Leonard Pitts writes about Conservative Christians and AIDS with little checked venom:

Christ, after all, had compassion for tax collectors, adulterers, prostitutes, lepers. He famously walked with the disregarded, the dispossessed and the despised. But these days, many would-be Christians walk by them instead. "Love the sinner, hate the sin," they chirp.

Even if you buy that dubious formulation, it's hard to see evidence of love in their decision to ignore a deadly pandemic. Some evangelical Christians even employ God to justify their callousness, arguing that AIDS is a divine curse upon gay people. Somehow, they never get around to explaining how the "curse" managed to strike people like 13-year-old Ryan White, whose only sin was to be a hemophiliac in need of a blood transfusion.

Was God's aim that bad?

Bob Geldof who has been involved in Africa and the ills they face there said it better than I ever could:

Bob Geldof astonished the aid community yesterday by using a return visit to Ethiopia to praise the Bush administration as one of Africa's best friends in its fight against hunger and Aids.
The musician-turned activist said Washington was providing major assistance, in contrast to the European Union's "pathetic and appalling" response to the continent's humanitarian crises.

"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical - in a positive sense - in its approach to Africa since Kennedy," Geldof told the Guardian.

The neo-conservatives and religious rightwingers who surrounded President George Bush were proving unexpectedly receptive to appeals for help, he said. "You can get the weirdest politicians on your side."

Former president Bill Clinton had not helped Africa much, despite his high-profile visits and apparent empathy with the downtrodden, the organiser of Live Aid, claimed. "Clinton was a good guy, but he did fuck all."

And just to prove Bob's point, the Euros couldn't even come close to the money that President Bush allocated to fight HIV in Africa;

Tony Blair conceded today that a European Union donation to help fight Aids, TB and malaria would fall short of the $1bn (£600m) pledged by the United States.
The prime minister had made a joint call with French president Jacques Chirac for the EU to match America's commitment to the UN's Global Health Fund, set up to fight the three killer diseases.

But speaking at the EU summit in Greece, he said the smaller of the 15 existing EU members and 10 countries joining next year were not prepared to commit the money for 2004 because of "budget problems".

Rock stars Bono and Sir Bob Geldof, who are behind Data, an organisation that campaigns on issues affecting Africa, have called for the EU to met (sic) the US pledge.

This woman sums it up best:

Lucy Matthew, director of Data Europe, said: "Europe's leaders don't want America to dictate the world's agenda, but they're unwilling to pay the price of leadership themselves on this. They can't accept the sheer gravity of the Aids emergency because collectively they don't want to pay the bill.

So, getting back to Pitt's column, who is puttin' up and who is shuttin' up, Len?