A US decision to freeze spending on treatment for HIV in several African countries has prompted concern that some of the gains made against the AIDS epidemic since 2003 could be reversed.

President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched in 2003, focused largely on treating patients in urgent need of medicine, but the new US administration?s programme has shifted away from emergency treatment.

“George W. Bush is a hero in this country,” said Peter Mugyenyi, who heads Uganda’s Joint Clinical Research Centre, a leading AIDS treatment clinic.

Uganda received 929 million dollars (678 million euros) from PEPFAR between 2003-2008 and used much of those funds to provide some 150,000 people with Antiretroviral therapy.

But the US switch in emphasis means that clinics are now being forced to turn new patients away.

“We had drugs under PEPFAR. We didn’t have to turn patients away,” he told AFP.

Mugyenyi accuses the United States of breaking its promise to Uganda. “They have changed their programme very regrettably,” he said.

“The number one thing is availability of treatment. Any other programme, whatever name they call it, will fail.”

Douglas Mugabi, a thin, softly spoken farmer who lives just outside Kampala, told AFP that he and his wife tested positive in 2003, and, when his health deteriorated in 2006, he began receiving free drugs.

Last year, his wife’s condition also worsened.

“When I came in and we found out there was no longer a free programme I became cold,” the 48-year-old said. “My wife is worried because the drugs are expensive, but according to our means, we couldn?t support a life-long treatment.”

Episcopalians attending General Convention linked arms with hotel workers July 14 to march to the gates of Disneyland to demand economic justice for 2,300 Disney employees protesting a planned hike in the cost of their health insurance.

“It seems to me, as our church has moved toward a position of justice for all its members, particularly in the area of health care, this is the perfect opportunity for the church to witness to the world about its convictions regarding economic justice,” said the Rev. Lisa Hackney, from the Diocese of Ohio.

Several hundred people gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center to hear a prayer by Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles, before joining more than 1,000 others already on the march to Disneyland.

“I cannot think of any reason more than the Gospel proclamation of ‘do justice’ and ‘do God’s work.’ This is where I need to be,” said the Rev. Yamily Bass-Choate, a deputy from the diocese of New York.

Lynn Tyler, a deputy from the Diocese of New Hampshire, was marching to support Disney workers, 75 percent of whom, she said, are women. “And of those women, many are single parents. They’re pretty much living on the edge as it is.”

A letter in support of Disney workers signed by 13 Episcopal bishops said they were taking seriously “our call to stand with the poor and those who are suffering from injustice.” The protest included Episcopal bishops Greg Rickel (Olympia), Gene Robinson (New Hampshire) and Barbara Harris (retired of Massachusetts). 

“We’re now marching with these people who are working for Disney for their rights, their privileges that they deserve as human beings,” said Bishop Bruno. “We ask you to let us turn the eyes of Disney toward justice and mercy; toward benefits, and the things necessary for people to live a just and abundant life.” 

The following has got to be all kinds of embarrassing

They worked for years cleaning and maintaining the Episcopal Church Center in midtown Manhattan. But after they were fired on Dec. 30, nine hard-working people are in desperate need of divine intervention.“We came to work on Dec. 30 as every day, hoping to leave a little earlier to celebrate the new year,” said Bronx native Héctor Miranda, a father of three. “But when we got to the building we were told that we no longer worked there. Just like that. They picked the date well to fire us.”

The workers lost their jobs - which paid standard wages and benefits - when the church canceled the contract with Paris Maintenance, a union cleaning contractor, and replaced it With the nonunion Benjamin Enterprises.

The workers belong to SEIU Local 32BJ, which is helping them organize demonstrations outside the church to protest what the union calls “the unlawful termination” of the porters - and to demand that they be offered jobs by the new contractor.

An church spokesperson angrily denied that the workers had been fired.  “They weren’t fired!” said a heated Bishop E. C. Bottle.  “Bishop Schori determined that they had abandoned communion with the Episcopal Church.  So obviously the Presiding Bishop had no canonical choice.”

I SO want to see these hypocritical posers get picketed.  Props to Greg Griffith.

Harry Knox serves on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He is also the director of a religion and faith program for the Human Rights Campaign. In 2009, he made a statement that Pope Benedict XVI is “hurting people in the name of Jesus.” Now two Catholic, Republican Congressmen (Rep. Thaddeus McCotter and Minority Leader John Boehner) are calling on President Obama to fire Knox in light of more recent comments affirming his earlier position.

Knox’s original comment cam in response to a question about the Pope’s statement in early 2009 in which he said that condoms are contributing to the problems of HIV in Africa. In an interview with CNS News this week, Knox was asked if he still stands by his earlier statement. Knox replied, “I do” adding that he believes the Pope is “incorrect” and that all scientific evidence proves this. In a statement by the Human Rights Campaign, Knox was quoted as saying it is “morally reprehensible” for the Pope to reject science and force Catholics to “choose between their health and their faith.” Harvard AIDS researcher, Edward Green, supported the Pope’s statements saying, “We just cannot find an association between more condom use and lower HIV-reduction rates” in Africa. The debate about Knox and his statements made the national talk show lineup with a story about it on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

What Kathy Shaidle likes to refer to as the George Soros Steno Pool called out RedState’s Erick Erickson for stating that Knox said something he didn’t say.

