It’s funny, as a former conservative Christian but current atheist, I don’t hesitate to tell people who are grieving or in pain that they’re in my thoughts and prayers. I want them to feel my love and support; I think they know what I mean when I say “prayers.”

But as a long-time political activist, especially as an activist whose worldview was formed during the darkest and most hopeless years of HIV/AIDS crisis, action is all that I focus on with respect to changing the world for the better.

You know, some of my colleagues in those dark years were devout Christians, and they prayed. But you know what they prayed for? The strength and the inner peace to keep acting in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity.