WASHINGTON — A star-studded array of political and religious leaders — from President Obama to rock legend Bono to AIDS activist Kay Warren — came together Thursday (Dec. 1) for World AIDS Day to call for an entirely AIDS-free generation by 2015.

The speakers at the event, called “The Beginning of the End of AIDS,” said that the science and medicine needed to eliminate AIDS already exists; all that is needed is for governments and individuals to fully commit themselves to that goal.

“Make no mistake, we are going to win this fight,” Obama said to the crowd at The George Washington University.

The event was sponsored by ONE and (RED), two anti-AIDS organizations co- founded by U2 frontman Bono.

The activist rock star said he started the organizations after seeing how people in Africa, simply because of where they lived, could not get the AIDS treatment they needed.

“To me, I felt it was a justice issue, and it challenged the very idea of equality and civilization,” Bono said.

Warren, wife of California megachurch pastor Rick Warren, called on religious congregations to do more in the fight against AIDS.

“Every church can care and support. Every church can help with HIV testing. … Every church can unleash volunteers to serve,” she said.

Warren founded the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church, one of the first programs of its kind at an evangelical church. In the last seven years, she said, it has become a model for other churches to follow.

“It’s not even like this is an add-on, or it’s nice, or it’s something that people can just do if they have time — this is the mission of the church. That’s why we don’t turn it over to anybody else,” Warren said.

Also present was Dan Haseltine, lead singer of the Christian rock band Jars of Clay, who founded Blood:Water Mission, a campaign to fight the AIDS and clean water crises in Africa.

Haseltine acknowledged that churches have not always been at the forefront of AIDS activism, noting a 2002 poll that showed only 3 percent of the evangelical community was willing to donate money to support children orphaned by AIDS.

Nevertheless, he thinks evangelicals are warming up to the idea of helping people with AIDS.

“At an event like this, the fact that the faith community has even been invited shows that they’re becoming a very formidable part of the process of real change,” Haseltine said.

Lutheran churches in Indonesia have approved several steps to revitalize their commitment to fight the AIDS epidemic.

Two conferences on HIV/AIDS called “Embracing Life: Our Common Responsibility” were organized by LWF (Lutheran World Federation) Indonesia from 6-10 November. Sixty youth delegates and church leaders attended.

Among the steps they announced: setting up HIV/AIDS desks in each of Indonesia’s 12 Lutheran churches, including HIV/AIDS in the curriculum of theological colleges, confirmation classes and even Sunday schools and raising funds in congregations to support HIV campaigns and those infected with the virus.

Bishop Langsung Maruli Sitorus had urged youth at the conference “to break the roof of prejudice and stigma in the church to bring solace to the HIV infected.”

Youth delegates also suggested concrete steps like launching a youth communication network, youth forum to spread awareness on HIV/AIDS, collecting funds and even taking up preventive treatment and care for stigmatized HIV-infected people.

“I was scared about it (HIV/AIDS). Now I have the courage to embrace an HIV-infected person. Everybody in the church should be made aware of the stigma HIV carries,” Hesron Hanshen Sihombing, a theology student, told ENInews.

The Rev. Veikko Munyika, coordinator for the HIV and AIDS desk of the LWF, told ENInews that “it is extremely encouraging that the plan of action is specific and practical, challenging theological seminaries, church groups such as Sunday school boards, confirmation class committees, youth and adult leaders.” Munyika is a pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia.

Prior to the conference, only one of the 12 Lutheran churches in Indonesia had adopted an HIV/AIDS policy. According to a UNAIDS report in 2010, the HIV epidemic in Indonesia was among the fastest growing in Asia and that the figures could climb from 330,000 in 2009 to 500,000 by 2014 without increased prevention.

A court in Zimbabwe set free on bail recently four American medics who had been arrested for allegedly running an unlicensed clinic and operating without the correct medical licenses.

The judge ruled that six health workers, including one from New Zealand and the other from Zimbabwe, must pay $200 bail, surrender their passports, and return to court on Sept. 27, the AP reported.

The Americans, who are Allen Temple Volunteers, are Dr. Anthony Jones, nurses Gregory Miller and David Greenberg, and administrator Gloria Cox-Crowell of the Allen Temple Baptist Church AIDS Ministry, CNN said.

The names of the New Zealander and Zimbabwean doctor are not yet confirmed. They were all ordered to stay at the Mother of Peace Orphanage outside Harare pending their trial. They face the possibility of being fined and deported, the AP reported.

They were also accused of treating AIDS patients with improper medical licenses and handing out AIDS medications without the supervision of a pharmacist, according to the AP.

The American medics were sent by the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California. Rev. Theosophous Reagans, who is in charge of global missions told CNN, “We’ve always had a good relationship with authorities and people.”

Reagans told CNN it was likely an issue of miscommunication. This is the first time, after having worked in Zimbabwe for over a decade, that license issues have arisen, according to the AP.

The Allen Temple, a largely African-American church, has since 2000, sent medics to the country thrice yearly to treat patients afflicted with AIDS and to distribute medications, CNN reported.

The medics were sent to work in Harare, the capital city, and at the Mother of Peace Orphanage in Mutoko town. They were arrested last Thursday and had been in jail before their release on bail, CNN said.

