This is good stuff.
I've always thought it was pernicious nonsense that disapproving of sinful and dangerous acts somehow encourages the spread of STDs. In any event, my favorite quote in the article is,
Messer's "secondly" shows he's lost the thread of his argument. He's meant to be telling us how churches discourage prevention of AIDS. But the Church's moral disapproval of sodomy, whoring, and drug abuse has the secondary but salutary effect of bolstering disease prevention.
Another favorite is,
Is there, by the bye, any solid evidence for preachers' using "obey your husbands" to exhort wives to submit sexually to a lethally diseased spouse? If so, what they're preaching is residual paganism, not St. Paul.
Another,
Can you beat that? Christians were so distracted preparing for their redemption by Christ that they neglected to wave their pom-poms (in front of the news cams) for AIDS victims! Messer doesn't mention victims of cholera, typhus, malaria, yellow fever, sickle-cell anemia, etc., but I'm sure that was just an oversight.
Well-done piece. And I'm not even Catholic!
Comments (2)
Yeah, right: Messer's idea of the necessary methods of AIDs prevention include a long laundry-list of the top left-liberal international assistance programs ever conceived, as if solving poverty would prevent AIDs. Got news for you, Messers: most of the people with AIDs in the US are not in poverty. The AIDs virus is an equal opportunity germ, attacking poor and wealthy alike. And the AIDs - fostering activities, like sexual promiscuity and other sexual deviancies, are found at least as often in the rich as in the poor. So, no, solving poverty will do nothing to prevent AIDs.
Posted by Tony | December 8, 2009 11:04 AM
Very late to the party, but... my husband has a short-hand for the sort of thinking where everything that someone supports solves a problem, and anyone who disagrees with one of their goals is bad and possibly evil. (Even if the steps prior to the disagreed point-- in this case, "no sex" before the "no condoms" condition, while person A is "lots and lots of sex with anyone interesting" before the "must have condoms" condition.)
He'll read something and just say "more cowbell." (And yes, he can pull of the impersonation.)
Posted by Foxfier | December 10, 2009 12:42 PM