Don’t think we’re letting men who have bareback sex off the hook here — they’re a big part of the problem. But why do communities actively targeted by religious conservatives, who ensure a good chance at an absolutely fucked up childhoods for families who believe the gospel, wind up with higher HIV rates?
We’re talking about gay men, whose HIV-positive rates are higher than the straight community in the Western world. And then there are gay (or “same-gender loving”) black men, whose rates are disproportionately higher than gays as a whole. Might all this have something to do with the fearmongering going on in the church about the homosexual lifestyle?
It’s question former White House science adviser and current San Francisco AIDS Foundation executive Dr. Judith Auerbach is trying to answer. On a visit to this week’s 2009 Australasian Sexual Health and HIV conference, she told attendees: “HIV infection rates among gay men have increased steadily since the 1990s, while they’ve declined among most other population groups. The epidemic is still overwhelmingly among gay men [and linked to higher rates of depression and alcohol and substance abuse]. It’s all connected to being gay in a homo-negative culture. The background of gay men’s lives can have an ultimately very complicated pathway to acquisition and transmission of HIV. Everything from child sexual abuse, to being bullied in school, to other ways you could define homo-negativity, the ways dominant culture is negative to homosexuality and is played out by bullies, has a relationship to adult behaviours that lead to HIV risk.”
It’s an interesting theory. By cultivating an anti-gay culture, religious types foster a feedback loop that says “gay is bad.” This helps us hate ourselves, which is an easy road map to depression and drug abuse, both of which themselves can lead the way to the type of sex lifestyle that puts you at risk for contracting HIV. (We know, we’re making pretty hefty leaps in just a few words here, but there’s more than anecdotal evidence showing how this works.)
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Does this let gay men off the hook for getting high on crystal and letting a half dozen men breed them? Of course not. We’re all adults, and responsible for our own actions. But taken in the aggregate, and especially when teamed with HIV data among black gays — and measured against vehement anti-gay messaging from black churches — it’s easy to see a pattern emerge.
There are a million reasons to dump on religious conservatives for their treatment of gay Americans. From their active role in fighting marriage equality to their continued insistence that we can be cured of our gayness. And while it’s ridiculous to think all of our HIV problems are the fault of the church, certainly manipulating Jesus’ teachings into an anti-gay megaphone isn’t helping matters.
So, can we blame the Roman Catholics for our HIV epidemic? Maybe in part, but even partial responsibility only gets us so far. But no, their anti-gay teachings, abstinence only education, and role in tearing families apart (when they should be building them) certainly violates whatever oath they made with their creator to love thy neighbor.
InlandEmpire
I believe we are responsible for our own actions. At the same time I believe the ultra right wing Christan churches are not helping solve the problem. They say gays are going to hell. If we believe that, we might as well have all the fun while on earth because we are not going straight!
Bill
It doesn’t’ really take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you teach your gay children to hate themselves that, duh, they will grow up to hate themselves.
This, of course, does not take the responsibility off of gay men to protect themselves. However, when you are taught day after day and year after year and decade after decade by your own family and by society that your life is worthless and meaningless, a human being might actually start to BELIEVE that.
And when Heterosexuals send these young, abused, damaged gay children out into the world with the knowledge that humankind despises them and not only wishes them harm, but actually wishes for their death, well, you do the math, folks.
Don’t these ‘science’ people realize that they are studying the WRONG THING. It is not Homosexuals that need to be studied. It is HETEROSEXUALS that need some lab work, here. Why isn’t anyone studying the character-flawed Heterosexual and their ability to treat the very Gay & Lesbian children that Heterosexuals themselves created in such vile and immoral ways? THAT is what we need an antidote for. The absolutely immoral treatment of Gay & Lesbian children by the very people that CREATE Gay & Lesbian children.
And I’ll bet that has never even crossed a Heterosexual mind.
TomEM
Yes.
Bill Perdue
Definitely. Until the day I die I’ll remember the laughing faces of pigs like Pat Robertson, Dobson, Jerry Falwell and most christer leaders on TV laughing and chortling about AIDS, calling it gawd’s punishment.
