During her 2020 presidential campaign, Williamson has often been accused of telling gay men not to take medication for AIDS, of implying that they were "not positive enough" to counter the disease, of telling them that they "deserved" the disease, and of telling them to "pray the AIDS away". She has repeatedly denied these accusations, as have several gay men who worked with her at the time. Most of the accusations stem from excerpts or paraphrases of her 1992 book "A Return to Love". But she says that the excerpts and paraphrases distort her meaning.