(Updated Oct. 18, 2004 to reflect Gary Glenn’s assignment of blame for uncorrected factual errors in the AgapePress article.)

From the religious-right propaganda service, AgapePress:

A Michigan pro-family activist says the single best way of preventing the spread of the virus that causes AIDS is to help get men to leave the lifestyle that accounts for most new cases of the disease. Thousands of AIDS activists recently held a “walk-a-thon” in Detroit, aimed at raising money supposedly to find a cure for the disease. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family of Michigan, sponsored the flying of a banner over the event promoting an “ex-gay” ministry website. The banner read: “Jesus Christ … HopeForHomosexuals.com.” According to Glenn, the statistics do not lie — sex between men is still the leading cause of HIV infections. He says, “Given that homosexual activity among men remains the single biggest cause of AIDS infection in the Detroit metro area and throughout the state of Michigan, the single most effective step we can take to stop the transmission of AIDS is to help men involved in that lifestyle escape it — get free of it.” It is not hateful, the pro-family activist adds, to offer someone a way out of a lifestyle that accounts for 61 percent of the new AIDS cases in the Detroit area. [Emphasis is XGW’s.]

AgapePress mocks a fund-raiser for medical treatments and cures for AIDS and misquotes Glenn’s AIDS statistics — or it is a misquote? In the comments below, Gary Glenn seems to say AgapePress misread statistics in his press release. If that’s the case, then why has no correction been issued?

The facts about HIV infection in Detroit were not difficult for XGW to find:

According to the Michigan Department of Community Health (PDF report), men who have sex with men (including gay, bisexual, “Down Low,” closeted, experimenting, and exgay men) accounted for 44 percent of new cases in 2002, and that percentage was declining steadily.

Other health news: Focus on the Family protests efforts to include the topic of sexual orientation in Massachusetts sex-education classes. Lacking a sensational incident to motivate readers, Focus invents one by implying that kindergartners are to be given lessons in gay sex techniques.

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