Chinese City Combats AIDS With Gay Bar

A Chinese city with one of the country's highest rates of AIDS has taken an innovative approach to battling the disease—by opening up a gay bar. The government-funded bar will offer sex education and free condoms, in what has become a controversial use of taxpayer money in the city, which has a growing openly gay population. The founder of the bar hopes men, espeically those from rural villages, will gather there and educate themselves, instead of going to a secluded spot in the woods where the town's gay people used to gather. The bar will be staffed by volunteers from an NGO that works to prevent AIDS. The bar is opening Tuesday to coincide with World AIDS Day, but some fear men will avoid the bar because they are afraid of the publicity.