Pat Robertson Does It Again

Good old Pat Robertson is once again suffering from Christian foot in mouth disease. The guy who in the 1980's declared that AIDS was a punishment from God for homosexuality, and more recently observed that Hurricaine Katrina was God's vengence on a decadent American society which tolorated divorce, adultery and homosexuality has done it again.

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the 80 year old Robertson commented on his Christian Broadcasting Network, that the quake was the result of a" pact with the devil" made by the Haitian people two hundred years ago in order to throw off the yoke of colonialism.

Not only does he have his facts and his history a bit skewed, he is once again presuming to know the will of the Almighty. It is true that a slave rebellion which began in 1793 ended in 1804 with the establishment of Haiti as the first republic in the world ruled by former slaves of African descent. As for the " pact with the devil", I suspect this is a rather fanciful reference to a voodoo ceremony said to have been performed at the start of the revolt asking God( not the devil) to assist in driving out the French.

It absolutely stuns me that Pat Robertson, who claims to be a Christian, can possibly cheapen the impact of this natural disaster by saying, as he did, that the earthquake just might be " a blessing in disguise." He seems to see it as a kind of divine slum clearance plan.

Can you believe that Pat Robertson once wanted to be President of the United States? What a relief that God had the good sense to keep him out of the White House.

Today is World AIDS Day and I'm Thinking of Brian

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day, as it has been since 1988.  Some things have changed since AIDS arrived in America in the early 1980's but unfortunately much has not. There is still no vaccine and there is also much less publicity and awareness than 20 years ago.

Here in the USA the urgency is gone. AIDS is no longer sexy( to coin a phrase). It seen as just another chronic disease, not a  death sentence. H1N1 gets a lot more media coverage.  HIV/AIDS is viewed as a disease of the disadvantaged and morally depraved and for most middle class Americans has been put into the " it could never happen to me" category-- even though millions of Americans are living with AIDS and according to the CDC as many as 50,000 new cases are diagnosed every year.

On this World AIDS day I would like to share the story of my friend, Brian.  Brian was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987 and died in September of 2003. I watched the course of his disease and how at the same time that it ravaged his body, it seemed to enlarge his soul. He was a man who had suffered much: childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, and discrimination because he was gay.  I was privileged to know him for almost two decades and to call him my friend..

Please click on this link and read an inspiring article about Brian written soon after his death..  It puts a personal  face on a terrible disease and I hope gives honor to a dear friend whom I miss greatly. That seems a fitting way for me to mark World AIDS Day 2009.