AIDS awareness week

A friend of mine is organizing a community theatre production of “The Laramie project” for 2005, and he thought it would be fitting to set the run during the american AIDS awareness week…only problem is we can’t seem to find a definate answer on when that is, most websites seem to be conflcting. Can anyone help us out?

There may not be an “official” one.

Congress stopped passing most “ceremonial” legislation in the mid-90’s (shortly after the Republican Takeover). “Ceremonial” here means things like designating March 10 National Kumquat Day. Thus, there may not have been an AIDS Awareness Week act passed.

Failing an act of Congress to make it official, it’s up to whoever wants to declare it to make any week AIDS Awareness Week. One organization (such as GLAAD) may name one week, another organization may name another week. That would probably explain the conflicting information on web sites.

World AIDS Day is December 1. I am unaware of any “AIDS Awareness Week.”

I would suggest that there is no particular tie-in between The Laramie Project, which is about the killing of a gay man and its aftermath, and AIDS. Conflating gay with AIDS strikes me as being in opposition to the goals of an awareness week.

October is Gay and Lesbian History Month, which includes National Coming Out Day (Oct 11). Perhaps that might be a more appropriate tie-in.