At some point one would think that the leftist “conventional wisdom” about sexual matters will collapse just as the leftist “wisdom” about AGW is collapsing. Knox is just positive that condoms must be reducing the AIDS rate, because the thought of having to restrain sexual impulses is too unacceptable to him. And yet, restraint and responsibility are the only ways to stop the spread of this disease.

It is interesting to compare Harry Knox, who is the director of a religion and faith program for the Human Rights Campaign with Edward Green who served as a member of President Bush’s Advisory Commitee on HIV/AIDS.

The Human Rights Campaign is a “gay rights” lobbying organization. Like so many of Obama’s advisors, Knox has an agenda here.

Green, on the other hand is a scientist and researcher. There is mounting evidence that abstinence programs really work.

Two questions for Harry Knox:

1) Name just one manufacturer of condoms who is prepared to give a 100% legally binding guarantee against malfunction. On top of that don’t forget the proportion of failure through “misuse”. Thus the known percentage of failure plus the proportion of misuse adds up to an increase in spread of AIDS despite condom use and its false promise of protection in the name of “safe sex”. QED. Any counter argument that without condoms the spread would be higher does not answer the Pope’s claim.

2) Would he willingly have sex with a known AIDS/any other STD sufferer/carrier using a condom.?

One is always intrigued by the “double think” involved in a statement such as “the Pope.. reject(s) science and force(s) Catholics to choose between their health and their faith.” So people who reject Church and Papal moral teaching on sexual abstinence are “forced” by the Pope and the Church into standing, saluting and abiding by Church and papal teaching on condom use!!! What is so difficult to understand in the truism that “if you do not want to get burnt don’t play with fire”.

LaVallette:

Actually, the question I’d like to ask Pope critics is this -

If your child came home with his/her girlfriend/boyfriend and said, “This is John Doe. He has HIV”, would your first reaction be to go out and buy a box of condoms? Would you encourage them to have a sexual relationship, knowing there is a double-digit chance your son/daughter will contract a fatal STD?

It gives them pause, because I think a lot of this debate is due to the fact we’re talking about “the other” here, what do anti-Pope condom advocates really care about the people of Africa? If a man in Kenya contracts HIV and dies from AIDS, even though he used a condom, what does it matter to them? He’s not family and they get the added bonus of advocating “sexual liberty” to the world.

I can’t help but notice the undercurrents of racism that bubble up in the guise of “family planning” and “AIDS prevention.” There is even this disturbing story, also out of Africa, where African women are basically being used as lab rats to test an HIV/AIDS preventing gel…that turned out not to be any more effective than the placebo. In other words, they gave women medicine, told them to go out and have sex in a culture with a high rate of HIV infection, and it was an experiment that did not work.

Try to tell me the Pope is wrong on this, because it only makes you look like a fool.

As an adult with free will, you are able to control your voluntary acts and are also responsible for their consequences. Here is a vegetable. A renowned scientist has said that if you eat this vegetable, you will die. What do you choose to do? Eat the vegetable because you WANT TO and hope for the best or not eat the vegetable and avoid all risk? DUH! Of course, this involves personal responsibility and restraint – both anathemas to folks like Knox.

You know how things like the gauge of railroad tracks can be hardwired early, with unintentional consequences? The idea that celibacy is impossible, that sexual desire is impossible to resist, has been with us since protestantism began its attack on Rome. It was just one more of the things about the priesthood that had to be destroyed in order to lay hands on the Church’s property. And so we have that notion today, which little by little has attained the level of gospel that extends into every corner of society and every age group. Forget the argument over condoms: ask twenty of your associates if they believe that celibacy is possible. Then consider the results. If you found three people out of the lot who agreed with the first premise of commentors here (that self-control in sexual matters is both possible, and not overwhelmingly unhealthy), you’d be lucky. And this makes the world an infinitely scarier place, especially if you’re going in the hospital where you might be unconscious or helpless, or a nursing home, or anyplace where you’ll be under the care of another. Or if you’re an attractive child, or a woman who suddenly finds herself alone at the bus stop. That sexual desire is uncontrollable was a merely by-product of that first rebellion, now central to the mess we find ourselves in, including the ludicrous inability of Knox et al to understand the scientific and perfectly reasonable position of the Church. It would do us well to reflect on it from our various confessions.

Can’t and won’t follow you there, Jan. To attribute all this to Protestantism wildly oversimplifies things. After all, Satan asked Eve, “Hath God said…” thousands of years before Martin Luther was born.

I suppose she may be referring to the married priests and bishops. But I think Christopher is right, above. That’s a stretch too far. African Christian leaders, whether Catholic or Anglican or generic evangelical can agree on the need for abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within it.

Heard someone put it this way…if football players played without helmets, do you think they would tackle as hard as they do? NO. Helmets do provide a certain amount of protection, but they actually allow and encourage less restraint in tackling…SAME idea with condoms. The Pope is right, as always. We have tons of condoms (container loads shipped to tsunami struck lands) and still such massive STDs, abortion, etc. Throwing contraception of any kind at sexual problems will never solve them. Until we as a society put the orgasm back into the husband-wife box, nothing will improve.
And, yes, you hear protestants talk up St. Paul (over St. Peter) all the time, yet, not many seem to take him up on his invitation of celibacy for the greater glory of God…just not their bag, I guess.
The Pope, with his Catholic understanding of this issue, sees the best in people and knows that humans can rise to the standard of sexual control.

The conventional wisdom on AIDS needs some reworking, too. Accoding to the available data, AIDS in the West is a disease overwhelmingly associated with gays and intravenous drug abusers. (Add them up and you can figure about 75% of the total cases come from about 5-10% of the population. That’s a closer association than smoking and lung cancer.) Yet, we are told that in Africa, that is not true; that AIDS afflicts heterosexuals as much or more.

Is the virus different? Are the people different? Are cultural practices different? Could there be differences in diagnosis? A good answer has not been offered. It may be that there is a co-factor as yet unidentified that might explain the difference in risk factors between the continents.

There is an online petition calling for the removal of Harry Knox from his council position.

Back to the topic of Knox, I don’t think the Church is done any favors by Catholic Republicans crying about Knox’ “offensive” statement for partisan gain. What he said, while I think demonstrably false, isn’t out of the mainstream of political or academic thought. And if you accept that premise as true (or at least mainstream), then his conclusion isn’t that much of a reach; certainly no moreso than saying Obama would be killing seniors off with his healh care rationing. Argue with what he says; don’t act like a liberal and cry “insensitive” whenever someone strongly disagrees with someone of a particular affiliation.

In the world of politics, you don’t always stop a bad policy by writing an article disproving the reasoning or data behind its advocacy.

Sometimes the method that works best is to demonstrate that the policy’s advocate is unacceptable as a policy maker; because it can be done that way in time to matter.

This guy’s carelessness about the truth in running down the Pope is as important as his poor mastery of epidemiology.

JM,
“Is the virus different? Are the people different? Are cultural practices different? Could there be differences in diagnosis? A good answer has not been offered. It may be that there is a co-factor as yet unidentified that might explain the difference in risk factors between the continents.”
These are the same questions I have been asking and wonder what the source of the African numbers is. It seemed like there was a period here in the U.S. that the same claims were being made that AIDs was an equal gender opportunity disease.

Pope BXVI would be more encouraged if more Roman Catholics followed the Church’s Magisterial Teaching on contraception.

Pope BXVI would be more encouraged if more Roman Catholics followed the Church’s Magisterial Teaching on contraception.

The problem is, I haven’t seen reliable and honest numbers on this. I endlessly hear that “75% of Catholics use contraception.” That number increases in proportion to one’s axe to grind against it, so I hear 80%, 85%, 90%, and 95%. Do I hear 96?

The only thing I’ve actaully seen was a survey of Catholics asked a question that was essentially, “Is contraception always wrong?” Well, you know how people hedge their bets when they get an “always” in their questions. Add to that Catholics with formation ranging from pretty good to abysmal, and its a mess for arriving at anything like accuracy. Plus, even if a Catholic said it wasn’t always wrong, it doesn’t follow that they are doing it, or that one could say that there is overall disagreement with the teaching.

Now, I’m willing to concede that waaay too many Catholics don’t know the teaching and/or not following it. But I’d like to see some reliable sources that substantiate some of these big numbers.

“Now, I’m willing to concede that waaay too many Catholics don’t know the teaching and/or not following it.”

