Sacramento Woman's Shock: Minister's Wife Can Get AIDS

Ava Gardner taught Sunday school and was married to a minister, so she thought she was in no danger of getting AIDS. Just before her second wedding anniversary, however, she learned that her husband had AIDS and that he had infected her. "I didn't know my husband was living a secret lifestyle," said Gardner, a missionary in Sacramento. Homosexuality was not allowed in his church, she said, so he hid it from everyone, including her. On his deathbed, he confessed to her: "Ava, I did what I did to you purposely because I didn't want to die by myself."

As part of the World AIDS Day activities last weekend, Gardner told her story to the People of Color HIV/AIDS Conference at the Wyndham Emerald Plaza hotel in downtown San Diego. She said she decided to go public with her story in 1996 to illustrate the impact of AIDS on the African-American community -- also a goal of the conference. Nearly 300 people were registered to attend the daylong meeting, including about 130 youths from San Diego and Los Angeles counties. The leader of the workshop "On the Down Low: How Did We Get Here," discussed the cultural factors within the African-American community that contribute to situations like Gardner's.

Reggie Caldwell, a gay therapist who is working as a consultant for the state Department of Health's Office of AIDS, said those factors include racism, homophobia, discrimination and the influence of the church, which teaches homosexual activities are a sin. In addition, he said, society's bent toward heterosexuality can lead gay people to feel ashamed of their own sexuality, and to hide it and lie about it. "This is case where our own prejudices are killing us," said Caldwell.

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