The Herald, Zimbabwe’s state-run daily, quoted Detective Inspector Augustine Zimbili as saying the medics were picked up for questioning, and said registration of all medical institutions is necessary to facilitate monitoring. Zimbili told the Herald, “There is a risk of dispensation of expired drugs. When premises are not licensed, it is difficult to check if the act is being complied with,” CNN reported.

The medics have denied all charges, their attorney, Jonathan Samukange told CNN.

A college journalist released his taped interview with Mike Huckabee after the former presidential candidate and now Fox newsperson slammed him for sensationalizing his comments, misquoting him and being deceptive.

A college journalist released his taped interview with Mike Huckabee after the former presidential candidate and now Fox newsperson slammed him for sensationalizing his comments, misquoting him and being deceptive.

In a statement Huckabee demanded release of the tape, harshly condemned the student and said, “the young college student hopefully will find a career other than journalism.”

Huckabee also claimed he was misquoted regarding his views on Michael Steele as GOP chairman.

He said he offered his support to Steele, but the article said he “Rip(ped) into Steele.”

The article that Huckabee complained of appeared in The Perspective, the news magazine of The College of New Jersey in Ewing, N.J.  The same article, upon publication, was sourced by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, MSNBC and wire agencies such as the Associated Press, among others.  It was also quoted in the blogosphere.

The tape is now available to the public here:

Follow up reports from the media on the incident also included sourced transcripts and old questionnaires Huckabee had filled out, including an Associated Press 1992 questionnaire which Huckabee filled out as a senatorial candidate in Arkansas.

In this questionnaire, regarding homosexuality Huckabee wrote that it was crucial that the country not “legitimize immorality”.  He wrote, “I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle.”

He also advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, saying it was necessary to confine “carriers of this plague.

Elton John on stage at the Keepmoat Stadium, Doncaster, England: 2008.

Sixty-two year-old English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist Sir Elton John recently became the center of controversy among conservative Christians when he claimed that Jesus “was a […] super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems” in an interview with entertainment magazine Parade.

“On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East – you’re as good as dead.”

John spoke with Parade’s Dotson Rader about love, drugs, fame, his civil relationship with Canadian filmmaker David Furnish, religion and everything in between.

“Just about every relationship I ever had was involved with drugs,” recalled the singer. “But I always had to be with someone, good or bad, otherwise I didn’t feel fulfilled. I’d lost the plot.”

John and Furnish have been partners since 2005 and continue to appear together at celebrity events and fundraisers, including those held by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Since the AIDS-related deaths of his close friends Ryan White and British musician Freddie Mercury, John has become a notable philanthropist and public spokesperson to raise awareness of the disease.

John’s recent comments on Christianity and Jesus, however, have drawn fire from conservative news media personalities and even Catholic League President Bill Donohue.

“Jesus was certainly compassionate, but to say he was ‘super-intelligent’ is to compare the Son of God to a successful game show contestant,” said Donohue.

“More seriously, to call Jesus a homosexual is to label him a sexual deviant. We’re not sure what’s worse—John’s ignorance or his intolerance. In any event, if we thought we could persuade him to issue an apology, we would try. But given his recidivism, we won’t even bother to ask.”

Donohue also added, “One thing is clear. Someone needs to straighten John out.”

During last night’s FOX News broadcast of “The O’Reily Factor,” conservative political commentator and host Bill O’Reily mentioned Sir John is his “Pinheads & Patriots” segment.

While O’Reily praised actor Jack Nicholson as a patriot for his visiting the Walter Reid Memorial Hospital to “raise the morale of wounded troops,” he slammed John’s comments.

“While the singer is correct in asking for compassion toward gay people, he is a pinhead for calling Jesus a gay man,” said O’Reily. “There is absolutely no evidence of that.”

As you know, I’m all about the news. I was reading sophisticated, snooty British news, when something caught my eye. I clicked on the link.

In big black letters, I read the headline “Singer with most popular German band faces jail for infecting man with HIV.”

I don’t even know any German bands, besides Tokio Hotel and Rammstein, but I continued reading because I was curious to see who the culprit was.

I scrolled down. The next things my eyes fell on was the picture of a beautiful woman. I thought to myself, “Maybe she was a victim.”

As I read the article, I learned that she was the culprit.

According to the BBC, Nadja Benaissa, a multi-platinum German recording artist was arrested shortly before she was due to give a solo performance on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm by infecting a partner with HIV.

The fact that she is so famous and beautiful, yet she might have handed some men their death certificates, made my mind do back flips. All I could think about were her motives. Why would she do that?

Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I still don’t know why she gave those men HIV. She could have been trying to get revenge on the man who gave it to her, so she used sex as a biological weapon. She could’ve also just been looking for love. Maybe she thought she was going to settle down with the men she slept with. It’s also possible that she didn’t know she had HIV.

No matter the real reason, Nadja’s story is sobering. Her story reminds me that beauty and money really don’t matter a whole lot. Her money and fame can’t erase her HIV status. It reminds me that God’s plan for intimacy inside of marriage is best.

And then, when I try to walk in Nadja’s shoes, I realize that that could’ve been me. Before God opened my eyes, I too slept around looking for love, so I have compassion for her. I can’t think of her as the monster society would have us believe she is. She’s a broken person, who has made mistakes, just like you and me. Hopefully God will use this situation to open her eyes, and the eyes of other people who are being promiscuous.

–Tiff-The Underground Site, editor