EVANGELICAL LEADERS AND PEOPLE WITH HIV

A concern of much HIV-related public education has been the stigma ass ociated with the disease and campaigns calling for solidarity between people with HIV aim to combat discrimination against them. There is ev idence, however, that an influential minority of the population world- wide continues to hold hostile attitudes. The literature reports that religiously committed people are more likely to have less accepting at titudes towards people with HIV. This article this examines the attitu des of leaders of a growing religious movement, Evangelism, to see (a) whether and in what respects their attitudes differ from the general population; (b) whether they contribute to stigma felt by people with HIV; and (c) how hostile attitudes among this group may be combated. I t was found that Evangelical leaders are more likely to attribute blam e to people with HIV than are the general population and that this asp ect may contribute to stigma felt by people with HIV In other respects , however, attitudes of Evangelical leaders to people with HIV are not very different ent to those of the general population and their belie f that 'all (humans) have sinned' predisposes many of them to be accep ting of, and offer support to, people with HIV.