Panelists say AIDS war needs an MLK

If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, many people active in the fight against AIDS think he'd be in the forefront leading the charge for change.

"King would be dragging people into clinics," Cecelia Wardlaw, a registered nurse with the Clark County Health District, said Monday. "It's a shame we don't have someone out there like that -- but someone will come along."

A panel of community leaders discussed the ramifications of HIV/AIDS Monday at the Borders bookstore, 2190 N. Rainbow Blvd. All agreed more needs to be done to educate teenagers on the dangers of having unprotected sex and sharing drug needles.

"With this disease, ignorance is just as deadly as the disease," said Vaughan Taylor, an HIV prevention specialist with Aid For AIDS of Nevada. "Dr. King was a community activist. That's the same approach we need today."

Taylor said teenagers are lax when it comes to sex. In the Hispanic and Asian populations, he said, many young people think oral and anal sex is not sex. They do it so they remain virgins, but the risk factors are still high for getting AIDS, Taylor said.

"The highest infection rate is among females," said the Rev. Lionel Starkes, moderator of the discussion. "And of all the females infected, 55 percent are African American. The weapon to fight this disease is through education."

Starkes said society and individuals need to challenge themselves, as King used to do, to bring about change. Parents need to teach their children about sex instead of allowing them to learn about it on the streets, he said.

"Don't talk it," Starkes said. "Go out and walk it."

The Rev. David Gillentine, associate pastor of the Community Metropolitan Church, said King would be compassionate to gay men and lesbians because he was a Christian like Jesus.

"Jesus touched those with leprosy, and Dr. King would be reaching out to those with HIV," Gillentine said. "Dr King would be a voice of compassion and love."

archive