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half of the thousand people who died from Aids in Scotland last year

contracted the disease from intravenous drug use. Male homosexuals come

next, but heterosexuals are fast growing as carriers of the HIV virus in

our society and in Africa it has been predicted that 10 million children

will be orphaned by the year 2000 and another 10 million infected with

the virus.

The message behind it all is that the problem is not their problem,

but our problem, and it is unlikely to go away.

My personal connection between Aids and drugs is that in recent months

I attended conferences on both topics, hoping to become better briefed

on the principle that ''he who knows not knows a good deal if he knows

how to hold his tongue''.

Alas, I could not hold my tongue in my frustration at the way the

drugs conference itself became an experience in self-induced

stupefaction. I therefore approached last week's conference organised by

the Strathclyde Interchurch Aids Project somewhat warily. Instead it

proved to be an excellent affair.

At the Lord Provost's reception a gay man challenged the churches to

acknowledge the legitimacy of gay relationships or run the risk of

having no credibility among homosexuals. When the conference reassembled

for the main session the next morning, the three churchmen speakers, far

from running away from the issue, showed that they were prepared to

address it in their own fashion.

The man from the Vatican, Fr Robert Vitillo, understandably did so in

coded language during a global survey of the work of his organisation,

Caritas Internationalis. ''Non-judgmental compassion'' was his theme,

and while he judiciously quoted the present Pope throughout, to me he

seemed to be saying ''Pay more attention to what we do rather than what

we say about such matters''. Judged on their deeds rather than their

words, the Catholic Church has much credibility on this issue.

The next two speakers were an Anglican bishop and a former Kirk

Moderator. Both are tall, thin, cadaverous, and wear spectacles. Both

dress dull but talk bright. Their bald heads reveal big brains and with

them incisive minds that dissect their subject and then put it together

in a fresh and stimulating way.

Moral shotgun

Richard Holloway was first. God is not religion, he declared. God's

answer to Job's suffering was to become Job. The way of the Cross is to

accompany the Aids sufferer on his journey but we cannot do that with a

moral sawn-off shotgun in our lap. He went on to argue that all modern

theology had to be done in a post-Holocaust, post-Aids pandemic context

and both these events forced the most painfully honest reappraisal of

the key question of life, whether or not it has meaning after death.

Professor Robert Davidson is an Old Testament scholar. He spoke of how

other scholars have castrated the passages that celebrate sexuality, or

used the Bible as a moral gazetteer to confirm their own prejudices. He

faced the issue of cohabitation before marriage, which was

''increasingly common but not the opposite of virtue''. It no more

equalled promiscuity than being gay equalled promiscuity, he declared,

asking whether the Church was concerned more with formal relationships

than the quality of relationships.

The sensitive area of Aids was not helped by extreme attitudes but was

a context in which they had to be faced. ''If Aids is God's bolt of

lightning against homosexuals, then he's got a pretty poor aim! If we

cannot respond Aids will be a judgment of God -- not on people with Aids

but on those of us who had resources which they did not share.''

These challenging speeches encouraged some Aids sufferers and carers

to speak, but they also prompted two influential Edinburgh churchmen to

come out in support of a reassessment of traditional teaching of

chastity before marriage. Principal Duncan Forrester wanted to apply

fidelity as a virtue not simply within marriage, and Mr Ron Beasley said

he had found from counselling students that many of them were trapped in

boring sex or carnal ''quick-fix'' acts which were a far cry from a

symphony of tenderness. Both men wanted the Kirk to be more

accommodating in its public pronouncements on sexual morals.

It soon will have a chance when two of its key committees bring their

deliberations to the General Assembly this year and next. Social

Responsibility is looking at sexuality and the Panel on Doctrine at sex

and marriage. My guess is that this could prove to be a debate of

cataclysmic significance for the Kirk. It will probably be sharpened by

a minister openly declaring that he is gay.

The way out would be to brush it under the bed, to let sleeping

couples lie, and say little (as at present) in order not to display the

widely divergent attitudes on sex which are held by members and

ministers of the Kirk.

I suspect that the Kirk is not ready for this debate, but the Aids

conference was a sign that it will be increasingly forced to take it on,

or be regarded as irrelevant in matters of morality, hardly something of

which a church would be proud.