Spotlight: Two That Fight Part 2

Hello beauties!

Once again, I want to introduce you to someone that is on the front lines fighting the fight against HIV/AIDS. Meet Reverend Stacey Latimer...

Stacey Latimer grew up in Laurens, South Carolina. He is the only son of a devout southern baptist family. As a child, he looked forward to church on Sunday, unlike most kids. The music spoke to him. As a youngster, he played gospel tunes on the family piano until his father had it shipped out, saying it was "unmanly." Young Stacey was crushed.

Even at an early age, Latimer noticed he was not like other boys. He suppresed his attraction his boys for a while, experimenting in private with men in high school while courting women publically. He went on to college at Atlanta University, joining a fraternity and establishing the first gospel choir on campus. He was outgoing and popular, but keeping his desires a secret took a toll on him. In 1983, he attempted suicide by swallowing all the pills in the medicine cabinet. While in recovery, he made a decision that shocked his family: he decided to join the Army. "I thought, I'm going to straighten this sexual thing out. I'm going to go through all this rigorous training and come out a man," he said in an interview with Poz magazine. However, in basic training, and throught his career, he witnesed other gay men sleeping with each other, and continued dating men himself privately.

In 1986, Stacey married a woman and remained faithful to her for the duration of his military service. In 1987, nine months after getting married, he received a letter from the Red Cross informing him that his recent donation had tested positive for HIV (his wife tested negative. They later seperated). He shared this information with his commanding officer, and was shipped to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C., where other HIV positive servicemen were housed. Latimer began counseling the critically ill AIDS patients, many of whom had been abandonded by family and friends. He continues to visit and minster to those soldiers today.

However, after a year or so of supporting those soldiers, he began to wonder how much more sickness and death he could witness. He also began to wonder about the response of the church. With so many churches on the streets of Washington, D.C, where were God's children? "I began to wonder if it was possible that I had spent most of my life as a part of something that did not practice what it preached," he said in the same interview. Latimer began self medicating with alcohol and marijuana. He soon left the Army and moved to Jacksonville, FL to pass what he thought would be his last days. Then, after a night filled with drugs, he found himself in tears on the bathroom floor, and God came through to him loud and clear. He suddenly realized that though he'd been given six months to live, he'd survived years since his diagnosis. He decided it was time to stop pitiying himself and get his life in order.

Stacey quit using drugs without rehab, and in 20 years of living with HIV, has never experienced a major illness. He credits his family for their support through his breakdown with drugs, as well as his HIV diagnosis.  He enlisted at the South Carolina Holmes Bible college and during this time, testifed about his HIV status and his relationships with men. He does openly date men now, but like many other black men who have sex with men, he does not identify with a gay culture, and does not call himself gay. Rather than identifying with a group, he would prefer to be identified as himself: Stacey. A child of God.