Lying

At a flower shop in rural West Virginia, Campbell's Creek, an isolated mining hollow, the owner is a chap named Bill Grayolis, 41. A while back Mr. Grayolis lost weight and whispers started around town that he had AIDS. And then there were some graffiti and there were threats, he was labeled a queer, a carrier of AIDS. Customers that he had known for 20 years stopped coming to his store. One long time woman customer drove up and stopped and threw her check inside the flower shop but then she returned hastily to her car and drove away. Well, that did it. Mr. Grayolis gave up the diet with which he'd purposely been losing weight. He got himself blood-tested for AIDS and proved that he does not have the virus. He posted the medical report on the window of his shop, but the whispers persist. West Virginia Attorney General says shame on the cruel people of Campbell's Creek, but still the whispers persist. Now his delivery van has been trashed, his windows have been smashed, his business is depleted. Bill Grayolis does not have AIDS, but he is being destroyed by contagious ignorance.

-Sermons Illustrated July/August 1990