He was seduced. Found a group of people who welcomed him and embraced him and accepted him. And they had counselors and others who said, ‘This is what you are, you’re gay, embrace it and be proud of it.’ You know the rest of the story. He’s in his thirties, his young thirties now, and he’s dying of HIV/AIDS. The wages of sin is death.”—Right-wing activist Matt Barber, speaking about an unnamed family member, at the Calvary Assembly’s Awakening 2012.
Source: Joe My God
Lefty
He should go and preach God’s word to the millions in Africa with HIV because they were told by the church that using condoms is sinful.
Michael
That’s a good point Lefty. Racism, homophobia, genocide…the church has a lot to answer for.
dee-dee
Charming.
Bob
Truly a “compassionate conservative”.
Atomicrob
This man is nothing but a creep.
jason
Nobody deserves to die of anything. However, there IS a culture of disease-producing promiscuity on the gay male social scene which is encouraged. Who’s doing the encouraging? The people who are making money by marketing promiscuity, that’s who. Everywhere you look on the gay male social scene, there’s a constant marketing of the male body, male sex venues, alcohol etc etc.
There is a culture, also, of having sex with lots of total strangers. How is this allowed to be cloaked in the dignity of the gay rights movement? We’ve let ourselves down by allowing this to occur.
Reality Check
@jason:
I totally agree, somethings we do to ourselves. I wish more gay guys would be more responsible when it comes to sex. I may not have liked Barber’s message,but at least he mentioned that we offered his “relative” a home and a place to belong. If he and his family won’t …. he probably wouldn’t have aids.
Belize
@jason: “Everywhere you look on the gay male social scene, there’s a constant marketing of the male body, male sex venues, alcohol etc etc.”
It’s amazing how you see all these things from the peep hole of your closet.
“However, there IS a culture of disease-producing promiscuity on the gay male social scene which is encouraged. Who’s doing the encouraging? The people who are making money by marketing promiscuity, that’s who.”
Translation: “No one wants to fuck me.”
Belize
“He was seduced. Found a group of people who welcomed him and embraced him and accepted him. And they had counselors and others who said, ‘This is what you are, you’re gay, embrace it and be proud of it.”
That’s sort of what happens in the Church. The only difference is, counselors tell you “You’re a sinner. That is what you are. Embrace it and be proud of it.”
Belize
@Reality Check: “I may not have liked Barber’s message,but at least he mentioned that we offered his “relative” a home and a place to belong. If he and his family won’t …. he probably wouldn’t have aids.”
Yes. He probably would’ve just died through other repression related causes like suicide. Or worse: he’ll probably end up like JayKay, Jason and the rest of the self-loathing GOProuds of Queerty. 🙂
Agreed
@jason: Thank you for being brave enough to tell the truth. It’s refreshing.
Rooney
Waiting for him to pull a Breitbart any second now.
MikeE
@Agreed: horse-pucky.
Jason isn’t “telling the truth”, he’s obfuscating it and projecting.
ALL media industry is guilty of promotion of sexuality. Not just gay media. It’s completely hypocritical to blame only the gay scene.
Straight bars are as full, if not MORE SO, of sexual promiscuity. And it has ALWAYS been like that.
Straight people sleep around as much, if not MORE than, gay people. remember there are MORE of them.
and HIV/AIDS is an illness.
It’s not a judgment.
jason
MikE,
Listen, two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because there’s promiscuity on the straight bar scene, it doesn’t mean it’s right to have it in the gay bar scene.
The difference is that our scene cloaks promiscuity in the gay rights notion. It’s a deception. It’s a cunning way of marketing sleaze and it’s also a cunning way of justifying the natural promiscuity of men. Market it all under the dignified gay rights notion and suddenly it’s “right”.
Moreover, straight bar interactions are curtailed by the naturally lower sex drive of the woman. Many straight men need to visit female prostitutes after they’ve been out on the town simply because the women they meet in bars generally don’t put out for them very easily. There’s generally a complicated courtship ritual involved in male-female interactions in the straight bar scene, something many straight guys can’t be bothered with. They’d much prefer the simplicity of paying a prostitute.
Jeanette
I can’t believe commenters here are giving Barber or his statements any credence at all – do you know exactly who this guy is? He’s this insane nut who wakes up every day wondering how he can damage gay people. He is abnormally obsessed with gays, gay sex, and gay rights. That’s all he cares about. He’s sick, and should be laughed out of town after he’s been slapped and beaten with a bat.
