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Rev. Gabriel Salguero, President of National Latino Evangelical Coalition - NALEC, shares with The Christian Post why Latino evangelicals support PEPFAR

There are moments when a nation reveals what it truly believes — not in speeches, but in what it’s willing to sustain when it would be easier to turn inward.

Today is one of those moments.


At a time when American families are feeling the strain of rising costs, uncertainty, and an ever-changing world, something remarkable has emerged: an overwhelming, bipartisan commitment to continue one of the most life-saving efforts in modern history. 


A recent poll by McLaughlin & Associates shows that nearly three-quarters of likely voters support continued funding for PEPFAR — the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — with strong bipartisan backing and overwhelming agreement that America should keep its promise to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.


This is the moral clarity foundational to what it means to be American. 


For Evangelicals, this shouldn’t surprise us. Scripture doesn’t ask us to love in abstraction. It commands us to bind up wounds, to defend the vulnerable, to care for the orphan and the widow, and to refuse the temptation to look away when suffering becomes inconvenient. The Gospel doesn’t permit a calculus that weighs human life against economic anxiety and chooses retreat. It calls us outward.


And yet, what is striking is not just that people of faith believe this — but that the American people, across party, region, and ideology, recognize it.


Even more telling: 80% of Americans agree that life-saving treatment should be grounded in the moral principle of saving a life, not judging a person’s choices. This isn’t a progressive or conservative ethic. It is a Christian one. It is the ethic of Christ drawing near to the suffering, refusing to let condemnation have the final word.


This is why the inclusion of explicit faith-based partnership language in the House FY27 National Security and Related Programs report matters so deeply.


This is a critical recognition that faith-based organizations are not peripheral actors in global health. In communities in Africa and around the world, it’s often the Church that shows up first, stays longest, and is trusted most to provide clinical and pastoral care. 




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