Anti-GLBT bigotry has been a factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS since it first appeared on the scene and a major factor inhibiting research and treatment since then.
The situation is particularly bad in regions once subject to European colonial rule. In Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, “The head of the Catholic Church… told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.
Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected “in order to finish quickly the African people”.
The Catholic Church formally opposes any use of condoms, advising fidelity within marriage or sexual abstinence.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7014335.stm
Southern baptist cult hustler Rick Warren, Obama’s not so strange bed partner, is a key figure in the effort to kill Africans by promoting abstinence and in promoting violence against GLBT folks there. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-07/the-truth-about-rick-warren-in-africa/
In many countries, notably South Africa, the medical system has collapsed entirely under the strain of treating HIV/AIDS.
But it’s not entirely an issue of the madness of christians. It’s also a deliberate attitude of ‘malign neglect’ on the part of governments. In the US both Democrats and Republicans shy away from denouncing the idiocy of abstinence and promoting massive reality-based education along with condoms and needle exchanges. Pharmaceutical companies contribute to the problem by emphasizing the sale of their vastly overpriced palliatives instead of a campaign for a cure and a vaccine.
sebastian
all religious people are creepy and hypocrites.
Bill
I was recently in South Africa. While I was there, the Pope was also there.
And he was there to inform South Africans that they should NOT be using condoms and that condoms did NOT help in the prevention of HIV/AIDS. I saw/heard the Pope make this statement myself, with my own eyes and ears. And I cried.
If this man is not Satan himself, I do not know who is.
It was one of the most sickening things I have ever been witness to.
Matt
It is stupid to blame religious nuts for gay men’s irresponsible behavior. People need to take responsibility for their own self-destructive indulgences.
And it’s even more stupid to say that “bareback sex” is just “a big part of the problem.” Try 98% of the problem, the other 2% being IV drug use.
If everybody would just use condoms anytime they have sex outside of a long-term, monogamous relationship, HIV could disappear in our lifetime.
J. Clarence
Queerty, I think you are making some pretty big leaps in the reasoning here, but overall I agree with the message. If a person has been told that being gay is bad by their parents and other authority figures like priests it would effect them likely in bad ways down the road.
One thing that would be interesting to look at is where we see the highest rate of new per-capita infections, is it predominately urban/metropolitan areas–which tend to be more progressive–or socially conservative areas where people face far greater social denouncement. Overall, in America today I do not think we live in as a homophobic, or “homo-negative”, culture as we used to; and religion also plays less and less of a role in our lives (unless you are part of the religious evangelical movement).
And then we would have to couple that to the fact that we do not live in the midst of the AIDS scare like we used to, promiscuity is high not just in the gay community, and many other forms of transmission, i.e., needles disproportionately effect certain people, etc etc.
So I guess I don’t know. The Doctor is certainly on to something, especially as you said relates to African-American men being on “down low”; however, I have doubts that we could chalk all of that, or so much of it, up simply to “homo-negativity”. After all that wasn’t want caused the AIDS crisis, and those were some really “homo-negative” times, but rather misinformation, ignorance, and lots and lots of sex.
Adam
Society and religion are certainly not completely at fault for gay men behaving irresponsibly and recklessly, but they do share in the fault. When gay youths grow up knowing that they are valued less as human beings, then it is reasonable to expect them to behave as such. Internalized homophobia can drive people to value their own lives less.
HoldnoPunches
People are responsible for their actions–period. You make the decision to engage in that activity, whatever you catch you deserve. You can play the blame game until you fall dead, won’t change the fact that YOU made the CHOICE to do it, so you get what you got. DEAL WITH IT!
WillBFair
This was obvious in ’81 when AIDS began and the community turned a blind ear when we begged them get responsible. Now 18 years later, We’re still waiting for peer group pressure to kick in. If it had then, there would be no AIDS in the community. Once we had learned the transmission method, the available strategies were obvious.
They haven’t changed: monogamy with condoms until trust is made, serial monogamy with condoms always, free love with condoms, positive men going only with each other, negative men going only with each other and always with condoms, and everyone throwing attitude at anyone who behaves badly. That’s not so complicated, is it?
