The Denver Principles: Paying Pride Forward

First day of summer, I sit on my balcony at 4:30am, the city as quiet as it gets, the 40th PrideFest a mental movie of a softer celebration: the infinite variety of happy people, parade floats, hot Latin music, doggies, riots of rainbow gear, Butt Lotion, HIV/AIDS booths. I think about Orlando, leaping to the word “principles.” Specifically, The Denver Principles.

I first heard of the declaration in 2009 when I joined HIV 1 on 1, a group dedicated to HIV/AIDS-awareness training, stigma eradication, and empowering self-support. Denver City & County Program Manager of HIV Resources Anthony Stamper contracted Cicatelli Associates Inc. to guide Colorado’s adoption of their proven curricula. Since 1985, the New York-based organization offers training in HIV/AIDS counseling. Its talented instructors laid the foundation of their program with the first slide: The Denver Principles.

In 1983, Denver hosted the 2nd National AIDS Forum at the 5th National Lesbian and Gay Health Conference. According to POZ Magazine, for the first time in history, people who shared a disease defined themselves, strategized politically, and asserted their collective rights “to die — and to LIVE — with dignity.” The culminating manifesto outlined rights and responsibilities for people with the disease and provided recommendations to healthcare professionals, family, and friends. Wikipedia tells of “the drafters [who] stormed the closing of the conference in order to present their work,” a presentation bringing the audience to tears, unable to compose itself for ten minutes. The Denver Principles — 17 statements, 457 words — changed the course of a pandemic and worldwide healthcare forever.

A few of the names of those committed Americans and organizations? Bobbi Campbell, Dan Turner, Dr. Michael Conant, People with AIDS, Alan Long, Matthew Sarner, Michael Callen, Griffin Gold, Richard Berkowitz, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, Larry Kramer, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Hal Kooden, Virginia Apuzzo, Dr. Roger Enlow, ACT UP.

Descendents of The Denver Principles include the World Health Organization’s 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, the 1994 UNAIDS Paris Declaration signed by 42 countries, the 2008 Mexico Manifesto. In 2009, the National Association of People with AIDS and POZ Magazine announced The Denver Principles Project, an initiative to recommit to the HIV community. Around 2011, POZ founder Sean Strub planned The Denver Principles Empowerment Index that will hold AIDS groups accountable to the people they serve.

“Principles.” In the aftermath of the Orlando bloodbath, what were the principles of the egotistical Republican presidential contender who congratulated himself for his terrorist predictions? Or the former female vice-presidential candidate and current shrill voice of intolerance who condemned the president for pursuing gun control? Or the patriotic Camp Pendleton Marines who posted a uniformed corporal holding an assault rifle and the message, “Coming to a gay bar near you”? Or the Texas Lt. Governor who, hours after the tragedy, tweeted Galatians 6:7 — “Man reaps what he sows, and those who please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction” — a Christian’s moral justification for the extermination of same-sex lovers?

We decide. We judge their principles and whether or not we agree with them. Everyday, everyone chooses the moral compass that creates their reality.

What were the principles of those who laid flowers, donated blood and money, added their voice to rallying cries denouncing violence and pleading for peace, claimed #WeAreOrlando, cried?

Critics judged these actions as ineffective responses to national threats. Inadequate perhaps, but they infused compassion into a city crushed by grief and defeated the derisive responses of egotists, idiots, jokesters, and phony Christians. I judge their self-serving contempt an ineffective response to the gun debate, just one issue threatening America’s identity.

The outpouring of love for Orlando at PrideFest was pride paid forward, a further testament of Denver’s compassionate, local citizenry, and what The Denver Principles courageously declared 33 years ago by its compassionate, national citizenry.

#WeAreOrlando. Exactly!

Love, compassion, and courage will create a better world. I choose these principles for my moral compass.