It’s a shame a whole country, in this day and time, cannot see the track record of religious involvement in HIV/AIDS treatment. Of course we can all see what religious involvement in Uganda has done (kill-the-gays).
It has been proven over and over again that safe-sex-education trumps abstinence-only-education for curbing the spread of sexually transmitted disease. No if’s, and’s or but’s, abstinence-only-education causes more death, more dollars, more suffering and more risk.
Prior to religion and Bush becoming involved in abstinence-only-education the rate of new infections in Africa had dropped drastically.
Once abstinence-only-education took over new infection rate started to rise.
Of course, the kill-the-gays folks in Uganda have been holding out on a final decision due to the all-mighty-dollar. We all knew this.
Today in the news we hear about the USA freezing HIV spending in Africa! (article)
One of the reasons being: “the US cannot continue treating an ever-increasing number of patients and that unless new infections are reduced Ugandans will always be faced with drug shortages”.
Even a PEPFAR official stated “We have all lost momentum on the prevention front and we’re paying for it now in the form of rising prevalence".
The good news is, with Obama, the abstinence-only-education is going to take a back seat.
The sad part is the question: How many died due to the application of religion rather than sound scientific data?
Every single person who participates in abstinence-only-education is complicit to murder.
Back to the topic at hand. Now that the cat’s out of the bag about the money I wonder if they will suddenly reach a decision about the kill-the-gays bill? Or is there still money in the wings? $959 million sounds like an awful lot of money but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other programs that funnel even more funds to that area.
When preachers start suggesting/making laws you no longer have a democracy. You have become a theocracy.
If you wish to hear my recent discussion with the Gay Uganda Blog Author click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment