Los Angeles ? Another sign of the new Washington: bipartisan HIV testing.

At a World AIDS Day conference in California next month, two potential 2008 presidential rivals – Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan. – will each take an HIV test and encourage others to do the same.

To reduce stigma around the test and publicize its value, “I’m happy to offer my body for science,” Brownback said in a telephone interview Friday. “People need to get the test.”

Obama press secretary Tommy Vietor said, “If two United States senators can do it, then everyone else can too.”

The senators will take the test Dec. 1 as part of a two-day “Global AIDS Summit” at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, which sponsors the annual conference.