Contrary to Erickson’s characterization, Knox did not say that he “hates the Pope.”

Yes and no, GSSP.  Knoxie didn’t say those exact words but he did imply them.  I mean, who doesn’t publicly slander their best friends every chance they get?

Lost in all this, of course, are the Pope’s actual views.

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.

“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Those of us who were paying attention in health class back in the day figured out something fairly early on.  Sexual intercourse is a whole lot more than pouring a really good bourbon, lighting up a spliff or any other way you have of attaining Nirvana for a few moments.

For my part, I learned that if I stick a part of my body inside the body of a female person, three things can happen, only one of which is positive.  She and I could feel REALLY good for a few moments.  She could get pregnant, making me the agent of the ruin of both of our lives.  Or I could catch whatever sexually-transmitted disease she has, up to and including AIDS.

So I’ve got a decision to make.  Do I take the risk?

What about condoms?  They lower the risk some but they don’t eliminate it.  After all, they do break now and then.

What about rapists, Johnson?!!  What if some rapist gives a woman AIDS, you heartless bastard?!!  That would be a terrible tragedy.  It would also be something a condom couldn’t stop since rapists don’t use them.

You want to take the risk?  Fine, it’s your right.  But if you get AIDS, it’s on you. 

Benedict is right.  The only way to protect yourself against AIDS is to, well, not have sexual intercourse until you fall in love with a man or woman who thinks the same way that you do.

After an 18 month saga of temporary inhibitions and presentment by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York and Bishop Gladstone “Skip” Adams, III of Syracuse charging a parish priest with financial misconduct at his former parish, the priest was exonerated today when the Episcopal Church ecclesiastical court dismissed all of the charges. That priest now has restored to him by canon law the right to celebrate the Eucharist and perform the other functions of a clergyman which were taken away from him by the bishop a year and a half ago.

Fr. David Bollinger defended the proceeding which resulted in the church court refusing to allow any evidence to be introduced against the priest or any witnesses to testify against him. The judge cited numerous procedural problems with the case brought by the bishop and the diocese against Fr. Bollinger. Carter Strickland, the judge in the ecclesiastical court, had previously directed the prosecutor, church attorney James Sparks, to give Fr. Bollinger copies of the evidence against him, but the diocese refused to release it to the priest. One of the pieces of evidence was the so-called Schafer Report. That was a report commissioned by the diocese and prepared by a previous judge of the ecclesiastical court. That report was believed to have contained evidence to the effect that Fr.Bollinger was not guilty of misconduct.

The bishop brought the charges against Fr. Bollinger after Bollinger publicly challenged the bishop. Fr. Bollinger had claimed that the bishop was covering up an alleged sex abuse of young boys by a retired priest at Bollinger’s Owego, New York parish. That retired priest, Fr. Ralph Johnson, renounced his orders as an Episcopal priest when later confronted by the allegations of the sexual abuse, but the bishop kept moving forward with the case against Fr. Bollinger despite that development.

And then there’s this from a few days ago:

A former rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Owego has been arrested by Pennsylvania State Police after he was accused of having oral sex with a boy.

Ralph E. Johnson, 82, was arraigned in Clifford, Pa., on 15 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a felony; 15 counts of indecent assault, a misdemeanor; and 15 counts of corruption of minors, a misdemeanor, according to a police report.

The incidents, representing about 15 encounters between the suspect and the alleged victim, happened at Johnson’s home in Gibson Township, Susquehanna County, between 1992 and 1995, according to a police report released Friday.

The Rev. David G. Bollinger, rector of the church from 1985 to 2005, said he alerted diocesan officials in Syracuse after receiving complaints of Johnson’s alleged misconduct, but Bishop Gladstone B. Adams rebuffed him.

“He basically told me this would no longer be discussed,” Bollinger said Friday.

Well, that’s got to be embarrassing, Gladstone “Skip.”  Covering for a perv and harassing the guy who did the right thing.  If I were you, I’d do some major-league repenting right about now because I’m guessing that the Judge is not going to like that one at all.

And you know the Judge I mean.

Report from the annual Mississippi Diocesan Council meeting in Tupelo is that materials from the Stand Firm table in the exhibit hall were stolen, and diocesan LGBT committee cards left in their place.

This comes after some very contentious correspondence sent from supporters and members of the committee to the priests who have sponsored a resolution seeking to bring the committee’s funding under the review of diocesan council, and to compel the committee to offer pastoral responses to those who experience same-sex attraction but don’t wish to embrace the lifestyle.