Matt Barber deserves to die for all of the lies he’s told about gays, all there work he’s done to take away our rights, and in general for being a fat, bigoted fuck. I truly wish death on him, and all of the “family values” conservatives. I pray for their slow, painful deaths. Miserable fucking bastards. Andrew Breitbart has mercifully left us; this guy is a good one to go next.
Shannon1981
@Jeanette: Well said,my friend. This cretin is the scum of the earth.
shannon
THE BIBLE IS SUCH A LOVING BOOK!!!
AllenSF
I usually do not comment on stuff like this but I have a different take on all this sort of hate. I think in a way the media gives these hate mongers a platform to spew their hate. They thrive on attention and notoriety and if we stop giving them any attention and energy they will just disappear into oblivion. This can be said of all the rightwing blowhards that have a bigoted agenda whether it be Gays, immigrants, minorities or Obama birthers. The sooner we all decide to ignore them the better. Life truly is too short to bother with this nonsense!
Eric in Chicago
Did his relative go back in a time machine? Dying of AIDS? I highly doubt that.
1equalityUSA
The wages of gluttony is diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes.
Larry
people like this make me wish there was a hell…he deserves it.
Larry
@Eric in Chicago: it happened to a good friend of mine less than a year ago so it does happen
Scott Amundsen
“He’s in his thirties, his young thirties now, and he’s dying of HIV/AIDS. The wages of sin is death.”
If he is only in his thirties there is no good reason for him to be dying; there are more than enough antiretrovirals out there to keep most people with HIV not only alive but reasonably healthy for years and even decades.
I realize that people do still die of it but I have had HIV for twenty-three years and full-blown AIDS for eighteen of those years and I am still alive and kicking like the stubborn mule I have often been compared to LOL.
I smell fish and it ain’t fresh; if this came from someone more reputable I might be willing to concede it as a possibility but Barber is one of the Krazy Kristian Koalition who will tell any lie they deem necessary to advance their own agenda.
Derek Williams
@Michael: @Lefty: However the Church also said that sex outside of hetero marriage is sinful. The thing to attack is the selectivity of religious people in attacking homosexuals in the first place.
The Bible also condones slavery, infanticide, misogyny and genocide. Yet it commands execution for disobedient children, for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, for any bride not a virgin on her wedding night, for any married couple who copulate during a woman’s menstrual period and a whole load of other infractions. It also commands a childless widow to have sex with each of her late husband’s brothers in turn, until she falls pregnant.
Religions need to be challenged on the consistency of their interpretation of the very book they repeatedly adduce, the Bible, which is itself sold in at least 25 sometimes conflicting English translations. Their etymology is flawed too. There is no word in Ancient Hebrew or Ancient Greek for homosexuality, a term invented in the 19th Century by German psychiatrists. Moreover, the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ never condemned homosexuals, and in his one likely reference to LGBT (arguably colloquialised as ‘Eunuchs’) said we were “born that way” and should be accepted. Likewise, we’re not mentioned in the Ten Commandments, Christ’s Two Commandments, his Eight Beatitudes, nor his Seven Last words.
There are over 34,000 bickering denominations of Christianity alone, who cannot even agree on Birth Control and Divorce, let alone Homosexuality. Each believe they alone are on a hotline to the creator, yet many nowadays nevertheless welcome LGBT with our partners both as clergy and as congregation.
ptcruiser13
FACT: HIV/AIDS Is Not A Gay Disease.
FACT: The largest demographic carrying HIV/AIDS lies with hetero females.
So I guess the hate-speech is really towards his female family members… his aunts(s), cousin(s)… his daughter(s), spouse(s) and mother.
SIN: Uniformed, ignorant, loud bigots like Barber continue to spew their hate not only within the sanctity of the pulpit, but in the living rooms, schools and streets of the US… shamefully protected and abusing “freedom of religion and freedom of speech”.
If your God could hear… if your Jesus walked the earth today… surely He wouldn’t behave like this.
JON
Matt Barber may want to be careful what he wishes for. God might misunderstand him and allow someone he really loves to die of AIDS! I of course, wouldn’t wish that upon anyone!
Matt Barber is a moron! I usually ignore morons.
I pray Matt Barber sees the light. Not the flames of Hell.
