On Thursday, November 25th, a post appeared on my Facebook timeline that read, “The U.S. Government will not be commemorating World AIDS Day this year.” As is my practice to never overreact to what I see on social media, I immediately began to scour the internet for published guidance directly from the government and found nothing. I assumed that since the post originated from a well-known AIDS activist, he probably received the information earlier than the general public. While I await the official guidance to become public, I figured it was the perfect time to draft my annual World AIDS Day reflection.

On Wednesday, November 24th, it was announced that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, was dissolved. As World AIDS Day approaches, it’s impossible not to consider its impact on the world of AIDS. Of the many irresponsible cuts exacted by DOGE, the halting of PEPFAR has been the most destructive. From February to July, experts report more than 330,000 deaths worldwide due to AIDS-related illness. In essence, the richest man in the world is responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. For what?

The answer to this question is deeply complicated—and also not very complicated at all. Since the mid-1980s, the reality of AIDS has shocked the conscience of the Western world, forcing us to consider what happens in bedrooms and bathhouses, drug houses and jailhouses, and in the far reaches of poverty-stricken places we’d rather not think about. I remember being ten years old and being deathly afraid of a disease that seemed so very near to my future Black queer reality, as relatives whispered about how “faggots die of AIDS” and “AIDS is God’s punishment.”

Fast forward to age 51: I am surrounded by a world of AIDS. But instead of being a cursed world or a God-forsaken world, it’s a beautiful world of resilience and access and art and care. A world of survival forged by movements of warriors, both dead and alive, who refused to be silent. A world where antiretrovirals exist in abundance and preventative medicines are commonplace. A world where the HIV-positive are unashamed and the HIV-negative are unafraid. A world where we are on the precipice of being free of AIDS—both its shame and its existence.

On this (No) World AIDS Day, may we not be silent as we approach a year of 1 million AIDS-related deaths.

May we redirect our shame to those in power, eager to return us to days of old, when medication did not exist, and those diagnosed had no hope.

May we lift up our voices on behalf of the Black and the poor in the far reaches of the world and demand abundant access to the medications that are freely available in the Western world.

May we celebrate (No) World AIDS Day not by following an immoral decree, but by refusing to be silent and demanding a world where treatment and hope are accessible to all.

Ashe

A Brief History of HIV and AIDS Work in the UUA

The Unitarian Universalist response to the HIV and AIDS crisis began long before 1989, shaped by congregations and ministers who were already providing pastoral care, memorial services, and mutual aid within queer communities that were losing people every week. While many denominations debated whether compassion was even appropriate, Unitarian Universalists were stepping into hospital rooms when families refused, blessing the ashes of those whose names the world would not say, and organizing local ministries of presence, education, and advocacy.

In 1989, at a time when much of the religious world was silent or hostile, the UUA became one of the earliest mainstream denominations to pass a full denominational statement on HIV and AIDS. The General Resolution on the AIDS and HIV Crisis was a landmark declaration of moral clarity, scientific honesty, and unconditional human worth. It spoke against stigma, against the misuse of religion to justify cruelty, and against the political negligence that was costing lives.

After 1989, the UUA continued to deepen its response. Congregations created HIV ministries, partnered with local AIDS service organizations, offered prevention education, supported grieving families, and became early sites for needle exchange advocacy. Many UU ministers became known in their communities as trustworthy clergy for people living with AIDS. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the UUA supported international AIDS justice work, expanded congregational education on safer sex and LGBTQ liberation, and radically affirmed the dignity of people who use drugs at a time when few faith communities dared. These commitments laid the groundwork for Transgender Day of Remembrance services, LGBTQ ministry programs, and the ongoing call to center the lives and leadership of those most affected by systems of neglect.

Today, on World AIDS Day 2025, the words of the 1989 resolution still speak with a clear moral voice. They remind us who we were called to be then and who we must continue to be now. These lines remain especially powerful:

“We reject the notion of disease as divine punishment or natural retribution for moral failure.”

“AIDS and HIV infection present a human crisis of global proportions that threatens the lives of millions of people irrespective of sex, age, race, or sexual orientation.”

“We call upon our congregations to work with compassion, energy, and imagination to care for HIV-infected adults and children.”

“We oppose discrimination against people living with AIDS or HIV infection, their domestic partners, their families, and associates.”

“We acknowledge the humanity of I.V. drug users and call for public policy that reduces the threat of HIV infection among this population.”

“People living with AIDS and HIV infection, their families, partners, and medical personnel have the right to die with dignity.”

These commitments still matter. They remind us that our faith tradition has a long record of choosing compassion over fear, honesty over silence, and human dignity over stigma. On this World AIDS Day, we honor the memory of those we lost, the courage of those who survived, the caregivers who held communities together, and the ongoing struggle for treatment access, prevention justice, and the full humanity of every person living with HIV.

May these words call us again to the work of love made visible.

Link to original statement https://www.uua.org/action/statements/aidshiv-crisis

Book Review: AIDS in the Heartland: How Unlikely Coalitions Created a Blueprint for LGBTQ Politics 

Katie Batza’s AIDS in the Heartland: How Unlikely Coalitions Created a Blueprint for LGBTQ Politics uncovers a part of HIV and AIDS history that many people have never learned. Instead of focusing on the well-documented responses in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, Batza turns our attention to the Midwest. She examines how communities in Kansas and St. Louis confronted the early years of the epidemic in settings shaped by conservatism, religion, and limited resources.

