Aid for AIDS Nevada Severs Ties With Las Vegas Megachurch Over Uganda

Aid for AIDS Nevada, the largest and oldest HIV/AIDS service organization in the state, has severed all ties with a Las Vegas megachurch over the church's connections to Ugandan ministers working to pass a law in the country known as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

In a statement released yesterday, after hundreds of emails were sent to Aid for AIDS Nevada, the group said that they could no longer in good faith work with Canyon Ridge Christian Church, a Las Vegas megachurch with over 6,000 members. Canyon Ridge has come under fire lately for its financial and institutional support of a pastor in Uganda, Martin Ssempa, who has been a leading advocate for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a piece of legislation that would criminalize both HIV and homosexuality with the death penalty and harsh prison sentences.

"After evaluating Canyon Ridge Christian Church’s backing of Pastor Ssempa of Uganda and his support of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, we feel that it is in the best interest of our clients, supporters and staff to dissolve our relationship with the church immediately," Aid for AIDS Nevada wrote. "Our mission is to provide client service programs that  assist in enhancing the physical health and psychosocial wellness of the individuals living with and affected by HIV/AIDS in southern Nevada, while promoting dignity and improving the quality of their lives.  We will further this mission without the support of Canyon Ridge Christian Church."

This is the second time in a month that a public health organization has severed ties with Canyon Ridge Christian Church. Several weeks ago the Southern Nevada Health District, which had previously partnered with Canyon Ridge to conduct HIV-testing at the church, cut all ties over the Church's connection to Martin Ssempa. And now Aid for AIDS Nevada, which had previously partnered with the Church for an annual AIDS walk, has ended all ties.

Despite the controversy, Canyon Ridge Christian Church continues to stand in support of Martin Ssempa. They list him as a strategic partner on their Web site, and praise him for shepherding a new generation of African religious leaders, despite Ssempa's long-documented calls for HIV-positive people and LGBT people to be put in jail or killed. Canyon Ridge goes so far as to call Martin Ssempa a "prophetic minister" for Uganda.

And though the pastor of Canyon Ridge Christian Church, Kevin Odor, has admitted that the death penalty aspect of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill is wrong, he still feels like his Church is called to work with Martin Ssempa.

"We want to help the AIDS problem in Africa, and we found somebody who is making a difference," Odor told NPR last month. "So we support him."

But in supporting Ssempa, the Church is alienating itself from many other religious and public health groups here in the U.S. And drawing the ire of many activists here in the U.S. and beyond.

Meanwhile, Jeff Sharlet, the author of The Family who has reported in-depth about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the involvement of American evangelicals in its creation, noted yesterday on Fresh Air with Terry Gross that though the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is in a holding pattern right now in Uganda's legislature, it remains quite the dangerous piece of legislation.

Sharlet has a piece in next month's Harper's, "Straight Man's Burden," that chronicles his recent trip to Uganda to meet with proponents of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, including Ugandan MP David Bahati, one of the authors of the bill.

Photo credit: szlea