Derek Williams
@ptcruiser13: This is true:
HIV/AIDS is no respecter of heterosexuality. In fact, globally it remains a predominantly heterosexual problem, and in the US is also heavily biased on racial lines.
Latest statistics of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic published by UNAIDS in Nov 2010 show 68% of HIV to be in sub-Saharan Africa, the region carrying the greatest burden of the epidemic. Of 33.3 million living with HIV, 15.9 million are women and 2.5 million are children. In India, 85% of HIV/AIDS transmission is heterosexual, with 2.5 million currently infected, so globally it’s not exactly a ‘gay disease’. A person’s heterosexuality does not make them immune from HIV/AIDS and I think it is grossly irresponsible for authorities to let kids believe that they won’t get the disease so long as they’re heterosexual.
Moreover, to date, over 230,000 African Americans have died of AIDS – nearly 40% of total deaths – and of the more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States of America today, around half are black. And yet, as a racial group, African Americans represent just 13% of the US population. (http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans.htm)
It’s pointless and counterproductive to deny that gay men are over-represented in Western HIV/AIDS infections, but it makes no more sense to state that a person should not be homosexual in order to avoid succumbing to HIV/AIDS, than it does to suggest that a person should not be black, so as to avoid succumbing to HIV/AIDS. A monogamous gay couple have no more chance of transmitting HIV than do a heterosexual couple. Monogamy, safer sexual practice and not sharing needles remain the best ways to minimise HIV infection.
Gay Bacon
@jason: What exactly makes promiscuity wrong? A consensus moral judgement? Well if that’s the case then being gay is wrong. And as for the disease producing risk that comes with promiscuity, that’s why we have condoms of all shapes, sizes, and favors.
Please, people
C’mon, folks, some common sense, please.
This “unnamed relative” doesn’t exist. The stereotypical “he came out and is dying of AIDS” line is popular with the fringe right, but it is actually pretty rare. With modern medical treatment, it takes decades for poz guys to go to full blown AIDS. And most gay men are smart about safe sex these days, especially outside of the urban gay scene.
These guys are lousy liars. I guarantee the family member doesn’t exist (or, if he does, is HIV-).
Scott Amundsen
Promiscuity as an issue is ridiculous unless there is a committed relationship and someone is getting hurt. I had plenty of sex when I was young and single; looking back I probably wouldn’t have bothered more than half the time if I had known then what I do now, but that’s youth. After all, what really constitutes “too much sex” except the definition “he’s getting laid more than I am??”
In relationships I am steadfastly monogamous. I know there are people out there in open relationships and that is their business; I am only saying that such an arrangement would not suit me.
Antonio burgess
Has any body guessed that he may be gay!. Gays are an easy target. If his heterosexual sister had it, he would not say that. I really hope he don’t get it from a prostitute. From the looks of it i don’t think any one will fuck him for free.
Scott Amundsen
“This “unnamed relative” doesn’t exist.”
Well color me surprised. Not.
That one is right up there with the wing nuts who spew a half hour’s worth of venom directed at the LGBT community and then have the unmitigated BALLS to claim “I have Gay friends.”
NOT AFTER THEY READ/HEAR YOUR HOMOPHOBIC REMARKS YOU WON’T, LOSER!!!
FunMe
@Agreed: You stupid closet cases do like talking to yourself. All ONE person of you!
Someone call the guys in the white coats now!
FunMe
@Shannon1981: Amen sisters!
TomChicago
@Eric in Chicago: that was my thought, Eric. Of course Matt B can get much more fund-raising traction with the dramatic turn of phrase.
Scott Rose
Did he have consent from this (alleged) relative to make a public declaration that the relative (supposedly) has AIDS and is dying? It is illegal to disclose a patient’s HIV status without their consent. If the relative gave consent, then that means the relative won’t mind us fact-checking this. Some people who know Barber would know who he was talking about. This could be illegal disclosure.
What did you expect?
Again, there is no “relative.” These guys are professional liars for a living. The entire story is fabricated ou of whole cloth to throw as red meat to a gullible group of morons.
Colin
He’s right. HIV and AIDS is very much a gay disease. Gay men live this deviant lifestyle of promiscuity and they pay for it in the end. I agree with Matt Barber. The truth hurts.
Colin
@jason: You’re totally correct.
MikeyM
All these hateful bigots should be sent, one way, to Iraq.
Derek Williams
@Colin: If HIV/AIDS were a “gay disease” as you claim, then only gays would get it.