But of course, there’ll be the self destructive crowd saying it’s against the gay identity, or it’s too assimilationist, or some other bulls–t rationalization. Even here there are plenty who want to keep the focus on the religious right instead of thinking about what we as adults can do now to fix the problem. Yes, the right got to us when we were young. And yes we’re full of internalized homophobia. But it’s time to put away the self hatred and act like caring, responsible adults. Now.
Jason
@ No. 9 · HoldnoPunches
Wow. Speechless.
With your brand of intelligence, you’re destined for public office, dude.
Bill
No. 10 · WillBFair
I agree with you totally. My post (NO. 2) regarding religion and it’s damage to gay people also stated that it is up to us to protect ourselves. That seems like a no-brainer to me. But to a lot of gay men, not so much. HIV continues to destroy us. Because we let it. Certainly religion plays a role in that. I remember quite clearly this nation’s spiritual leaders proclaiming HIV as god’s wrath toward gay people. They IGNORED us while we died by the THOUSANDS. The churches did NOTHING. Our Government did NOTHING. I was only 10 years old then. It changed my life to hear that. It changed who I was and who I became. Luckily for me, my life changed in great ways, but for many who don’t get so lucky, they are left alone and in despair. And when 2 human beings from that background come together and are so desperate to feel loved, perhaps they make different decisions than you or I would.
However, it seems that now that we are are grown-up gay men living our own gay lives many of us seem to have completely forgotten about the young gay children who are being forever damaged and abused by religion at this very minute. Once upon a time, those children were US. And with the existence of HIV/AIDS in today’s world, it is a crime against humanity to be abusing young gay men from the time they are little children until they are turned out into a world that will be just as cruel to them as their very own families often are. Many people are simply not strong enough to withstand that type of abuse on a daily basis. And so, they perhaps would not place enough value on their very own life to practice safer sex, let alone monogamy. This is not a pardon. I believe it is up to each of us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and move forward in our lives despite what we have been through, so that we leave something for the young gay children out there to look up to and to look FORWARD to, not something to be asahamed of and despise. Because they are already being taught to despise themselves. At school. At church. In their very own homes.
I lived that life for nearly 18 years. And it nearly destroyed me. It makes me sick that thousands of kids are going through it right now.
So while I certainly do not blame the Holy Ghost for some tool being too stupid to put a rubber on his dick, I certainly DO blame religion for the advocation and continuation of this absolutely vile and immoral behavior on the part of the majority of Heterosexuals and their abuse of gay people. That abuse is not without consequences for us all. And what else besides religion could cause a Heterosexual to create a child, then hate it, abuse it, and abandon it when they discover he/she is gay. What kind of people do this?
Nothing but religion could accomplish that. And it is disgusting.
WillBFair
I disagree.
You seem to despise all religion. But it’s right wingers that harm us, religious and non religious right wingers.
I think going on and on and on about religion as a monolithic evil is inaccurate and a distraction. It’s the same tactic the self destructive have used from day one. Oh let’s fixate on religion. Or let’s blame the government. Please.
I also think the focus on individuals, as you and Holdnopunches do, is another mistake. It’s only partly about individuals. It’s more about the community, and what we as a people will do to fix this problem.
Bill
I do despise all religion. But I love God. Go figure.
And I stand by what I said.
Whoopsie!
@Bill:
You may want to reach for those tissues again:
washingtonpost.com > ColumnsThe Pope May Be Right
By Edward C. Green
Sunday, March 29, 2009; Page A15
When Pope Benedict XVI commented this month that condom distribution isn’t helping, and may be worsening, the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, he set off a firestorm of protest. Most non-Catholic commentary has been highly critical of the pope. A cartoon in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted in The Post, showed the pope somewhat ghoulishly praising a throng of sick and dying Africans: “Blessed are the sick, for they have not used condoms.”
Yet, in truth, current empirical evidence supports him.
We liberals who work in the fields of global HIV/AIDS and family planning take terrible professional risks if we side with the pope on a divisive topic such as this. The condom has become a symbol of freedom and — along with contraception — female emancipation, so those who question condom orthodoxy are accused of being against these causes. My comments are only about the question of condoms working to stem the spread of AIDS in Africa’s generalized epidemics — nowhere else.
In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations’ AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called “Reassessing HIV Prevention” 10 AIDS experts concluded that “consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Let me quickly add that condom promotion has worked in countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, where most HIV is transmitted through commercial sex and where it has been possible to enforce a 100 percent condom use policy in brothels (but not outside of them). In theory, condom promotions ought to work everywhere. And intuitively, some condom use ought to be better than no use. But that’s not what the research in Africa shows.
Why not?
One reason is “risk compensation.” That is, when people think they’re made safe by using condoms at least some of the time, they actually engage in riskier sex.
Another factor is that people seldom use condoms in steady relationships because doing so would imply a lack of trust. (And if condom use rates go up, it’s possible we are seeing an increase of casual or commercial sex.) However, it’s those ongoing relationships that drive Africa’s worst epidemics. In these, most HIV infections are found in general populations, not in high-risk groups such as sex workers, gay men or persons who inject drugs. And in significant proportions of African populations, people have two or more regular sex partners who overlap in time. In Botswana, which has one of the world’s highest HIV rates, 43 percent of men and 17 percent of women surveyed had two or more regular sex partners in the previous year.
These ongoing multiple concurrent sex partnerships resemble a giant, invisible web of relationships through which HIV/AIDS spreads. A study in Malawi showed that even though the average number of sexual partners was only slightly over two, fully two-thirds of this population was interconnected through such networks of overlapping, ongoing relationships.
So what has worked in Africa? Strategies that break up these multiple and concurrent sexual networks — or, in plain language, faithful mutual monogamy or at least reduction in numbers of partners, especially concurrent ones. “Closed” or faithful polygamy can work as well.
In Uganda’s early, largely home-grown AIDS program, which began in 1986, the focus was on “Sticking to One Partner” or “Zero Grazing” (which meant remaining faithful within a polygamous marriage) and “Loving Faithfully.” These simple messages worked. More recently, the two countries with the highest HIV infection rates, Swaziland and Botswana, have both launched campaigns that discourage people from having multiple and concurrent sexual partners.
Don’t misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship. This was a key point in a 2004 “consensus statement” published and endorsed by some 150 global AIDS experts, including representatives the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank. These experts also affirmed that for sexually active adults, the first priority should be to promote mutual fidelity. Moreover, liberals and conservatives agree that condoms cannot address challenges that remain critical in Africa such as cross-generational sex, gender inequality and an end to domestic violence, rape and sexual coercion.
Surely it’s time to start providing more evidence-based AIDS prevention in Africa.
The writer is a senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Whoopsie!
@Bill:
Q: “If this man is not Satan himself, I do not know who is.”
A: You!
Harvard Researcher agrees with Pope on condoms in Africa
March 23, 2009
Cambridge, Mass., Mar 21, 2009 / 10:11 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict’s recent brief remark against condoms has caused an uproar in the press, but several prominent scientists dedicated to preventing AIDS are defending the Pope, saying he was correct in his analysis. In an interview with CNA, Dr. Edward Green explained that although condoms should work, in theory, they may be “exacerbating the problem” in Africa.
Benedict XVI’s Tuesday comments on condoms were made as part of his explanation of the Church’s two prong approach to fighting AIDS. At one point in his response the Pontiff stressed that AIDS cannot be overcome by advertising slogans and distributing condoms and argued that they “worsen the problem.” The media responded with an avalanche of over 4,000 articles on the subject, calling Benedict a “threat to public health,” and saying that the Catholic Church should “enter the 21st century.”
Senior Harvard Research Scientist for AIDS Prevention, Dr. Edward Green, who is the author of five books, including “Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries” discussed his support for Pope Benedict XVI’s comments with CNA.
According to Dr. Green, science is finding that the media is actually on the wrong side of the issue. In fact, Green says that not only do condoms not work, but that they may be “exacerbating the problem” in Africa.
“Theoretically, condoms ought to work,” he explained to CNA, “and theoretically, some condom use ought to be better than no condom use, but that’s theoretically.”
Condom proponents often cite the lack of condom education as the main culprit for higher AIDS rates in Africa but Green disagrees.
After spending 25 years promoting condoms for family planning purposes in Africa, he insists that he’s quite familiar with condom promotion. Yet, he claims that “anyone who worked in family planning knew that if you needed to prevent a pregnancy, say the woman will die, you don’t recommend a condom.”
Green recalls that when the AIDS epidemic hit Africa, the “Industry” began using AIDS as a “dual purpose” marketing strategy to get more funding for condom distribution. This, he claims, effectively took “something that was a 2nd or 3rd grade device for avoiding unwanted pregnancies” and turned it into the “best weapon we [had] against AIDS.”
The accepted wisdom in the scientific community, explained Green, is that condoms lower the HIV infection rate, but after numerous studies, researchers have found the opposite to be true. “We just cannot find an association between more condom use and lower HIV reduction rates” in Africa. [There seems to be a typo here. It should say “lower HIV infection rates.”]
Dr. Green found that part of the elusive reason is a phenomenon known as risk compensation or behavioral disinhibition.
“[Risk compensation] is the idea that if somebody is using a certain technology to reduce risk, a phenomenon actually occurs where people are willing to take on greater risk.” The idea can be related to someone that puts on sun block and is willing to stay out in the sun longer because they have added protection. In this case, however, the greater risk is sexual. Because people are willing take on more risk, they may “disproportionally erase” the benefits of condom use, Green said.
Another factor that contributes to ineffective condom use in Africa, is the phenomenon where condoms may be effective on an “individual level,” but not on a “population level.” Green’s research found that “condoms have been effective” in HIV concentrated areas where high risk activities are already being conducted, such as brothels in countries like Thailand.
Claiming to be a liberal himself, Green asserts that promoting Western “liberal ideology” where, “most Africans are conservative when it comes to sexual behavior,” is quite offensive to them. Citing his new book, “Indigenous Theories and Contagious Disease,” Green described Africans as “very religious by global standards” who are offended by “trucks going around where people are dancing to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’, tossing out condoms to teenagers and the children of the village.”
Green also noted that there is an ideology called “harm reduction” that is being pushed by many organizations trying to prevent AIDS. The ideology believes that “you can’t change the underlying behavior, that you can’t get people to be faithful, especially Africans,” the HIV specialist explained.
One country, Uganda, recognized these issues and said, “Listen, if you have multiple sex partners, you are going to get AIDS.” What worked in Uganda, a country that has seen a decline by as much as 2/3 in AIDS infections, was that officials realized that even aside from religious and cultural reasons, “no one likes condoms.” Instead of waiting for “American and European advisors to arrive,” Ugandan officials reacted and developed a program that fit their culture; their main message being “stick to one partner or love faithfully.”
However, in 2004, Uganda’s AIDS infection rates began to increase once again, due to an influx of condoms and Western “advice”, Green recalled. Western donors also came to Uganda and said behavioral change doesn’t work and that, “most infections nowadays are among married people.” Green said these claims are “misleading,” pointing out that “married people always have lower HIV infection rates than single or divorced people of the same age group.”
Green’s new book, “AIDS and Ideology,” to be completed in the next few months, will describe the industry in Africa that is “drawing billions of dollars a year promoting condoms, testing, drugs, and treatment of AIDS” and is clearly resistant to the idea that behavioral change is the solution.
Yet the two countries that have the highest infection rate of AIDS in the world, Botswana and Swaziland, have recently launched campaigns to promote fidelity and monogamy, the Harvard researcher said. These countries “have learned the hard way” about the failure of condoms in preventing AIDS, he said, noting that “Botswana has probably had more condom promotion” than any other county on a per capita basis. Green said he had no problem “having condoms as a backup to fidelity-based programs.”
According to Green, the Catholic Church should continue to “do what it is already doing,” avoid “arguing about the diameter of viruses” and cite scientific evidence in connection with scripture and moral theology.
Whoopsie!
@Bill:
“And I stand by what I said.”
Well then! Looks like we have an embarrassment fail in 3 2 1…
Pope was right about AIDS: Harvard scientist
Published: August 28, 2009
The director of Harvard’s AIDS Prevention Research Project, Edward Green, has told a Rome conference that Benedict’s position on AIDS and condoms is correct.
Green stated this in an address at the 30th annual Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples in Rimini, sponsored by the lay movement, Communion and Liberation, ZENIT reports.
Green, an expert on AIDS prevention, said that “as a scientist he was amazed to see the closeness between what the Pope said last March in Cameroon and the results of the most recent scientific discoveries.”
“The condom does not prevent AIDS. Only responsible sexual behavior can address the pandemic,” he said.
“When Benedict XVI said that different sexual behavior should be adopted in Africa, because to put trust in condoms does not serve to fight against AIDS, the international press was scandalized.”
“To propose the regular use of the condom as prevention in Africa could have the opposite effect.”
He explained the phenomenon of human behavior called “risk compensation,” whereby a person “feels protected and thus exposes himself more.”
The researcher and medical anthropologist asked: “Why has an attempt not been made to change people’s customs?”
“The world industry has taken many years to understand that measures of a technical and medical character are of no use to solve the problem,” he added.
Green highlighted the successful policies that have been implemented in Uganda to battle AIDS, programs based in the “ABC” strategy: “Abstain, Be faithful, and, as a last resource, use a Condom.”
He reported: “In the case of Uganda, an impressive result has been obtained in the fight against AIDS
Bill Perdue
@Whoopsie!: What unutterable bullshit. Thank you father whoopsie for making an ass of yourself and all the catholic clergy.
Green is hardly a casual or neutral commenter on this question. He was appointed by Bush to his Presidential Advisory Council for HIV/AIDS and the Advisory Council of the Office of AIDS Research, HHS. What’s more Green is not an MD or epidemiologist -and it shows. He got his Ph.D. in anthropology from the Catholic University of America and is a firm believer that “western medicine and traditional sub-Saharan African healing should work together rather than compete.”
Green has impeccable credentials in the superstitious community. According to The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights Green says that “basic behavioral changes in Uganda of 1987-95 kept HIV prevalence declining up until now.” He adds that “reason why the progress that has been made is now in jeopardy has more to do with dropping the emphasis on abstinence.” This is the essence of the Bush/Ratzinger hoax about preventing HIV/AIDS.
According to a Mr. Sylva, vice president of the another papal front group, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, the most important audience for Greens thinking “is the Bush administration.” http://nationalreview.com/book…..301423.asp
In other words, Green is a shill for Ratzinger and the late unlamented Bush Administration.
“A shill is an associate of a political group, who pretends no association to the group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic supporter. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to support the political group’s ideological claims.”
People the world over who accept superstitious catholic hokum will fall victim to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Catholic clerics are killers as well as boy rapists.
cedar chest
We are responsible of our actions. And if there is someone who is to be blamed for all of this, it is us.
WillBFair
Thanks Cedar Chest for bringing the discussion back to reality. I think these folk trying to make us obsess on religion are trolls sent here to confuse the issue. It is and has always been about individual and community responsibility.
Bill Perdue
@WillBFair: and @cedar chest: are both liars. Rightwing cults combine with right wing politicians to put out confusing information, or no information, or in case of the roman cult, lots of lies about the transmission of HIV/AIDS. They try to stop the use of condoms and needle exchanges.
You can’t separate right centrist politicians from the right wing christians. They’re welded, fused and interpenetrated. They’re as tight as Warren and Obama or Bush and Robertson. They long ago united as our enemy.
On another subject, why do the catholic cult and their prot cousins oppose needle exchanges, condoms and even the use of HIV meds? They appear to want as many people of color and gay men as possible to die from HIV/AIDS. What other explanation is there for their deliberate attempts to spread the plague and prevent the use of meds to keep HIV from developing in AIDS.
Are they racist pigs along with all their other crimes? Is that why Ratzi is given a pass by WillBFair, who, like all homohaters, blames us for HIV/AIDs.
Der Papenfuehrer, and all his bishops, plus southern baptists like Rick Warren should be hauled before the International Court at the Hague as accessories to mass murder.
Bob R
Wow, this is a very complex subject. Does anti-gay religion figure into the higher HIV rates among gays equation? Yes, I think it does. But, not to the extent that many would like to believe. Full disclosure, I must confess I find all religion more bad than good and religious people, in my opinion are delusional. The more religious, the greater the state of delusion. I also don’t believe in tolerating religion’s intolerance. It must be confronted at every opportunity. Reagan and his ilk firmly believed AIDS was god’s retribution against homosexuals. Many still do. This loving and forgiving god of theirs never has any problems visiting plagues and death upon those he doesn’t like. Killing even innocent women and children is fully acceptable. This is the kind of poison that has been ingested by much of our population. One of it’s manifestations is homophobia and homophobia does kill in insidious ways. Opposing HIV education, needle exchanges and other programs are examples.
I spent years working on the front lines of HIV/AIDS wars, testing and counseling both for Federal, State and community based programs in a major metropolitan area. In the beginning, I think the churches and fundamentalist churches, including the Catholic church contributed to the acceleration of AIDS not only in America, but around the globe. Those folks still work their wicked ways in this area. I agree with Christopher Hitchen’s observation that “religion poisons everything.”
But there is also a very strong case to be made for personal responsibility. When we point that one finger at religion, there are still three fingers pointing at us. It’s no secret that while not an absolute guarantee, safer sex does reduce the spread of HIV. People may choose to play Russian roulette with their body and ignore safer sex guidelines and celebrate promiscuity. It only takes one slip up to be fatal. Bare-backing is suicide. Sharing drug “works” is suicide. If you choose not to practice safer sex and limit your partners, can you really blame the church?
There is also misinformation and misconception to blame. The drug companies promote their HIV medications not by showing the damage these medications cause and some of their more vicious side effects for the user. They choose to show robust, handsome presumably gay men touting how easy it is to control HIV. Sort of like Diabetes, while there is no cure, we can control it. Sometimes. The common though among many young gay men is, well, “you have to die of something” and if they do get the virus “I’ll have to take a couple pills every day.” So, we have created an atmosphere where HIV is no big deal.
Happily, I’m HIV negative. I’m also an atheist. So should I become infected in the future, could I legitimately blame god or the church or should I take the responsibility for my fate?
Bill Perdue
father @Whoopsie!: is not a very smart troll. I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that his ‘expert’ is not epidemiologist or even an MD, but a fraudulent, right wing ‘anthropologist’ of sorts who toadies for der Papenfuehrer and George Bush. He’s like one of those insurance company ‘expert witnesses’, willing to sell out for a few bucks and screw the public.
So with typical catholic ‘logic’ father whoopsie concludes that I advocate unsafe sex. Of course I don’t. I leave that up to rabid anti-GLBT vermin like the pope and his unholy collection of child abusers. Advocating abstinence, opposing the use of condoms and needles and telling people that their meds are poisoned is the catholic response to HIV/AIDS. It’s on a par with their fine record during the Inquisition and in supporting the Nazis.
Whoopsie!
@Bill Perdue:
Wow…you are really not very good at this, are you.
OK, here goes, even though it is pretty much shooting fish in a barrel:
Re: “I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt”: No, what you did is endeavor, with a conspicuous lack of success, to impugn someone’s conclusions on the basis of the person’s credentials and personal history. Back in the old neighborhood, we used to call that ad hominem argument. It doesn’t work. In fact, it is a fairly entry-level mistake.
To all the people out there who are not looking at this issue through Bill’s psychologically diseased lens, please ask yourselves:
1. If what Bill says is true, why would Harvard keep this person in charge of their HIV/AIDS work?
2. If what Bill says is true, why would The Washington Post, which is no friend of Catholicism, affirm, rather than contradict, the Harvard scientist’s claims?
3. If what Bill says is true, would that, by itself, constitute an argument against the Harvard scientist’s claims?
4. If what Bill says is true, how do you account for the fact that the Harvard scientist’s arguments rest not exclusively on his own findings, but on those of epidemiologists as a community?
5. If what Bill says is true, why would he try to psych you out with distractions about trolling and Nazis?
Bill, don’t try to f-up a younger generation the way you f-ed up yourself.
The fact that you are ill does not mean that they have to be, and it is simply evil to try to pull them down into your illness rather than uplift them.
Young people, you are responsible for your actions. You are capable of self-restraint. You are capable of good judgment. You are capable of seeing clearly. And of having a long, happy life.
Bill Perdue
father @Whoopsie!: screws up again.
If what Bill says is true, why would Harvard keep this person in charge of their HIV/AIDS work? If Harvard was the font of all wisdom why did it take them until 2005 to kick out President Summers, a despicable racist and misogynist. Lots of right wing dummies with tenure inhabit the halls of academia.
Who cares what the WP ‘affirms’? If they did it editorially then they’re as wrong as der Papenfuehrer. Did they ‘affirm’ editorially?
father whoopises ‘expert’ has been conclusively exposed as a crackpot for sale to the highest bidder.
father whoopsie says I’m fucked up. All the homohating catholic bigots say that about gay men. We dismiss them out of hand. Save it for next Sundays mass, bigot, because it won’t work here.
[img]https://s3.amazonaws.com/Rookery/1103000/1103110_2fe4_625x1000.jpg?[/img]
Phoenix (Howdy Partners, Is That A Gun In Your Pocket Or Are You Happy To See Me?)
Religion has played a huge role in the rate of HIV infection! Have you people been asleep for the entire Bush administration? For the past eight years fundamentalist Christians have run our schools and taught abstinence only sex ed. They tell teenagers that condoms (and birth control) don’t work and the only thing that will keep them from contracting an STD (or getting pregnant) is taking a virginity pledge and saving themselves for marriage! They tell young people blatant lies about sexual health and block access to contraceptives (and family planning). Kids are not stupid. They know that they won’t immediately get pregnant and/or fall over dead if they have sex one time….so they keep having sex….without condoms (or birth control) because they’ve been told those things won’t protect them. Why do you think the infection rate of STDs and teenage pregnancies are out of control in bible belt states? Because the Theocrats promote ‘values’ and ‘morals’ over science and biology in health classes.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/the-truth-at-last-abstinence-onl.html
Sarah
The reason abstinence only education doesn’t work here is because it is only taught in schools. Everywhere else sexual promiscuity is encouraged. Society itself needs to change, not just education. That means a grassroots movement of people taking responsibility for their actions, not assuming that pleasure gratification equals happiness, and willing to ignore narcissistic outlets like MTV. Seriously, I’m sick of this cynical bullshit that we don’t have self control and we should just settle for being less.
Also, even if you think that Dr.Green is a biased Catholic bushlover, you are still entirely capable of looking up his evidence yourself. The fact that Botswana and Swaziland are changing their policies and that Uganda has been more successful is reason enough to look into it. They are entire countries, not test tubes he tampered with in lab, I’m sure there are other statistics out there. Or are you too busy thinking up inane insults to find the truth?
kabukiscarab
I find myself watching over the years from my youth before I understood what aids was. Watching friends gay and straight contract the virus over the years. Ultimately I contracted the virus because someone who had it thought it would be fun to cut the condom and infect me on purpose and then when I tell the person you might need to get tested he goes “WHO are you?” I nearly died while my friends and family stood over my body and watched. I fought. I survived. I live. Now having lived with it since 2007 I see the rise of Bareback. I see the sneers of those with out treating those with it like they are garbage. I feel that vast loneliness. I see more and more people taking risks that they might not take just for human contact. Because once you have this disease you are forever tainted,Shunned, and if your black it’s twice as bad. It’s a black disease so it makes it far easier to be a racist. And now that thought pattern has taken root in our community. We can’t take care of our own community. How can we expect the nation too include us? Yes your blogs say one thing but your profile says another.
KentonForshee
@Bill:
Thank you Bill. You took the words right out of my mouth.