Through archival research and oral histories, Batza shows that the fight against AIDS in the heartland was built through surprising partnerships. Gay and lesbian activists, public health workers, local politicians, social service providers, and people of faith often found themselves working together. These coalitions were not always easy or harmonious. Yet they created patterns of organizing and care that would influence LGBTQ politics long after the crisis.

One of the book’s most interesting findings is that in many Midwestern communities, religious organizations became essential sites of support for those living with HIV and AIDS, even in denominations that rejected people because they were gay or lesbian. Many people interviewed remembered churches, temples, and clergy as some of the only groups willing to stand with those living with HIV. This history challenges the common story that religion and LGBTQ survival have always been in conflict. Instead, Batza reveals a more complex, more human truth.

Why should congregations study this book?

For Unitarian Universalist congregations, this book offers several invitations:

• It helps us understand that the AIDS crisis was never only an urban story. People in rural and suburban communities also needed care, justice, compassion, and visibility. This reflects the modern truth as we continue to fight for dignity and compassion for transgender, nonbinary, intersex, and two-spirit folks.
• It provides a model for how coalitions can grow across differences. This is valuable for congregations seeking to deepen their commitments to LGBTQ inclusion, multicultural ministry, and community partnership.
• It reveals the important role that faith communities played during a time of fear, stigma, and misinformation. Studying this history helps congregations reflect on their own capacity to respond with courage today in spite of their fears.
• It encourages us to remember the people who lived, organized, and loved in places that were often forgotten. That act of remembering is part of the spiritual work of justice.
• It connects directly to the commitments named in the UUA’s 1989 General Resolution on AIDS and HIV, and subsequent statements, which called our communities to reject stigma and affirm the worth and dignity of every person.

AIDS in the Heartland allows congregations to learn from stories that were nearly erased. It invites us to build communities rooted in compassion, truth-telling, and shared responsibility. It also strengthens our understanding of how care and justice take shape when people choose to stand together.

Music Carried Us, and Michael Callen Carried So Many of Us

A Brief Biography for World AIDS Day

Music carried people through the AIDS pandemic long before there were treatments, protections, or public compassion. Songs held grief as communities lost friends every week. They had joy when joy itself felt like resistance. They helped chosen families rise to care for one another when the wider world turned away. For many who survived those years, music is a living archive of courage. It remembers the hands that held each other in hospital rooms and the voices that rose in vigils to say that every life mattered.

Among the singer/songwriters who shaped that era, Michael Callen stands as one of the most important, although his name is often less known than it should be when the history of HIV and AIDS in this nation is discussed. Michael Callen was not a Unitarian Universalist, yet his life and work speak directly to the values that guide our faith. His commitment to dignity, truth-telling, and the humanity of all people reflects the core of what Unitarian Universalists strive to practice.

Michael Callen was diagnosed with HIV in 1982, one of the earliest years of the epidemic, when there was no name for the virus and no path forward except the one people created for themselves. He became one of the first long-term survivors and one of the clearest moral voices for the dignity of people living with AIDS. His life in the first decade of the epidemic helped define the movement that would follow.

Callen co-authored How to Have Sex in an Epidemic with Richard Berkowitz in 1983. It was the first guide to safer sex written by gay men for gay men after the pandemic began. Much of what we understand now as safer sex practices began with the community-based wisdom of that booklet. At a time when the government ignored the crisis and the medical establishment was still learning how HIV worked, Callen insisted that pleasure, responsibility, and care belonged together and were something gay communities could manage educating about on their own. His work saved lives.

He helped found the People With AIDS Coalition and was one of the authors of the Denver Principles, a declaration that people with AIDS should be at the center of their own care and advocacy. These principles, named autonomy, self-determination, and respect, as non-negotiable values. They changed how AIDS organizations, clinics, and support systems functioned across the country.

Callen traveled widely, speaking, singing, organizing, and teaching. His testimony before the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic in 1988 was a watershed moment. He spoke with clarity about stigma, the failures of public leadership, and the humanity of people living with AIDS. Many credit his testimony with shifting public attitudes and forcing the commission to reckon with the lived reality of the epidemic.

Through all of this, Michael Callen never stopped making music. His song “Love Don’t Need a Reason” became a hymn of the AIDS years. It was sung at memorials, marches, and bedside vigils. It told a simple truth. Love is still possible. Love is still holy. Love is still ours. When so much of the world tried to describe queer bodies as dangerous or shameful, Callen insisted that our capacity for love was a gift that no virus could erase.

Michael Callen died of AIDS related complications in 1993 at the age of thirty-eight. His legacy lives in the movement for HIV justice, in the safer sex practices that continue to save lives, in the Denver Principles that still guide the rights of people living with HIV, and in the music that held so many people together when almost everything else was falling apart.

As trans, intersex, and nonbinary people continue to fight for their own dignity and rights, Michael Callen stands as a role model. His life reminds us that courage in the face of stigma is a sacred act, that truth-telling can shape a movement, and that every person has the right to love and be loved without fear.

To remember Michael Callen is to honor a generation of people who shaped their own survival. It is important to remember that compassion, justice, truthful love, and human dignity remain our call.

WATCH: Michael Callen “Love Don’t Need a Reason”