The facts say otherwise. While it’s beyond dispute that HIV/AIDS infections in the West first appeared in gay males, they’ve since been successfully contained within our demographic largely as the direct result of LGBT community’s public engagement and commitment to responsible public education to minimise cross infections to other demographics.
Worldwide the figures are very different. Out of over 33 million HIV/AIDS sufferers in the world, 15.9 million are heterosexual females (http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans.htm). Since that represents almost half the demographic in question, it makes complete nonsense out of your assertion, and the readiness with which you adduce it undermines the credibility of any other opinion you proffer on any subject.
What’s more, lesbians are by far the lowest risk group in the world. The virus does not care about sexual orientation. It is transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse, both gay and straight, and contamination of blood.
Monogamous gay couples are at no greater risk of HIV/AIDS infection than are heterosexual couples. The risk in either case is zero.
Derek Williams
@Colin:
If HIV/AIDS were a “gay disease” as you claim, then only gays would get it.
The facts say otherwise. While it’s beyond dispute that HIV/AIDS infections in the West first appeared in gay males, they’ve since been successfully contained within our demographic largely as the direct result of LGBT community’s public engagement and commitment to responsible public education to minimise cross infections to other demographics.
Worldwide the figures are very different. Out of over 33 million HIV/AIDS sufferers in the world, 15.9 million are heterosexual females (http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans.htm). Since that represents almost half the demographic in question, it makes complete nonsense out of your assertion, and the readiness with which you adduce it undermines the credibility of any other opinion you proffer on any subject.
What’s more, lesbians are by far the lowest risk group in the world. The virus does not care about sexual orientation. It is transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse, both gay and straight, and contamination of blood.
Monogamous gay couples are at no greater risk of HIV/AIDS infection than are heterosexual couples. The risk in either case is zero.
Colin
@Derek Williams: The HIV rates have not improved for gay men since the 80s. In fact, they’ve only gotten worse. Just because gay men are not dying as much from the disease due to medical advances doesn’t mean anything. Men who have sex with men still account for over 65% of new HIV infections in the West. Pointing out heterosexuals in 3rd world countries doesn’t count for anything. The fact is, many gay men live abominable lifestyles and end up paying the price for their filthy habits. You can’t deny facts and Barber is right.
Michael
@MikeE:
Exactly and well said. Straight couples are getting the HIV virus just a quickly as gay. It is not a gay disease. Figures from the UK that 84000 have HIV and that 34% of them are heterosexual females presumably from their ‘straight’ male partners. Straight men and women are out their fucking their brains out and spreading HIV just as much as gay men … dare I say more because most gay men take precautions not to spread the disease. Wake up to the real world you closeted homophobes.
Terrence
@jason: I agree with Jason somewhat. It’s unquestionable that promiscuity and the ‘status’ that comes with being a ‘stud’ is valued and commodified in the gay community. And sorry, but AIDS started among gay males because they are still the most promiscuous group there is. No, AIDS was not punishment form “God”, just a natural result from sexuality being taken to such reckless extremes.
Derek Williams
@Colin: HIV/AIDS is believed to have entered the West in the 1980’s, most likely through gay bathhouses, many of which were initially shut down or had their activities severely curtailed as a public health preventative measure. Since then, the contamination has been able to be contained within our demographic. The high infection rate you cite is obviously of grave concern to us, but your sneering contempt makes it clear that you aren’t interested in public health at all, only in vitriol and scorn.
Moreover, through time, the virus will inevitably propagate more and more through the heterosexual majority just through sheer force of greater numbers.
If it were the “filthy habits” of homosexuals that spread the virus then no heterosexuals would ever be infected, but you should realise that the organs of procreation are the same as the organs of excretion for both males and females. It’s therefore hardly something for you to be holier-than-thou about. The 3rd World statistics I cited showing world infection to be almost entirely heterosexual may sadly be irrelevant to you, because you don’t care about the world’s poor, but they are utterly devastating for those afflicted.
Try being a nice person. You’ll have a much better life.
jason
There is no such thing as a gay illness. However, certain illnesses flourish under certain circumstances – it’s undeniable.
As for Matt Barber, he looks fat. Hope he doesn’t get diabetes or a heart attack….
Scott Amundsen
@Colin: Do us all a favor and use your ass for sitting on, because talking out of it is making a fool of you.
