by gay issue

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called on Africa's Anglican church to overcome its "obsession" with the issue of gay priests and same-sex marriages.

By Mike Lanchin
BBC News religious affairs correspondent
May 26, 2007

He said they should spend time on more pressing issues in the region.

Speaking to the BBC World Service, the South African bishop said Zimbabwe, HIV/Aids and the crisis in Darfur were not getting sufficient attention.

Zimbabwe's Anglican church also lacked courage to stand up to President Robert Mugabe's regime, he said.

This was the 76-year-old Nobel peace laureate touching raw nerves for the Anglican church in Africa on very sensitive subjects.

In his usual forthright manner, Archbishop Tutu told the BBC that the Anglican communion was spending too much of its time and energy on debating differences over gay priests and same sex marriages - a subject, he said, that had now become "an extraordinary obsession".

He said: "We've, it seems to me, been fiddling whilst as it were our Rome was burning. At a time when our continent has been groaning under the burden of HIV/Aids, of corruption.

Click here to read the rest.

IGLHRC | Off the Map

Off the Map explores the ways in which HIV/AIDS stakeholders are denying a basic set of human rights to same-sex practicing people in Africa and potentially jeopardizing overall efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic. The report examines the ways in which same-sex desire and behavior have been simultaneously erased and criminalized in Africa and looks at the small, but important body of knowledge regarding same-sex transmission of HIV on the continent. The report shows that same-sex practicing men and women are at increased risk of contracting HIV not solely because of bio-sexual vulnerabilities, but as a result of an interlocking set of human rights violations that prevent access to effective HIV prevention, voluntary counseling and testing, treatment, and care. IGLHRC offers a set of detailed recommendations for African governments, foreign donors, international private voluntary organizations, and domestic AIDS service organizations designed to assist HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation efforts among same-sex practicing people as well as in the broader community.

Click here to read the full report.