Back to the Basics

It's been over 28 years since the first AIDS cases hit America. HIV infections in this country continue to rise. Nationwide, black men and women represent the greatest rate of increase in new infections, yet here in Austin, Texas that is currently held by young gay men 24 years old and younger.

With Texas being a deep red state, and our Governor, George W. Bush II (oops, that's Rick Perry), standing firm on so-called "Christian" values by not allowing proper sex education to be taught to the children of this state, things can only get worse.

Me and a few others have been tossing around an idea of late. We are planning to start an Austin area HIV Speakers Bureau. It will be comprised of men and women living openly with HIV/AIDS who want to put faces on this disease. By being honest about our status, we hope to educate, raise awareness, encourage safer sex, put out a message of prevention while also standing up to the stigma which has surrounded this illness from the beginning.

We already have a heterosexual man who was infected through a cut in his hand while rescuing an HIV-positive woman from a car accident. Soon we will start recruiting a diverse group of people to join us.

In advance of our actually going forward, a preliminary website has been built. Feel free to visit and bookmark it, especially if you are in the Austin, Texas area. We hope to have a good group of speakers who can talk at public schools, colleges & universities, businesses, community events and more.

http://austin-hiv-speakers.us/

About Bobby Griffith

If you haven't heard of Bobby Griffith, or his mother Mary, then you should. Bobby was a young man of twenty who ended his life August 27, 1983. That's four days after my 18th birthday. Bobby had spent the previous four years trying desperately to get his by-the-Book mother, Mary, to accept him for who he was - a gay man.

Mary tried just as desperately to get Bobby to pray to God to cure him of this sin. Bobby tries to please his mother, but the constant barrage of being told that he's going to Hell becomes too much for him to bear.

Lifetime Television recently released their film, based on the book Prayers for Bobby. The book includes excerpts from the diary Bobby kept, writing about his feelings about being gay and how it hurt him to know his mother couldn't accept him. It stars Sigourney Weaver as Mary Griffith in a performance that proves that Siggy's still got it. I hope she gets nominated at least for an Emmy for this role.

You can order the book from Amazon, or purchase the digital movie from Apple's iTunes store.






Share this with family and friends who need to understand that being gay is not a sin or a sickness. It's who we are. In the words of Mary Griffith, "Before you echo Amen in your home or place of worship, think and remember. A child is listening."