Around the web and around the country today there are several articles authored by friends of mine intending to raise awareness this Pride weekend that AIDS remains an issue devastating communities of gay men. Jim Pickett from AIDS Foundation Chicago writes in the Huffington Post that "Rates of HIV infection among gay men are more than 44 times higher than rates among heterosexual men and more than 40 times higher than women. We are the only demographic in which HIV infections are rising." Michael Kaplan from Cascade AIDS Project in Portland adds that almost 75 percent of men in Oregon newly infected with HIV are gay or bisexual. Last year in Minnesota new infections occurring in gay and bisexual men were 60 percent of the total. So is AIDS a gay thing? Of course not. HIV is an equal opportunity virus. It doesn't care who you are, it only cares what you do, or more precisely, what you don't do – namely practice safer sex. That said, once HIV is widespread in any community, the odds of you contracting virus absent safer sex, go up exponentially. So contrary to what so many people think, or more importantly, believe, about gay men it isn't "what" they do, it's the mere fact that HIV spread so rapidly in this community back in the early days of AIDS that has continued to fuel new infections. Think about it – and let's first assume that you my dear reader, are not a gay man. Imagine now that some new sexually-transmitted disease took hold in your community – say a community of heterosexuals all living in and around that mythical of mythical places we have all come to love as Minnesotans; Lake Wobegon. Stick with me on this. Because like other good Minnesotans, Wobegononians tend to work, socialize and date each other close to home. Pretty soon this new virus would be widespread in your hometown and the odds of you contracting the virus would be pretty high. For a minute, let's pretend a bit more – say for example, no one really explained to you in terms you understood, how to protect yourself and how to stay virus free. Odds go up even further. I know; you may be wagging your virtual finger at me. "Wouldn't be a problem for me … it's all about waiting till you get married." At the risk of offending any of the good folks from Wobegon, I'm guessing a few of you didn't exactly wait to do "that thing" until marriage. Maybe even more than a few. So, what about them? I guess it's just their own fault for not following "the rules." Here in the real world, right now gay men don't have that choice to "wait till they get married". And they rarely, if ever, receive real practical education about HIV in school or at home due to the homophobia that continues to block this important need. Children who come out as gay to their parents rarely experience "the talk" from parents too shy or too scared, or too ashamed, to get information so they can have "the gay talk" with their sons or daughters. In fact, Michael Kaplan from Portland went on to tell the story about some billboards his agency put up. They were fairly innocuous and showed cropped facial photos of four men looking forward and one showing two men kissing. Michael received numerous complaints, including one from a mother lamenting how her and her neighbors have to drive home a different way now so this "isn't shoved in (our) children's faces". I think Michael sums it up nicely by adding "If we cannot allow images of our gay affection to appear, how can we ever get to addressing sexually transmitted infections among our community?" Furthermore, what can we expect young gay men to know about safer sex if our schools don't teach them or they have parents too shy to too ashamed to talk? We can expect to see that HIV will continue to march at an unrelenting pace through this community. Not because of what they do but because no one ever told them what to do to remain safe. This is not about God's punishment of gays or other theories or feelings; this is a practical reminder that absent solid public health policies of educating all our young people, AIDS will continue to be, a disproportionately gay thing.