Religion & AIDS in Africa

Although many religious believers see one of the purposes of religion as comforting the sick and afflicted, when it comes to AIDS religion isn't accomplishing that goal. Christianity in particular not only isn't comforting people, but in Africa it seems to be helping the disease spread faster and farther.

Michael Weems writes in The New York Blade:

AIDS complications can cause bodily illness and death at the biological level. The diagnosis of AIDS in Cameroon is, however, worse. For too many people, it is an indictment against them that causes death at the social level: ostracism, excommunication, violence and complete erasure of familial and communal support. You cease to exist as a person.

Under such conditions, honestly addressing the issues becomes almost impossible.

We should not assume that the stigma against AIDS can be separated from the stigma against homosexuality. In Africa as well as America, homosexuality is viewed as contagious. Like HIV, homosexuality is seen as a “white man’s disease.” While we in this country may assume that HIV infection is a heterosexual phenomenon in Africa, people in Africa don’t make the same assumption.

The notion that a man with AIDS can be cured by raping a virgin is a clear statement that affirming one’s heterosexuality reverses the course of the disease. The lukewarm stance of fundamentalist religious communities concerning “therapeutic rape” while screaming hysterically about the evils of gay men (and lesbians) is dangerous not only on the local level but also harmful to national security and regional stability in Africa.

The deafening silence around homosexuality and AIDS is fostered by Christian and Muslim fanatics who insist, in a world of over 6 billion people, sex should be used only for procreation. When such a belief becomes dogma, it is easy to see how heterosexual rape is preferable to homosexual love, and why misinformation about condoms is permissible.

The complicity of religious leaders in the suffering of gays and AIDS victims is just horrible — history will judge those leaders very harshly, I think, and with more than just a little justification. Is there anything religious leaders in America can do in order to rectify things? I have my doubts...

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