I was the chairman of the Ryan White Planning Council serving three counties in New Jersey back at the end of the Nineties and up to 2005, and when I left New Jersey, the largest number of new infections in the area covered by my Planning Council was a dead heat between Latina women and heterosexual teens of both sexes. In other areas no doubt the demographics skewed differently; they probably look very different now since I have been out of the state for almost eight years.
These numbers are not static; in the rural Upstate New York county where I live, the HIV+ population, while it does have some gay men, is more than half heterosexual women and at least a third IV drug users. In five years the numbers may look very different.
HIV/AIDS started in the Gay male community in the United States; that is a matter of history. But the stats do not remain the same for all time, so making a statement that was only a half-truth thirty-four years ago and acting as if it is engraved in stone is not only foolish, but criminally irresponsible.
Alexi3
This “Wages of Sin is Death” quote always gets my blood boiling. Is it a quote from the Bible? yes, it is. But not the whole, accurate quote: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. And it is taken out of context. Fundamentalists see the practice of homosexuality as a sin, fine, that’s their right under the Constitutional Guarrentee of Freedom of Religion. I just wish they would be honest when they use scripture. Paul is talking about sin; singular, all sin, which includes everything like for instance lying. So, if they believe that the “wages of sin is death” and wish to impose this sentence on everyone who sins, then I would suggest that they look in the mirror and be honest when they use scripture; rather than just cherry-pick verses to support their bigotry. No where does Christ endorse Hate; everywhere He demonstrates and instructs forgiveness and tolerance. I don’t understand how people who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible and who say they believe Christ was who He said He was have allowed themselves to get so off message by a few obscure, open to different interpretation words in the Old Testament book of Leviticus which includes hundreds of rules no one follows anymore. Even ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t follow all the rules that were laid down in Leviticus for example: Leviticus 20:10; “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife – with the wife of his neighbor – both the aldulterer and the adulteress must be put to death”. How many televangelists have broken this rule and yet I have heard no clamoring for heads to roll. In fact, whenever one of these scandals breaks all I hear are calls for forgiveness and yet Leviticus doesn’t allow for any leeway – they are both to be put to death. Why is it so difficult for fundamentalists to see their obvious hypocracy. I will leave any fundamentalist who should happen to be reading with one last quote from the book they say every word in it was written by God: Mathew: 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”. I would suggest you meditate on those words; they came from the mouth of Christ; the One you tell the world you are following and in whose name you purport to speak.
Derek Williams
@Alexi3:
You are right – and here are few more for good measure:
DEUTERONOMY 13:13-17 Any town that allows the practice of more than one denomination of religion must be burned to the ground and all its inhabitants and livestock slaughtered with swords.
DEUTERONOMY 21:18-21 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother… then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones.
DEUTERONOMY 22:22 If a married person has sex? with someone else’s husband or wife, both adulterers be stoned to death
DEUTERONOMY 22:28-29 Virgin who is raped must marry her rapist.
DEUTERONOMY 25:11-12 If a man gets into a fight with? another man and his wife seeks to rescue her husband by grabbing the enemy’s genitals, her hand shall be cut off and no pity shall be shown her
MARK 10:1-12 Divorce is strictly forbidden in both Testaments, as is remarriage of anyone who has been divorced
MARK 12:18-27 If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir
LEVITICUS 11:6-8 outlaws the playing of football (touching the skin of a dead pig)
LEVITICUS 11:9-12 eating shellfish or pork strictly forbidden
LEVITICUS 18:19 A married couple who have sexual intercourse during a woman’s period shall both be executed.
LEVITICUS 19:19 you may not wear polyester/cotton shirts or blend of linen and wool (wearing garments of mixed fabrics or planting fields with more than one kind of seed strictly forbidden)
LEVITICUS 20:9 anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
LEVITICUS 26:14-30 “Then if you walk contrary to me … you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.”
NUMBERS 15:32,35 While the people of Israel found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day, the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.”
TIMOTHY 2:12 “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”
CORINTHIANS 14:34 Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says.
COLASSIANS 3:22 “Slaves, obey your human masters in everything; don’t work only while being watched, in order to please men, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.”
It’s all in the Holy Bible.
Mark
If were gonna argue statistics look at what the CDC considers the “diabetes belt” and then compare it to what is known as the “bible belt”. It’s clear God invented type 2 diabetes to kill Christians and that diabetes is a Christian illness.
Scott Amundsen
@Mark: LOL
hf2hvit
@Belize: AMEN!
hf2hvit
@Mark: And They will burn in hell for an eternity for having the highest divorce rates in the nation.
BryanC
@Lefty: I am against what this bigot said, but you can’t say “Its the Church’s fault because they teach contraception is wrong” when they also teach “pre-marital and extra-marital sex is wrong” as well. If people are obeying one teaching, why not the other?
JasonMacBride
With so much money going to politicians this year, the fundies have to double down on ignorance to make enough to pay their rent boys.
B
No. 28 · Gay Bacon wrote, “as for the disease producing risk that comes with promiscuity, that’s why we have condoms of all shapes, sizes, and favors.”
It does, however, explain the “wages of sin are death” phrase in the Bible – at the time they did not have condoms of all “shapes, sizes, and flavors,” and specifically no condoms made from latex (ones from ‘natural’ materials tend to be permeable to viruses). Some diseases we can treat with antibiotics today were fatal in the past.
One can only wonder what some of these Christians will say when we finally develop a vaccine effective against HIV.
Scott Amundsen
@Colin: Incidentally, while you are busy attacking my humanity as a Gay man, I should probably inform you that I also happen to be a Christian. I don’t know how old you are, but I’ve been a Christian for forty-four years; I’ve spent plenty of time studying the Bible and I do not recall any mention of AIDS or any other STD in it. Also I think perhaps you should go look up the word “context;” pulling Bible verses out of your ass to make what you THINK is a point proves nothing and does not serve your arguments well.
Derek Williams
@B: It should however be borne in mind that Syphilis too was once a fatal disease, now treatable. Given the large number of sexually transmissible diseases now in existence, and their devastating effect upon the human race in the course of its history, it is more than likely that HIV/AIDS cannot be guaranteed to be the last such disease that civilization will have to face.
I believe therefore that it will always be incumbent upon all people to adopt safer sexual practices, with monogamy or abstinence being demonstrably the most reliable methods of sexually transmitted disease prevention.
Hope
Ouch! How awful to speak about someone who is dying, but more a relative. Most people who are dying from AIDs are sexually promiscuous heterosexuals who live in Africa and other undeveloped parts of the World. Mr. Barber’s ilk would be against condoms and sex education in these parts of the World because it is against their version of moral purity. What would Mr. Barber say about all those people who are members of Ugandan Evangelical Churches (those ultra doctrinally correct Evangelicals) who are dead or dying from AIDS. And who have left children cared for by grandparents. A whole generation that has been decimated? Was this God’s Will? I think not!
Scott Amundsen
STDs have been around since the beginning of time. So have a lot of other diseases. Some of them we have conquered; plenty of others we have not (yet). At any rate, why is it somehow worse to get a disease from having sex than getting one from overeating, smoking, drinking too much, or any one of dozens of other unhealthy behaviors that human beings have been known to do?
robert
The guys nothing but a hate filled sack of shits like the Liberty creeps. What do you expect from someone that ugly. I hope they all rot in hell.
Jason
Said it before, I’ll say it again, people who trash and discredit others, their lives, their lifestyles, and choices to make them self look better are the sad and pathetic individual
B
No. 59 · Derek Williams – you missed the point as it was merely an explanation of the origin of a phrase in the Bible – people at the time it thought diseases were the results of many things, with viruses and bacteria not on the list.
BTW, I suspect that within not too many years (maybe under 50), STDs will disappear. If we can’t produce vaccines for some, we may have cheap and fast tests that anyone can use. Can you imagine a “singles bar” where two people leaving for a night pick up a couple of tabs that they each lick, and within minutes tells you “pretty safe” or not?
We seem to be a lot faster at developing tests for diseases rather than cures, and since STDs by definition require sex to occur for the disease to be transmitted, a before-sex test would do wonders.
If this sounds overly optimistic, a nasty flu-like virus popped up a few years ago and we figured out what type it was within days. A few years early, that would have taken at least 6 months. Why so much faster? Well, some clever guy had figured out how to use a manufacturing technology related to how we make semiconductor chips to create arrays of biologically active substances that bind to particular parts of a virus. There are a lot of these per chip, so they could do what was previously months of work in parallel using a single device. There have been massive improvements in gene sequencing – look up the cost of sequencing a human genome and see how that has dropped over the past 20 years.
