20^th Annual Candlelight Vigil Friday, 24 June 2005

Sheridan Square, Manhattan

Rev. Pat Bumgardner, speaking

As we gather tonight. . . over 20 years into a worldwide pandemic that has claimed more lives than the holocaust and any world war. . . and devastated/broken more hearts than any single experience in history. . . as we gather over 20 years in to the fight against AIDS – 40 millions people in this world have HIV or AIDS – 2 ½  million of those people are children under the age of 15.

64% of those people live in a part of the world that is home to only 10% of the global population (Sub-Saharan Africa). 

The fastest-growing epidemic is among young people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Almost half of all cases are children.

The powerlessness of children/their social and cultural and religious inequality are part of the cause here.  Women are regularly sold into sex slavery in India.  Married women in Thailand are a high-risk group because of the infidelity of their husbands, but they dare not speak up for their own safety and protection.  Nuns in Somalia tell people condoms carry AIDS and the Religious Right around the globe spreads not only the lie that abstinence is our only salvation, but that “raping a virgin” as a means toward a cure, is seeking “therapy” or “treatment.” 

India is the largest manufacturer of generic AIDS drugs, but almost none of the five (5) million people with AIDS there get those drugs. . . The economy mandates their export.

New York City continues to lead this nation in cumulative AIDS cases – with three (3) people continuing to die needlessly here every single day – and a child being infected something like every ten (10) minutes – and a legislature that still opposes needle exchange programs,  when intravenous drug addiction is a leading cause of new infections – or condoms in prisons, where the infection rate outpaces that on the outside.

And I say all of this to underscore the fact that the fight against AIDS remains “a battle for LGBT rights, NO MORE, NO LESS.”

AIDS will go down in history as the single greatest influence in our lifetimes:  religiously, politically, sexually.  It put a face on our often unarticulated policies of blaming victims, silencing minorities, isolating the unwanted, shaming the sick and impoverished, and assigning the marginalized to the street and then sweeping them away.

Every year we gather in this place to remember those we’ve loved and lost. . .the Jaime Riveras & Ron Arsenaults. . . the Ken Richers. . . the sons and brothers and lovers. . . the family and friends. . . the co-workers and parents and children  who have died . . . the over 20 million people in the world who have died – over ½  million known in THIS nation.

And it is right to remember them – to lift up their names – to make some effort at comforting the surviving/healing our wounded hearts.

But in the tradition I come from. . .our wounds are not the mark of our weakness, but the sign of our calling.  We are “wounded healers,” and as such, we must not allow our grief, over the years, to turn either to despair or apathy.  Too many lives still hang in the balance. . . too many government promises of funding and helping sill remain unfulfilled.

41% of the People With AIDS in the U.S. live in a part of the country where it is JUST as likely there will BE no clinic to treat them as that there will be; just as likely that we will be on an ADAP WAITING list as that we will GET the $15,000 plus-per-year regimen we need to survive.

Money is still the “great physician” in this nation and largely determines who lives and who dies.  Over 47 million people in this country do not have healthcare benefits.  If you’re a black man in New York City, you have just about as good a chance of getting a job that will provide those benefits as if you are a white ex-offender, which means your chances are slim.  There is a higher percentage of black men in prison than in schools.

They are vilified under the auspices of the “down low” – but what is low down is that more people have HIV today than yesterday and that AIDS remains a disease defined more by wealth and social status than anything else.

What is low down is that we will spend far more on a war killing people for oil than we will even commit (note: we’ve yet to honor our commitments). . . than we will ever commit to spending on AIDS.

What is low down is that one person somewhere is still infected every 12 minutes. . . and we could stop that at least if we would lay aside our moralizing.  You know, I know we’re not all Christians, but Jesus never once asked anyone HOW they got sick – the only thing he did was restore people to their rightful, dignified, valued places in society.

Condom use is NOT a moral issue . .  letting people die when we could save their lives IS a moral issue.  Talking to children about safer sexual practices is NOT a moral issue – allowing over ½ million in this country alone to be claimed by a disease like AIDS, is.

THE ONLY question any of us will ever be asked, the Bible I read says, when at last we shall stand before our Maker’s throne is:  “What did you do. . . when someone was in need?” . . . NOT “Who did you sleep with? . . How did you make love?  Not even “Were you faithful?” or “Did you use drugs?”. . . but only “What did you do, when someone needed help?”

All over the world, people. . . human beings, need help in preventing the spread of AIDS, in accessing healthcare and medications, in acquiring housing and jobs and benefits.  And so I’m praying tonight that you and I will answer the cry of the living as the best way to honor the dignity and value and worth of those we’ve loved and lost – the best way to say that all life is holy and good, and deserves the best this world has to offer.

That, to me, is what the battle for equality is really all about. 

Amen. . . .