not a major report

It was a nice weekend.  I was able to finish my two assignments for my class and even begin to work ahead for this week.  We are not going to be diving into any other religions for the rest of the semester.  Instead we will be focusing on other various influences surrounding death, dying, and the afterlife.  There will be topics like disease, suicide, legalities, medical issues, and more.

The lecture for this week, which I watched over the weekend, started with "Death and Disease," and while disease is quite a broad topic, the professor focused most of his talk on AIDS and how it impacted society and its norms.  It was painful to listen to because while I don't know anyone personally who died from it, I have friends who are HIV positive, as well as friends who have lost their partners to the disease.  I was in late high school or early college years when AIDS hit the news feeds.  What we saw with COVID was still on a larger scale, but AIDS news seemed very targeted to gay men.  It wasn't targeted because it eventually spread beyond that group of people.  It was being spread amongst the gay community, but it became much larger.  I think the only thing that kept it from being as widely known as COVID was the lacking of media outlets and how technology was not as advanced and widely available.  Otherwise, maybe AIDS could have been investigated and pushed back a little faster.  Well, I can dream.  But it went on for several years.  It was researched and people kept on dying from it, still mostly gay men.

I recall how religious leaders, especially conservatives, came forth and were in essence persecuting the LGBTQ community.  I remember the Rev. Jerry Falwell publicly stating that AIDS was "not a punishment from God to homosexuals," but to "society for tolerating homosexuals."  He practically said gay sex needed to stop or we would virtually end up like Sodom and Gomorrah.  Unfortunately, Falwell's voice was not the only one being heard from major religious denominations.

The Catholic Church, some may remember, didn't seem to focused on treating AIDS at first.  They did, however, become vocal about its transmission from one person to another.  In other words, they basically said that gay men had to stop sexual activity if they wanted to stop spreading the disease.  That was while it was still believed AIDS was only spread via sex.  However, once it was researched deeper, and it was found that it was spread through the transmission of bodily fluids, the problem turned to say a greater focus was on being chaste.  Why?  The Church's issue was not on being gay, but on the issue that condoms were not allowed by the Church whether for hetero- or homosexuals.  The Church has always taught that sex is for the creation of life, not for simple pleasure.  If a sexual encounter was not open to creating life, it shouldn't happen; therefore, neither gay sex nor using condoms would be permitted.

Thankfully, the Church eventually began focusing on treating the persons who contracted AIDS, but that was easily 20 years into such arguments and debates.  There continue to be debates about the use of condoms between Church officials insofar as an attempt to prevent the spread of any venereal disease.  We also see those special commercials on TV about prescription drugs (some experimental) and vaccinations people should take if they are going to have unprotected sex.

I hate to be so blunt in my blogs, but this area messes with my heart and my brain because I understand both sides of the argument.  Pray for my friends who have lost loved ones over the years to AIDS.

BTW, it took 4 days to finish this blog.  I couldn't stay focused.  Sorry.