Say SEX in church!

It goes like this:

Step 1: Visit the main page for the national AIDS organization of a major US mainline denomination.

Step 2: Search 'safer sex', since you're looking for potential funding for your congregation's new safer sex kits.

Step 3: Be puzzled that not a single hit came up in the search. (3a: forge onward.)

Step 4: On a sneaking hunch, search 'sex.'

Sorry, no results where found for this search term: "sex"

Step 5: Whap head on desk. (Repeat this step several times.)

Come on, friends. Get it together. And it's not that this makes this particular coalition a bad one or that is lessens their desire to truly achieve a reality of no new diagnoses within this generation. And shoot, I may have been misunderstanding the search function on their website. But the fact remains that it is unacceptable for a major national denomination to run a HIV coalition and not talk about sex!

So you valiant (few) who read this, your charge is this: next time you're in church or any other setting in which we may be hesitant to speak fully about what fighting HIV means, do something that sets that stage. You do not have to talk about your own life or the sex that you are or are not having. (In fact, if you're the pastor or a Sunday school teacher that would probably be supremely inappropriate! Avoid being inappropriate.) These can be words of resurrection, but we have to say them first.

And meanwhile, if you find an organization that wants to fund a couple thousand condoms and lube packets for my church, please do let me know. (The church ladies are ready and waiting to set up the safer sex kit assembly line.)