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RELIGION: Don’t give coverage to bigotry

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Re: “Justice brings his views of God and law to Tacoma” (TNT, 4-29).

The Pierce County Prayer Breakfast speaker, Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court, brings harsh and judgmental speech against the GLBT community in the U.S. He proudly and loudly condemns gays and same-sex marriage as being rejected by God and being against biblical teachings.

In his autobiography, Moore proudly speaks of the lessons his father taught him which included lessons “about honesty, integrity, perversion, and never to be ashamed of who you are or what you believe in, unless you are homosexual.”

I wonder, would the sponsors of this prayer breakfast have invited Moore if he said the same things about African Americans or about inter-racial marriage?

It is my hope that the government leaders of Tacoma and Pierce County will publicly reject this messenger of hate and bigotry by either not attending or, if attending, by taking a moment of personal privilege to make it clear that this message is not one they agree with.

As the director of an AIDS service organization and one who has worked in the field of HIV/AIDS care and prevention for nearly 30 years now, I know firsthand the damaging effects that homophobia has played in the HIV epidemic in this country. In 2014 people living with HIV are still afraid to be seen coming to the “AIDS building” because of this stigma.

We do not need to give front-page attention to such narrow religious beliefs.

(Wilkerson is director of the Pierce County AIDS Foundation.)


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