Bono said that although he’s “just at the beginning of a conversation” on HIV/AIDS in the African-American community, he believes that poverty and the “emasculation” it causes — men engaging in reckless sex and drug abuse to counter their feelings of socioeconomic helplessness — are a root cause of the disease’s spread.

When Rick Warren, one of the nation’s most popular evangelical pastors, faced down right-wing pressure and invited Sen. Barack Obama to speak at a gathering at his Saddleback Valley Community Church about the AIDS crisis, he sent a signal: A significant group of theologically conservative Christians no longer wants to be treated as a cog in the Republican political machine.

Sen. Barack Obama told a packed congregation Friday at Saddleback Church that there was no room for political conflict between religious groups and the government in the fight to prevent AIDS.