Just Say No to AIDS Hypocrisy
Remember when you’re out there,
Trying to heal the sick,
That you must first forgive them
- Bob Dylan
President Bush this morning named Randall Tobias as his AIDS czar, an ambassador-level position designed to coordinate US efforts to stem the spread of the disease, particularly in Africa. A noble effort, to be sure, since AIDS continues to have a devastating effect on that continent, where effective treatments available elsewhere in the world are too expensive for most people.
Buried in this speech, however, was the reminder that the Bush Administration is prepared to support only “abstinence-based” prevention programs. AIDS, of course, is at least in part sexually transmitted, so abstinence would indeed be somewhat effective in prevention. So, of course, would condoms. But with condoms, people actually get to have sex. Maybe even messy, gross homo sex. And we can’t have that.
Abstinence-based programs of any kind treat sex as the disease and AIDS as a side-effect. That’s completely consistent with the so-called morality being peddled by this Administration and its Christian-right supporters, many of whom quite openly declare AIDS to be God’s punishment on the various despised groups who are afflicted by it.
If Bush is serious about really helping the world’s AIDS crisis, he needs to stop pandering to this repressed and superstitious claque of bigots and follow the advice of public health experts the world over in supporting practical prevention and treatment plans – the most effective of which is condom distribution and sex education. Of course, that would require a commitment to actual scientific principles and sound public policy, and Bush seems to avoid those like the plague.
8:44:28 AM 
|
