Episcopal Press and News
Episcopal Church Leads Fight for Humane AIDS Legislation
Episcopal News Service. November 8, 1989 [89231]
Ariel Miller, Correspondent for Interchange, the newspaper of The Diocese of Southern Ohio.
CINCINNATI, Nov.8 -- Advocacy by the Episcopal Church is proving crucial to the passage of major AIDS legislation at both the federal and state level. Health education, antidiscrimination protection, and funding for AIDS-related health care are all being furiously attacked by fundamentalist groups. Sponsors of landmark bills in the United States Congress and the state legislative of Ohio have used support from the Episcopal Church to counteract assertions by the religious right that religious Americans oppose compassionate legislation for persons living with AIDS.
Until such legislation passes, those living with AIDS face discrimination in housing, hiring, insurance, and access to medical care. AIDS prevention efforts -- including education, testing, and epidemiological tracking -- are also pursued in a hit-miss fashion.
Without lobbying by mainstream denominations such as the Episcopal Church, the risks of sponsoring bills to help people with AIDS are almost political suicidal, observers say.
"The brand X churches are out there, and they appear very strong to legislators," reported State Senator David Hobson (RSpringfield), who piloted Ohio's new comprehensive AIDS bill through the Ohio state legislature, despite tremendous opposition by fundamentalists. "They have no compunction about tying up our phone line for three days, deluging the office with vile letters. We now hear overwhelmingly from the evangelicals. And they are very threatening: they say, 'we're going to get you in the election.'"
"On issues such as AIDS, legislators deeply need action identified as from the mainstream religious community to counteract the religious right," said the Rev. Robert Brooks, national affairs officer of the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.
That action starts with helping to draft legislation. Brooks started in January of this year to work for a bill that would embody the resolutions of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church defending the human rights and needs of persons living with AIDS. He convened an ecumenical AIDS working group representing church staff from major Christian and Jewish denominations, and included key staff from congressional committees. It succeeded in having AIDS listed on the Senate priority list for the 101st Congress.
The goal of the interreligious AIDS Working Group was to guarantee nondiscrimination for persons living with AIDS. Rather than introduce the measure as a separate bill, it decided early on that AIDS nondiscrimination would have a better chance of passing if it were incorporated in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a bill to extend the guarantees of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to disabled Americans.
"The ADA bill is something the disabled community had yearned for and worked for 20 years," said Brooks, who praised the lawmakers for agreeing to include language explicitly extending nondiscrimination to persons living with AIDS.
As expected, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina rose to attack the bill, asserting that religious Americans opposed any legal protection for AIDS patients whose illness was the result of their "behavior." Senator Edward Kennedy then stood up and read into the Congressional Record a letter drafted by Brooks's working group and signed by the national heads of major religious groups, including Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning of the Episcopal Church.
"This was the only one of a hundred major letters on this bill that was entered into the Congressional Record," Brooks reported. "After it was read, the Helms amendment was dropped, and the bill passed overwhelmingly the next day in the Senate."
The bill is being prepared for consideration in the House of Representatives, where at least one congressman planned to try to amend it to exclude "those who contracted AIDS through their behavior."
President Bush worked closely with Brooks on the language of a compromise version of the bill for the House and Senate, and wants it to pass. Brooks urged delegates at the National Episcopal AIDS Conference in Cincinnati on October 27 to call their representatives immediately to register their support for the bill.
Episcopalians also played a vital role in drafting and lobbying for State Senator Hobson's comprehensive AIDS bill in Ohio. Nancy Brandenburg, a nurse who chairs the diocesan AIDS task force of Southern Ohio, began advocating for AIDS legislation three years ago. Her major concerns included prevention education, housing for persons living with AIDS, and protection for AIDS patients against discrimination. Working with Bill Brown, the diocese's community affairs officer, she helped canvass grass-roots Episcopal support for the bill when the opposition of fundamentalists exploded. In April the diocesan AIDS task force sent a letter to all parishes in the diocese alerting them to the importance of the bill and the need to lobby for it to counteract the attacks of evangelical groups. Several clergy wrote to or visited their legislators in response.
Hobson credited the support of the Ohio Council of Churches and the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches in Ohio for providing many legislators with the political base they needed to vote for the bill. As a result, it passed this summer, giving Ohio the most extensive protections of persons living with AIDS, those at risk, and the general public of any state in the country.
"It's a fantastic bill," said Brandenburg, who praised Hobson for his courage and foresight in sponsoring it. "The fact that this person who cares, who is active in his own church, is running for the United States Senate is pretty exciting."
For Hobson, too, the constructive work of Episcopal lobbyists was a welcome antidote to the bigotry and ignorance of many religious opponents to the bill. "I think it's very important to have religious lobbyists for the mainstream churches -- like Bill Brown or Nancy Brandenburg -- not only to support legislation, but to help draft it. Now that I know they are there, I can call on them to help," he said.