Why are people still so confused? And outraged?
Forget about the condom and open your mind. Read here.
The condom is not a contraceptive in the case of the prostitute, male or female. If they are all in the occasion of sin, what difference does the condom actually make?
Outside of the marriage act, sex is fornication, and in any form, is sinful. Does adding a condom to a sinful act make it more sinful or less?
If it shows concern for another, it may actual be a step toward unselfishness. Baby steps.
Condoms, however, cannot offer security in any potentially lethal situation.
What offers security?
You know the answer.
Showing posts with label condoms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label condoms. Show all posts
11.23.2010
But the Pope says I can have the condom!
Is there even ONE mainstream media source that has NOT said that Pope Benedict has okayed condoms?
What's your favorite overlooked quote of this whole farce? How about "the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality..." Read more here...
With all this fixation, I don't think I want to hear the word "condom" for a good long time!
But just once more....This is from AMP blog
What's your favorite overlooked quote of this whole farce? How about "the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality..." Read more here...
With all this fixation, I don't think I want to hear the word "condom" for a good long time!
But just once more....This is from AMP blog
11.20.2010
The Pope did not say condoms were OK!
Janet Smith explains it well.
I won't do it justice- but from an NFP standpoint, all I can say is: if a homosexual (with or without AIDS) is having anal sex, isn't he already in grave sin? For that matter, is the condom even contraception?
If he had AIDS, what would make it worse would be infecting his partner. This would be a grave evil.
Another good explanation is here (my article)
and commentary from Lisa Graas.
And Jimmy Akin.
And Fr. Z.
I won't do it justice- but from an NFP standpoint, all I can say is: if a homosexual (with or without AIDS) is having anal sex, isn't he already in grave sin? For that matter, is the condom even contraception?
If he had AIDS, what would make it worse would be infecting his partner. This would be a grave evil.
Another good explanation is here (my article)
and commentary from Lisa Graas.
And Jimmy Akin.
And Fr. Z.
8.05.2009
Protected sex doesn't protect mental status
More proof that sex was meant by God to procreate and bond as husband and wife. Barriers are needed in a culture of promiscuity. Barriers are bad within marriage. To protect against pregnancy, the result of the marital act, barriers are necessary. Research proves what we already know as true.
By Hilary White
PAISLEY, Scotland, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Research from Scotland finding that heterosexual sex without using condoms is more likely to make people happy than "safe sex" with condoms, has stirred controversy among "sexual health" campaigners. The lead researcher wrote of the survey respondents, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health."
In the study, titled, "Condom Use for Penile-Vaginal Intercourse is Associated with Immature Psychological Defense Mechanisms," Professor Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley gave questionnaires to 111 Portuguese men and 99 women asking questions about their sex lives and their state of mind over a period of one month. The findings are to be published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour.
The study's abstract gives the purpose as the examination of a hypothesis put forward by Sigmund Freud, "that use of immature psychological defense mechanisms correlates directly with frequency of condom use during PVI, but inversely with frequency of PVI [penile-vaginal intercourse] without condoms."
The survey found that "frequency of PVI with condoms correlated directly with use of immature defenses," according to a standard test of psychological reactions. It also found that "immature defenses" were associated with masturbation in both sexes. In general, the study concluded that condom use during PVI is associated with "psychological immaturity and predisposition to poorer mental health," including depression and suicidal tendencies.
Brody wrote, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health." His findings suggest that condom use negates the mental health benefits of what he called "evolutionarily relevant sex." He theorized that there is a direct biochemical response in natural heterosexual relations that is blocked by condoms.
Brody wrote in the study, "Possible explanations for the interference of condoms with the health benefits of PVI include blocking of antidepressant and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions, reduced sexual satisfaction and intimacy, and psychopathology-prone persons who are more psychologically immature and/or heterosocially anxious being more likely to use condoms for PVI."
In an interview with the UK's Independent newspaper, Brody responded to criticisms from sex-campaigners at the Family Planning Association that his findings, if they were acted upon, would result in increases in sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.
"I have an interest in the best possible science," he said. "I don't want to let anything get in the way, whether its political correctness, or religion. I have deliberately not used the term 'heterosexual sex'," he said.
"Evolution is not politically correct, so of the very broad range of potential sexual behaviour, there is actually only one that is consistently associated with better physical and mental health and that is the one sexual behaviour that would be favoured by evolution. That is not accidental."
In 2007, Brody angered homosexualist activists in the UK when he published research that found intercourse between men and women is the only form of sexual behaviour that improves "psychological and physiological function." He found that levels of prolactin, the hormone that provides the body with sexual gratification, were 400 percent higher among male and female couples who had heterosexual intercourse than those engaging in other forms of sex.
Peter Tatchell, one of Britain's leading homosexualist spokesmen, called the research "unscientific and extreme" and said it contradicted other studies by the US sex researchers Masters and Johnson. Tatchell said, "Brody's is an extreme and disparaging stance to adopt and he seems to have an ideological agenda to promote conventional heterosexual intercourse."
Brody responded at the time, "The radical left wants sex research done, but only if the results are politically acceptable to them."
Brody's previous work has also criticized the disinformation commonly promulgated in the media about the transmission of AIDS among the general population and warned that political correctness has seriously muddied the issues.
His 1997 book "Sex at Risk: Lifetime number of partners, frequency of intercourse and low AIDS risk of vaginal intercourse," concluded that "ideological knowledge" about AIDS, that asserts that heterosexuals are at equal risk of contracting the disease as active homosexuals, is more prevalent in society than evidence-based scientific knowledge gained from objective research. One reviewer called the book a "succinct indictment of people who have conflated politics and science in setting AIDS policy over the past 15 years."
By Hilary White
PAISLEY, Scotland, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Research from Scotland finding that heterosexual sex without using condoms is more likely to make people happy than "safe sex" with condoms, has stirred controversy among "sexual health" campaigners. The lead researcher wrote of the survey respondents, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health."
In the study, titled, "Condom Use for Penile-Vaginal Intercourse is Associated with Immature Psychological Defense Mechanisms," Professor Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley gave questionnaires to 111 Portuguese men and 99 women asking questions about their sex lives and their state of mind over a period of one month. The findings are to be published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour.
The study's abstract gives the purpose as the examination of a hypothesis put forward by Sigmund Freud, "that use of immature psychological defense mechanisms correlates directly with frequency of condom use during PVI, but inversely with frequency of PVI [penile-vaginal intercourse] without condoms."
The survey found that "frequency of PVI with condoms correlated directly with use of immature defenses," according to a standard test of psychological reactions. It also found that "immature defenses" were associated with masturbation in both sexes. In general, the study concluded that condom use during PVI is associated with "psychological immaturity and predisposition to poorer mental health," including depression and suicidal tendencies.
Brody wrote, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health." His findings suggest that condom use negates the mental health benefits of what he called "evolutionarily relevant sex." He theorized that there is a direct biochemical response in natural heterosexual relations that is blocked by condoms.
Brody wrote in the study, "Possible explanations for the interference of condoms with the health benefits of PVI include blocking of antidepressant and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions, reduced sexual satisfaction and intimacy, and psychopathology-prone persons who are more psychologically immature and/or heterosocially anxious being more likely to use condoms for PVI."
In an interview with the UK's Independent newspaper, Brody responded to criticisms from sex-campaigners at the Family Planning Association that his findings, if they were acted upon, would result in increases in sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.
"I have an interest in the best possible science," he said. "I don't want to let anything get in the way, whether its political correctness, or religion. I have deliberately not used the term 'heterosexual sex'," he said.
"Evolution is not politically correct, so of the very broad range of potential sexual behaviour, there is actually only one that is consistently associated with better physical and mental health and that is the one sexual behaviour that would be favoured by evolution. That is not accidental."
In 2007, Brody angered homosexualist activists in the UK when he published research that found intercourse between men and women is the only form of sexual behaviour that improves "psychological and physiological function." He found that levels of prolactin, the hormone that provides the body with sexual gratification, were 400 percent higher among male and female couples who had heterosexual intercourse than those engaging in other forms of sex.
Peter Tatchell, one of Britain's leading homosexualist spokesmen, called the research "unscientific and extreme" and said it contradicted other studies by the US sex researchers Masters and Johnson. Tatchell said, "Brody's is an extreme and disparaging stance to adopt and he seems to have an ideological agenda to promote conventional heterosexual intercourse."
Brody responded at the time, "The radical left wants sex research done, but only if the results are politically acceptable to them."
Brody's previous work has also criticized the disinformation commonly promulgated in the media about the transmission of AIDS among the general population and warned that political correctness has seriously muddied the issues.
His 1997 book "Sex at Risk: Lifetime number of partners, frequency of intercourse and low AIDS risk of vaginal intercourse," concluded that "ideological knowledge" about AIDS, that asserts that heterosexuals are at equal risk of contracting the disease as active homosexuals, is more prevalent in society than evidence-based scientific knowledge gained from objective research. One reviewer called the book a "succinct indictment of people who have conflated politics and science in setting AIDS policy over the past 15 years."
3.19.2009
Will Condoms Really Stop AIDS in Africa?
by BRIAN SAINT-PAUL
We're told by the mass media that condom distribution is the solution to the AIDS crisis in Africa and that the Catholic Church is standing in the way of that effort. The research, however, contradicts that view.
If you've watched any of the mainstream news coverage of the Catholic Church in the past month, you've heard several charges repeated over and over: The Church needs to ordain women to address the vocation shortage... the Church needs to change its attitude on contraception and abortion to better accommodate modern realities... the Church needs to moderate its stance on homosexual behavior to be more inclusive... the Church needs to drop its claim to contain the fullness of salvation, since it hinders ecumenism.
Chances are, you're already well equipped to address these objections. But there's one charge that seems to throw Catholics for a loop.
It goes something like this:
By maintaining its ban on condom use, the Catholic Church is contributing to the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Condoms have been demonstrated to prevent infection 90% of the time. If the Vatican cared more about people's lives than a rigid doctrine that most Catholics reject, they'd make an exception to allow condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. Such a move would do more for "life" than would maintaining a position that allows millions to die as a result of unprotected sex.
Sounds convincing at first, doesn't it? So convincing, in fact, that most Catholics have trouble addressing it.
One approach, of course, would be to explain the Catholic moral/theological position on why contraception is inherently evil. But while absolutely true, that approach isn't terribly convincing to a non-Catholic, let alone a non-Christian. After all, logic and philosophy are easily dismissed as abstractions when human life is involved.
But the debate over condoms in Africa need never get to that point. In fact, the whole matter can be settled without ever bringing in moral theology. You see, the fatal flaw in the pro-condom argument is both simple and devastating: Condoms aren't working to stem AIDS in Africa.
Take for example a March 2004 article in the medical journal, Studies in Family Planning (cited by the Zenit News Agency, June 26, 2004). Titled "Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is It Working?," the piece was a meta-review of the scientific literature on the question.
The results shocked condom advocates. In the article, researchers Sanny Chen and Norman Hearst noted that, "In many sub-Saharan African countries, high HIV transmission rates have continued despite high rates of condom use." In fact, they continued, "No clear examples have emerged yet of a country that has turned back a generalized epidemic primarily by means of condom distribution."
No surprise, then, that Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa — the nations with the highest levels of condom availability — continue to have the highest rates of HIV prevalence ("The White House Initiative to Combat AIDS: Learning from Uganda," Joseph Loconte, Executive Summary Backgrounder).
How could this be? After all, we're told that condoms are 90% effective.
And that's precisely the problem.
This claim — so prevalent in condom-promotion literature — is actually a tremendous strike against using condoms to reduce AIDS. Think of it: Assuming that the 90% figure is accurate (a highly contested point), that means that 10% of the time, condoms don't offer protection against transmission.
That's one out of ten.
If you and I were to go skydiving, and I told you, "Don't worry... the parachutes work 90% of the time," how comfortable would you be making that jump?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You see, the pro-condom lobby's exaggerations over the effectiveness of its product is actually making the problem worse, for one simple reason: Condoms provide a false sense of security to those who use them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, of course, the fact that a condom fails to "work" doesn't mean the person will automatically contract HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, this is hardly the solution to the crisis.
You see, the pro-condom lobby's exaggerations over the effectiveness of its product is actually making the problem worse, for one simple reason: Condoms provide a false sense of security to those who use them. Being convinced of their effectiveness and feeling invulnerable, users will simply continue — or actually increase — their high-risk behavior. In this way, the claimed 90% effectiveness rate plummets in proportion to the increase in self-destructive behavior. This phenomenon is borne out in the countries that focus on condom distribution to fight the disease.
But while condoms clearly won't solve the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa (or anywhere else), there is an approach that will: abstinence. Indeed, in African nations — where HIV/AIDS is transmitted almost exclusively through sexual contact — abstinence is the obvious solution.
And better yet, it has been proven effective.
Uganda at one time had the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world. Starting in the mid to late 1980s, their government instituted a program to teach abstinence before marriage and fidelity to one's partner afterwards. They only reluctantly advised condoms for high risk groups (like prostitutes) whom they knew would not accept the other two approaches.
Billboards, radio announcements, print ads, and school programs all promoted the virtues of abstinence and fidelity to prevent HIV/AIDS.
The results were astonishing.
In 1991, the prevalence rate of HIV was 15%. By 2001, it had dropped to 5%. It was the biggest HIV infection reduction in world history.
Among pregnant women, the drop was even more dramatic (as reported by CNS News, January 13, 2003). In 1991, 21.2% of expecting mothers tested positive for HIV. By 2001, the number had plummeted to 6.2%. Compare this with the 2001 numbers from Kenya (15%), Zimbabwe (32%), and Botswana (38%). All three countries focus on condom distribution, and all three countries continue to see their rates rise.
But wait, the condom advocates object. The Ugandan "miracle" is simply the result of more widespread condom use.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You cannot show that more condoms have led to less AIDS in Africa.... I look at the data and I see that what might be called a more liberal response to AIDS — more and more millions or billions of condoms — has simply not worked, especially in parts of the world with the highest infection rate, Africa and the Caribbean."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not so, says Dr. Edward C. Green, an anthropologist at the Harvard University School of Public Health. Dr. Green was a strong proponent of condom distribution to stem HIV/AIDS... that is, until the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) hired him to study the reasons behind the success in Uganda.
The results of his research left him little doubt. "Reduction in the number of sexual partners was probably the single most important behavioral change that resulted in prevalence decline," he noted. "Abstinence was probably the second most important change" (testimony before the Subcommittee on African Affairs, as reported by Joseph Loconte).
"It is a very indicting statement about the effectiveness of condoms," he told Citizen Magazine. "You cannot show that more condoms have led to less AIDS in Africa.... I look at the data and I see that what might be called a more liberal response to AIDS — more and more millions or billions of condoms — has simply not worked, especially in parts of the world with the highest infection rate, Africa and the Caribbean."
Unfortunately, not everyone was pleased with Dr. Green's conclusions. USAID shelved his study and enlisted a well-known condom advocate and employee of ETR Associates (an organization dedicated to "safe-sex" education) to write a new one. Apparently, USAID wasn't concerned with the apparent conflict of interest.
This is especially tragic, as the effectiveness of abstinence and fidelity education has been demonstrated by numerous research groups. As Loconte notes, evidence for the success of Uganda's approach has come from "USAID, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Harvard Center for Population and Developmental Studies, the Ugandan government, and numerous independent studies published in medical journals."
Yet we're still told condom distribution is the solution to the AIDS crisis in Africa. And the Catholic Church is an easy media bogeyman, standing in the way of that effort.
Ironically enough, Uganda's successful approach is very close to that recommended by the Church. The only exception, of course, is the African country's concession to giving condoms to prostitutes. But if the people of that nation — and indeed, of the world at large — took seriously the Catholic notion of the dignity of women and the nature of sexual intercourse, that last point would be addressed as well.
But what about allowing condoms for faithful married couples, where one partner is HIV/AIDS positive? Isn't that reasonable?
Actually, it's not reasonable at all. Love requires sacrifice. And a person who claims to love another would never knowingly put his beloved in danger. But that's precisely what this approach does.
Imagine if I get drunk one night and drive my wife around town. That's not a loving act. And it doesn't suddenly become loving just because I tell her to put on her seatbelt. When an HIV/AIDS positive person has sex with someone who's free of the disease, he puts that person at grave risk. That's not love... that's selfishness.
In a marital situation where one spouse is HIV/AIDS positive and the other negative, the loving thing to do is to abstain from sex. In those cases, love must be shown in other ways, like the self-sacrifice that abstinence requires.
It's not easy, but real love rarely is.
I'll talk to you next week,
Brian
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Brian Saint-Paul. "Will Condoms Really Stop AIDS In Africa?" Crisis E-Letter (May 19, 2005).
This article is reprinted with permission from the Morley Institute a non-profit education organization. To subscribe to Crisis magazine call 1-800-852-9962.
Further Reading The “Social Vaccine”
The AIDS Pandemic: Saving the Next Generation Latex and Life Doubts About Condoms: Science Questioning Their Efficacy in Halting HIV/AIDS
Will Condoms Really Stop AIDS In Africa?
THE AUTHOR
Brian Saint-Paul is the editor of Crisis Magazine. http://www.insidecatholic.com/
Copyright © 2005 Crisis
If you've watched any of the mainstream news coverage of the Catholic Church in the past month, you've heard several charges repeated over and over: The Church needs to ordain women to address the vocation shortage... the Church needs to change its attitude on contraception and abortion to better accommodate modern realities... the Church needs to moderate its stance on homosexual behavior to be more inclusive... the Church needs to drop its claim to contain the fullness of salvation, since it hinders ecumenism.
Chances are, you're already well equipped to address these objections. But there's one charge that seems to throw Catholics for a loop.
It goes something like this:
By maintaining its ban on condom use, the Catholic Church is contributing to the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Condoms have been demonstrated to prevent infection 90% of the time. If the Vatican cared more about people's lives than a rigid doctrine that most Catholics reject, they'd make an exception to allow condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. Such a move would do more for "life" than would maintaining a position that allows millions to die as a result of unprotected sex.
Sounds convincing at first, doesn't it? So convincing, in fact, that most Catholics have trouble addressing it.
One approach, of course, would be to explain the Catholic moral/theological position on why contraception is inherently evil. But while absolutely true, that approach isn't terribly convincing to a non-Catholic, let alone a non-Christian. After all, logic and philosophy are easily dismissed as abstractions when human life is involved.
But the debate over condoms in Africa need never get to that point. In fact, the whole matter can be settled without ever bringing in moral theology. You see, the fatal flaw in the pro-condom argument is both simple and devastating: Condoms aren't working to stem AIDS in Africa.
Take for example a March 2004 article in the medical journal, Studies in Family Planning (cited by the Zenit News Agency, June 26, 2004). Titled "Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is It Working?," the piece was a meta-review of the scientific literature on the question.
The results shocked condom advocates. In the article, researchers Sanny Chen and Norman Hearst noted that, "In many sub-Saharan African countries, high HIV transmission rates have continued despite high rates of condom use." In fact, they continued, "No clear examples have emerged yet of a country that has turned back a generalized epidemic primarily by means of condom distribution."
No surprise, then, that Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa — the nations with the highest levels of condom availability — continue to have the highest rates of HIV prevalence ("The White House Initiative to Combat AIDS: Learning from Uganda," Joseph Loconte, Executive Summary Backgrounder).
How could this be? After all, we're told that condoms are 90% effective.
And that's precisely the problem.
This claim — so prevalent in condom-promotion literature — is actually a tremendous strike against using condoms to reduce AIDS. Think of it: Assuming that the 90% figure is accurate (a highly contested point), that means that 10% of the time, condoms don't offer protection against transmission.
That's one out of ten.
If you and I were to go skydiving, and I told you, "Don't worry... the parachutes work 90% of the time," how comfortable would you be making that jump?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You see, the pro-condom lobby's exaggerations over the effectiveness of its product is actually making the problem worse, for one simple reason: Condoms provide a false sense of security to those who use them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, of course, the fact that a condom fails to "work" doesn't mean the person will automatically contract HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, this is hardly the solution to the crisis.
You see, the pro-condom lobby's exaggerations over the effectiveness of its product is actually making the problem worse, for one simple reason: Condoms provide a false sense of security to those who use them. Being convinced of their effectiveness and feeling invulnerable, users will simply continue — or actually increase — their high-risk behavior. In this way, the claimed 90% effectiveness rate plummets in proportion to the increase in self-destructive behavior. This phenomenon is borne out in the countries that focus on condom distribution to fight the disease.
But while condoms clearly won't solve the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa (or anywhere else), there is an approach that will: abstinence. Indeed, in African nations — where HIV/AIDS is transmitted almost exclusively through sexual contact — abstinence is the obvious solution.
And better yet, it has been proven effective.
Uganda at one time had the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world. Starting in the mid to late 1980s, their government instituted a program to teach abstinence before marriage and fidelity to one's partner afterwards. They only reluctantly advised condoms for high risk groups (like prostitutes) whom they knew would not accept the other two approaches.
Billboards, radio announcements, print ads, and school programs all promoted the virtues of abstinence and fidelity to prevent HIV/AIDS.
The results were astonishing.
In 1991, the prevalence rate of HIV was 15%. By 2001, it had dropped to 5%. It was the biggest HIV infection reduction in world history.
Among pregnant women, the drop was even more dramatic (as reported by CNS News, January 13, 2003). In 1991, 21.2% of expecting mothers tested positive for HIV. By 2001, the number had plummeted to 6.2%. Compare this with the 2001 numbers from Kenya (15%), Zimbabwe (32%), and Botswana (38%). All three countries focus on condom distribution, and all three countries continue to see their rates rise.
But wait, the condom advocates object. The Ugandan "miracle" is simply the result of more widespread condom use.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You cannot show that more condoms have led to less AIDS in Africa.... I look at the data and I see that what might be called a more liberal response to AIDS — more and more millions or billions of condoms — has simply not worked, especially in parts of the world with the highest infection rate, Africa and the Caribbean."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not so, says Dr. Edward C. Green, an anthropologist at the Harvard University School of Public Health. Dr. Green was a strong proponent of condom distribution to stem HIV/AIDS... that is, until the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) hired him to study the reasons behind the success in Uganda.
The results of his research left him little doubt. "Reduction in the number of sexual partners was probably the single most important behavioral change that resulted in prevalence decline," he noted. "Abstinence was probably the second most important change" (testimony before the Subcommittee on African Affairs, as reported by Joseph Loconte).
"It is a very indicting statement about the effectiveness of condoms," he told Citizen Magazine. "You cannot show that more condoms have led to less AIDS in Africa.... I look at the data and I see that what might be called a more liberal response to AIDS — more and more millions or billions of condoms — has simply not worked, especially in parts of the world with the highest infection rate, Africa and the Caribbean."
Unfortunately, not everyone was pleased with Dr. Green's conclusions. USAID shelved his study and enlisted a well-known condom advocate and employee of ETR Associates (an organization dedicated to "safe-sex" education) to write a new one. Apparently, USAID wasn't concerned with the apparent conflict of interest.
This is especially tragic, as the effectiveness of abstinence and fidelity education has been demonstrated by numerous research groups. As Loconte notes, evidence for the success of Uganda's approach has come from "USAID, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Harvard Center for Population and Developmental Studies, the Ugandan government, and numerous independent studies published in medical journals."
Yet we're still told condom distribution is the solution to the AIDS crisis in Africa. And the Catholic Church is an easy media bogeyman, standing in the way of that effort.
Ironically enough, Uganda's successful approach is very close to that recommended by the Church. The only exception, of course, is the African country's concession to giving condoms to prostitutes. But if the people of that nation — and indeed, of the world at large — took seriously the Catholic notion of the dignity of women and the nature of sexual intercourse, that last point would be addressed as well.
But what about allowing condoms for faithful married couples, where one partner is HIV/AIDS positive? Isn't that reasonable?
Actually, it's not reasonable at all. Love requires sacrifice. And a person who claims to love another would never knowingly put his beloved in danger. But that's precisely what this approach does.
Imagine if I get drunk one night and drive my wife around town. That's not a loving act. And it doesn't suddenly become loving just because I tell her to put on her seatbelt. When an HIV/AIDS positive person has sex with someone who's free of the disease, he puts that person at grave risk. That's not love... that's selfishness.
In a marital situation where one spouse is HIV/AIDS positive and the other negative, the loving thing to do is to abstain from sex. In those cases, love must be shown in other ways, like the self-sacrifice that abstinence requires.
It's not easy, but real love rarely is.
I'll talk to you next week,
Brian
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Brian Saint-Paul. "Will Condoms Really Stop AIDS In Africa?" Crisis E-Letter (May 19, 2005).
This article is reprinted with permission from the Morley Institute a non-profit education organization. To subscribe to Crisis magazine call 1-800-852-9962.
Further Reading The “Social Vaccine”
The AIDS Pandemic: Saving the Next Generation Latex and Life Doubts About Condoms: Science Questioning Their Efficacy in Halting HIV/AIDS
Will Condoms Really Stop AIDS In Africa?
THE AUTHOR
Brian Saint-Paul is the editor of Crisis Magazine. http://www.insidecatholic.com/
Copyright © 2005 Crisis
9.07.2005
Sacrificing Humans to the Condom Gods
Is it flippant to wonder if the major international AIDS institutions, the United Nations and its many allied nongovernmental organizations, actually worship the condom? After all, they are willing to make sacrifices – human sacrifices – in the name of the condom. Right now, these groups are in the process of sacrificing the people of Uganda.
Uganda must be sacrificed because its AIDS rate is too low, and it is low because the government of Uganda decided almost from the beginning of the epidemic to seek to convince the general population to change its behaviors. School children were told to abstain and to delay sexual initiation. Married couples were told to remain faithful to one another. The school children listened; the couples listened, and Uganda escaped the epidemic that has devastated every other country in its region.
But this success through a veritable sexual counter-revolution could never be acceptable to the liberal and sexually liberated members of the international AIDS establishment, who needed to prove that the new norms of sexual promiscuity were not to blame for the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases, culminating in the AIDS epidemic, and that sexual promiscuity could even be made "safe" through a tiny piece of latex.
And so they have engaged in a massive campaign of misinformation that is now being advanced by sympathetic or ignorant media outlets almost every day of the week. They must turn reality on its head to make their case.
Propaganda: Condoms were responsible for the success in Uganda, and cases of AIDS may now increase because the Bush administration has begun to replace condoms with abstinence-only training. According to a August 30th story in the Guardian newspaper, "Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said US cuts in funding for condoms and an emphasis on promoting abstinence had contributed to a shortage of condoms in Uganda, one of the few African countries which has succeeded in reducing its AIDS rates. 'There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies],' Mr. Lewis said yesterday. 'To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa.'" According to Reuters, Lewis claimed that Bush's "distortion of the preventive apparatus . . . is resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred."
Reality: Abstinence and fidelity were responsible for the success in Uganda, and AIDS may now increase because Western institutions have insisted that condoms replace abstinence and fidelity training. According to Dr. Edward Green, a Harvard medical professor and an expert on Uganda, "Abstinence and fidelity objectives and indicators have been almost completely removed from Uganda's current national AIDS strategy (which were central to earlier strategies), apparently to appease the wazungu (foreign AIDS advisors)." And so there is the possibility that the West could use condoms to raise AIDS rates while at the same time blaming abstinence, in order to make the case for even more condoms.
Propaganda: It is more important to liberate Ugandan women from conventional marriage than it is to liberate Ugandan women from prostitution, since marriage is an enormous threat to women. According to Lewis, "As more and more research is done on the particular vulnerability of women to infection, we're learning more about the situations in which risk is paramount. And extraordinarily enough, according to UNAIDS, the risk is particularly high in apparently monogamous marriages and partnerships. Ironically, and lethally, in the age of AIDS in Africa, marriage can be dangerous to women's health. . . . There is virtually no defense against that reality: the power imbalance in marriage is too great to permit or to request the regular use of condoms. Thus it is that the classic 'ABC' intervention [Abstain, Be faithful, or use Condoms as a last resort] doesn't work in the one place where the risk for the woman may be greatest….A way must be found to allow the woman to protect herself, independent of male hegemony."
Reality: It is difficult to know whether this statement is simply chauvinist (men cannot remain faithful and do not care if they infect their wives), or chauvinist and racist (black men cannot remain faithful and do not care if they infect their wives). But the idea that married women are more vulnerable than prostitutes because some married men are promiscuous – when all men who frequent prostitutes are by definition promiscuous – is ridiculous.
Propaganda: The Christian beliefs of George W. Bush and the Ugandan first lady are guiding them to replace sound public health policy – again focused almost exclusively on the condom – with "abstinence only" religious doctrine. According to the Guardian, "Campaigners accuse Uganda's first lady, Janet Museveni, of being instrumental in the switch towards a policy of abstinence. Ugandan government officials say that her religious beliefs, stemming from being a born-again Christian, are central to her promotion of the message of abstinence."
Reality: It was traditional religious beliefs that guided the Ugandan government and its people to reduce sexual promiscuity so successfully in the late 1980s and 1990s.
In this perverse quest to prop up the condom, all things tied to self-control – the only sure way to avoid the sexual transmission of AIDS – are blamed for a disease spread primarily through a lack of self-control. Green is preparing for the worst: "I personally have been fearing an increase in national prevalence for a couple of years . . . If Uganda's AIDS program looks increasingly like that of any other African country (condoms, testing, pills), it would follow that Uganda would begin to have results like other African countries. . . . After a decade of unprecedented HIV prevalence decline, casual sex and HIV prevalence may now be on the rise. From what we have seen already, 'experts' are probably preparing to blame this on Uganda moving to 'abstinence only.'"
But is it possible that not everyone in the mainstream media has accepted this fiction? Last Tuesday, the same day that Reuters dutifully reported that, "US Abstinence Drive Hurts AIDS Fight – UN Official," the news service ran another story with the headline, "Topless Virgins Vie for King in AIDS-hit Swaziland." Apparently, "More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate. King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts. . . . Critics say [King] Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle . . . sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where 40 percent of adults live with HIV."
Were we supposed to compare the two articles, and notice that the UN and its friends can condemn Bush (who has pledged $15 billion to fight AIDS), Christianity, abstinence and fidelity in one article, while no Western critics could be found for the bizarre ritual of promiscuity in the other article? Were we supposed to notice that people like Lewis are fixated on Uganda, where the AIDS infection rate is 6 percent, instead of places like Swaziland, where the entire society may come crumbling down?
Douglas Sylva is Senior Fellow at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM). His e-mail address is dsylva@thefactis.org
More on UN Discrimination Against Abstinence Groups
Uganda must be sacrificed because its AIDS rate is too low, and it is low because the government of Uganda decided almost from the beginning of the epidemic to seek to convince the general population to change its behaviors. School children were told to abstain and to delay sexual initiation. Married couples were told to remain faithful to one another. The school children listened; the couples listened, and Uganda escaped the epidemic that has devastated every other country in its region.
But this success through a veritable sexual counter-revolution could never be acceptable to the liberal and sexually liberated members of the international AIDS establishment, who needed to prove that the new norms of sexual promiscuity were not to blame for the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases, culminating in the AIDS epidemic, and that sexual promiscuity could even be made "safe" through a tiny piece of latex.
And so they have engaged in a massive campaign of misinformation that is now being advanced by sympathetic or ignorant media outlets almost every day of the week. They must turn reality on its head to make their case.
Propaganda: Condoms were responsible for the success in Uganda, and cases of AIDS may now increase because the Bush administration has begun to replace condoms with abstinence-only training. According to a August 30th story in the Guardian newspaper, "Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said US cuts in funding for condoms and an emphasis on promoting abstinence had contributed to a shortage of condoms in Uganda, one of the few African countries which has succeeded in reducing its AIDS rates. 'There is no doubt in my mind that the condom crisis in Uganda is being driven by [US policies],' Mr. Lewis said yesterday. 'To impose a dogma-driven policy that is fundamentally flawed is doing damage to Africa.'" According to Reuters, Lewis claimed that Bush's "distortion of the preventive apparatus . . . is resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred."
Reality: Abstinence and fidelity were responsible for the success in Uganda, and AIDS may now increase because Western institutions have insisted that condoms replace abstinence and fidelity training. According to Dr. Edward Green, a Harvard medical professor and an expert on Uganda, "Abstinence and fidelity objectives and indicators have been almost completely removed from Uganda's current national AIDS strategy (which were central to earlier strategies), apparently to appease the wazungu (foreign AIDS advisors)." And so there is the possibility that the West could use condoms to raise AIDS rates while at the same time blaming abstinence, in order to make the case for even more condoms.
Propaganda: It is more important to liberate Ugandan women from conventional marriage than it is to liberate Ugandan women from prostitution, since marriage is an enormous threat to women. According to Lewis, "As more and more research is done on the particular vulnerability of women to infection, we're learning more about the situations in which risk is paramount. And extraordinarily enough, according to UNAIDS, the risk is particularly high in apparently monogamous marriages and partnerships. Ironically, and lethally, in the age of AIDS in Africa, marriage can be dangerous to women's health. . . . There is virtually no defense against that reality: the power imbalance in marriage is too great to permit or to request the regular use of condoms. Thus it is that the classic 'ABC' intervention [Abstain, Be faithful, or use Condoms as a last resort] doesn't work in the one place where the risk for the woman may be greatest….A way must be found to allow the woman to protect herself, independent of male hegemony."
Reality: It is difficult to know whether this statement is simply chauvinist (men cannot remain faithful and do not care if they infect their wives), or chauvinist and racist (black men cannot remain faithful and do not care if they infect their wives). But the idea that married women are more vulnerable than prostitutes because some married men are promiscuous – when all men who frequent prostitutes are by definition promiscuous – is ridiculous.
Propaganda: The Christian beliefs of George W. Bush and the Ugandan first lady are guiding them to replace sound public health policy – again focused almost exclusively on the condom – with "abstinence only" religious doctrine. According to the Guardian, "Campaigners accuse Uganda's first lady, Janet Museveni, of being instrumental in the switch towards a policy of abstinence. Ugandan government officials say that her religious beliefs, stemming from being a born-again Christian, are central to her promotion of the message of abstinence."
Reality: It was traditional religious beliefs that guided the Ugandan government and its people to reduce sexual promiscuity so successfully in the late 1980s and 1990s.
In this perverse quest to prop up the condom, all things tied to self-control – the only sure way to avoid the sexual transmission of AIDS – are blamed for a disease spread primarily through a lack of self-control. Green is preparing for the worst: "I personally have been fearing an increase in national prevalence for a couple of years . . . If Uganda's AIDS program looks increasingly like that of any other African country (condoms, testing, pills), it would follow that Uganda would begin to have results like other African countries. . . . After a decade of unprecedented HIV prevalence decline, casual sex and HIV prevalence may now be on the rise. From what we have seen already, 'experts' are probably preparing to blame this on Uganda moving to 'abstinence only.'"
But is it possible that not everyone in the mainstream media has accepted this fiction? Last Tuesday, the same day that Reuters dutifully reported that, "US Abstinence Drive Hurts AIDS Fight – UN Official," the news service ran another story with the headline, "Topless Virgins Vie for King in AIDS-hit Swaziland." Apparently, "More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate. King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts. . . . Critics say [King] Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle . . . sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where 40 percent of adults live with HIV."
Were we supposed to compare the two articles, and notice that the UN and its friends can condemn Bush (who has pledged $15 billion to fight AIDS), Christianity, abstinence and fidelity in one article, while no Western critics could be found for the bizarre ritual of promiscuity in the other article? Were we supposed to notice that people like Lewis are fixated on Uganda, where the AIDS infection rate is 6 percent, instead of places like Swaziland, where the entire society may come crumbling down?
Douglas Sylva is Senior Fellow at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM). His e-mail address is dsylva@thefactis.org
More on UN Discrimination Against Abstinence Groups
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