Now, someone will object – it sounds unseemly or decadent – but it would work like a charm once that technology exists. I can just imagine the advertising campaign to encourage people to use such tests – they’d make it look really sexy, and (some of) the Christians wold howl in anguish.
Derek Williams
@B: No, I did get your point, hence my observation about Syphilis.
While I do agree we are a lot better at detecting and treating all manner of illnesses, we have no way of predicting what Nature might unleash on us next, indeed, who could have predicted the onset of HIV/AIDS in the first place? AIDS has yet to be cured permanently. Currently it can only be held in check, and this at huge expense both to the taxpayer and the afflicted individuals. It cannot be completely arrested or reversed, nor is there yet a vaccine.
Another thing to remember is that strains of bacteria are continually developing that are resistant to antibiotics, partly in response to GP overprescription for minor ailments.
As of now, abstinence or monogamy are the only dead set certain methods of prevention, with safer sex such as with condoms the only viable alternative for casual encounters.
We are still a very long way away from the Star Trek cures.
Harold
How Sad :(. This guy has to be a sociopath. And his religion has taught him to hate. That’s sad, too. Jesus does NOT approve.
1equalityUSA
Mark in Post #51 wrote,
“If were gonna argue statistics look at what the CDC considers the “diabetes belt” and then compare it to what is known as the “bible belt”. It’s clear God invented type 2 diabetes to kill Christians and that diabetes is a Christian illness.”
This was so clever and fun. This post was a joy to read. Thank you, Mark.
Danny
Since the family member is unnamed, maybe he’s talking about himself. So many of the rightwing leaders are so fey it is hard to believe anyone on Earth thinks they are otherwise.
grayson
@jason: u make GREAT points but exposing the truth about how the gay media machine makes it’s money is dangerous.
dvd-junkie
Matt, darling, better watch that limp wrist of yours…
Daez
@jason: You went a whole three posts without showing your typical stereotypical viewpoints of women. There are plenty of women that like to get fucked just as much as men love to fuck.
On a side note, who the hell are you to tell me what I can or can not do with MY body. I think it is part of a human rights debate that people should be able to chose what they do with their own bodies. If I want to fool around with many different guys then I should be able to do so. Your self righteousness does not influence that in anyway.
Daez
@Derek Williams: You might also want to mention that the reason that they are utterly decimating those populations is because those populations are highly Catholic and therefore do not believe in any form of birth control. The Catholic Church is actually a direct cause of the spread of HIV/AIDS in those areas.
Daez
@Jason: “Said it before, I’ll say it again, people who trash and discredit others, their lives, their lifestyles, and choices to make them self look better are the sad and pathetic individual”
Seriously!?! SERIOUSLY!?! You can not see that you CONSTANTLY do this to women, men who have more sex than you, anyone that disagrees with your viewpoint and the entire adult entertainment industry?
Derek Williams
@Daez: While what you say is entirely true, the Catholic Church’s rejoinder is inevitably that abstinence and monogamy will stop the disease dead in its tracks. Of course they don’t acknowledge that this would be equally true for both heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
jason
Daez,
You can do whatever you want to do with your body. Just don’t expect me to agree with it.
What riles me the most is when these promiscuous queens go around fucking everything that moves. Then, after they catch something, they’re hiding behind the gay rights banner as if to justify their sleazy behavior. There’s a dishonesty there.
Hello
@jason: oooo….it burns! The truth hurts. I have never heard this framed in this manner and I agree 150%.
Alexi3
@Mark: This is just too good.
ian gardner
and he needs to wire his jaw closed…fat prick….
Alexi3
@Colin: You just don’t have your numbers right. But, what I would be really interested in knowing is this: How much theological training have you had? Since you are so emphatic that Barber is right with his use of scripture to defend his position, I assume you’ve been to seminary or at the very least have undertaken a detailed study of what scripture actually has to say. If not, then I would suggest that endorcing someone’s statements because you agree with them rather than because of independent study is being dishonest with yourself and harmful to others.
bill(Guillermo3)
@Belize: You certainly are a Bitter Motherfucker,Belize.Why not make your sulfuric acid-laced comments to someone who deserves them:Look in a mirror and talk to to yourself.
DouggSeven
@dvd-junkie: I was looking for someone else to comment on that lol.
Mitch
@Eric in Chicago: Yes, well, the more realistic claim, “he’s living AIDS and being annoyed to death by endless medical visits” just doesn’t have the panache this conservative wanted or the fearmongering that queerty pushes.