When the HIV/AIDS epidemic first started in the 1980s, conservative evangelical church leaders were quick to label it as the divine punishment of God on the LGBTQIA+ community, although the virus made no such distinctions in who it infected. That sentiment has largely fallen out of favor. Trying to resurrect it in 2014 briefly sunk “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson’s career. According to data compiled by the Public Religion Research Institute that same year, support for the belief in white evangelicals fell from 51 percent in 1992 to 24 percent in 2013. With Black evangelicals, it dropped even sharper, from 50 percent to 21 percent.
Even so, HIV/AIDS remains deeply stigmatized in religious circles, especially as an anti-LGBTQIA+ backlash gains political steam in Texas and across the South, backed by evangelical pulpits. A small movement of pastors and community leaders are trying their best to shake the legacy of bigotry and welcome people with HIV/AIDS back to Christianity.
Reverend Dr. Sande Bailey-Gwinn is a Georgia pastor, the founder of Foundations for Living, and the maker of a new documentary, “Disrupting Stigma with Disrupting Faith,” which focuses on efforts in Black evangelical churches to embrace congregants that they may have previously denounced as sinful. The short, 27-minute documentary will screen in Houston for the first time at the free HIV and Faith community event at Visionz Venue & Studio in Sugar Land on Saturday at a red carpet gala, complete with food and a live DJ. A worship service will be held at Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church (2025 W 11th) the next day…