I think Pope BXVI would concede that too. Hence the reason for me writing:

“Pope BXVI would be more encouraged if more Roman Catholics followed the Church’s Magisterial Teaching on contraception.”

Stephen –

Doesn’t matter whether Knox’s views are mainstream or not. They’re simply wrong.

My position on this has been that those affected by HIV/AIDS in the west really don’t give a hang about the African epidemic. They really just want to have their “fun” and pretend that the rest of us will believe the consequences they suffer aren’t a result of their own doing. They know perfectly well that what they do is dangerous, but they do it anyway. The science needed to understand this is not biology but pathology; you’ll never hear Knox or his ilk admit to anything like that, but their lives (or the way they live them) include constant reminders of it.

Just remember that HIV/AIDS is the only thing in the way of perverts having more of a revolution than they have shown us so far. I don’t want to think about the juggernaut their cause will become if a cure is ever found. Because of that, there’s a part of me that hopes a cure is never found.

Or how about this instead:

“Pope BXVI would be more encouraged if more Roman Catholic clergy *taught* the Church’s Magisterial Teaching on contraception.”

I agree with you Truth, and I wasn’t intending to detract from your point. It’s just that this stat is up there in urban legend status along with the other wildly misleading and despair-inducing “50% of all marriages end in divorce” meme.

gppp stated:

“My position on this has been that those affected by HIV/AIDS in the west really don’t give a hang about the African epidemic.”

Bingo. I think they care to the exact degree that tec cares about the plight of homosexuals in Uganda i.e. not at all. It is, OTOH, a very good club with which to beat conservatives. If they really cared about gays in other parts of the world, they would be calling for boycotts in Iran, which is already executing homosexuals.

Or Cuba, which puts them in GuLags.

JM and Dale Matson. Even in the United States, the HIV/AIDS infection rate for heterosexual Blacks is around 10 times higher than for heterosexual Whites. So there certainly appears to be some kind of genetic cofactor involved. But I have never seen any discussion of this fact anywhere. I’ve always been curious as to why the PC crowd doesn’t want to touch this particular aspect of the disease’s etiology with a ten-foot pole.

Is it a genetic factor, or behavioral one? What is the level of promiscuity among the different populations? You would have to get more accurate data before you could make a determination. AFAIK, it hasn’t genetically discriminated among the homosexual or IV drug user population.

As far as condom usage/divorce stats go, I would certainly not be surprised if the urban legend numbers were accurate or reasonably close.

c matt. If the infection rates for blacks were only double or so, over that of whites, then I would be tempted to chalk it up to behavior. But the numbers I have seen range from 7 to 14 times the infection rate. Such a massive differential can’t be written off as behavioral alone, unless one is prepared to tar the whole Black community with a very negative assessment of their social ways. Besides, I’ve lived in Alaska and a lot of rural areas in California, and I can tell you that white folks can be just as promiscuous and do just as many drugs as any black community can.

WildIris –
While I agree with you, in principle, one would have to do a lot of cultural differentiation studies to find out how promiscuous blacks are in general as opposed to how promiscuous other ethnic groups are in general. One would also have to compensate for whether IV drug use is more prevalent in the black community than in other groupings.

This is a complex thing to try to get a handle on.

To all. I actually have no opinion on the matter, one way or the other. If I had to guess, I would say, “all of the above.” The fact that AIDS is not a disease but a type of autoimmune response, indicates, right out of the box, that AIDS must have a genetic component. Also the fact that 5% to 30% (anecdotal information only) of those exposed to the HIV virus never develop AIDS is further indication that there is a genetic component to its development. But how important that genetic factor is, I have no idea?

When you see such a dramatic, 10-to-1, difference in infection rates between two groups, this is telling you something about the disease. So my curiosity is directed at the fact that this difference in infection rates between black and whites has never been the focus of any comprehensive medical study. It’s almost as if the research community deliberately has chosen not to go there out of fear that whatever they are forced by the data to conclude, it will turn out to be very un-PC in its implications.

A final note: co-factors in this kind of situation don’t add, but multiply their effects. You also have the exponential growth problem that comes about because a population’s infection rate depends on the number of the population that is already infected. In other words, it doesn’t take a big difference in susceptibility to HIV/AIDS between blacks and whites to accumulate, over the course of a decade or so, into a large total difference in the number of those infected.