And for those who don't believe in God (whoever you might be)....I'd like to ask this question:

Is it possible that AIDS is just Darwin's survival of the fittest in action? The stupid ones (ditto Stacy - not the children) but the stupid ones will die...

Hence for the non-believers it's just evolution at work...so suck it up!

Preach it sister and God bless.

Amen, Stacy.

It infuriates me that so much money is being spent to find a cure for a disease which can be totally prevented by virtue of a person's behavior, especially when there are other diseases then don't nearly get the attention they should (and yes, I am thinking of my daughter's disease when I write this).

Anyway, it's good to have you back, if only for a short post!

Stacy,

You have a good point about sexual fidelity so long as you restrict yourself to the U.S. (and probably Western Europe) where the vast majority of AIDS cases result from consensual sexual activity. Even so, the Church is still called to a ministry of compassion.

However, when you look at the Third World, especially Africa and Southeast Asia, AIDS in many places is an epidemic, affecting multiple generations. A substantial number of cases result from non-consensual sexual activity in conjunction with serious societal pathology and poverty. We are also seeing increasing involvement of churches as they better understand the worldwide situation.

I thus think World AIDS Day is appropriate so long as the emphasis is on World.

For one example of what churches are doing, let me refer you to the HIV/Awareness Project of Saddleback Church (Rick Warren is the author of The Purpose Driven Life.

I know your heart is in the right place; we all just need to expand our vision at times.

By the way, Saddleback is not my church (nor even local to where I live). It's just that Rick Warren is quite well known and was on my mind becasue the church just finished holding a large conference for church leaders on HIV/AIDS that made newspaper headlines.

"non-consensual sexual activity" ? ? ? ?

Is there some reason you can't or won't use the word "RAPE"?

Civil: You statements just underscore the need for morality. Don't do sex outside of marriage, don't do IV drugs, and prevent rape.

I saw a comment on a blog recently that was written by a gay man, and he said the following:

"I will never, ever forgive Ronald Reagan for what he did to us during the 80's."

Stacy, you and I don't completely agree on the homosexual issue, I think. That said, one thing we agree on is promiscuity: straight, gay, whatever, it's a bad idea for a whole host of reasons.

AIDS seems to be the only epidemic in history that mankind could nearly completely wipe out by simply curbing behavior. However, this is too much to ask. The "right" to sleep with whomever you choose, whenever you want, has surpassed people's responsibility to one another.

I don't think for a moment that AIDS research should be stopped. I do, however, feel that people all over the world, from promiscuous Americans to millions in Africa who engage in risky behavior for cultural reasons, need to cease and desist and thus allow science a decade or two to catch up.

Welcome back, if only briefly.

You big PUT ON! I knew you just ran out of things to say for a while.

We're mixing several issues here, I think. Everyone here, myself included, seems united in agreement that sexual fidelity would eliminate the predominant pathway that HIV spreads from person to person. (We also need to control other key pathways of transmission, especially IV drug usage/needle sharing and monitoring all donated/sold blood supplies.)

In the U.S., we are blessed with a legal system and societal mores that legally empower us to choose our sexual actions. (Of course we can have our rights violated by illegal actions of others, such as rape.) The flip side, of course, is that we have a concommitant responsibility for our sexual actions.

However substantial numbers of people in much of the Third World (especially women) don't have that blessing of choice and much non-consensual sexual activity takes place. Maggie, I'm not just talking about stranger rape, I'm talking about legal/social regulations that require women to engage in unprotected intercourse with their infected husbands at their husbands' whim. I'm talking about sexual slavery, including parents selling their children for sexual favors or and the sex trade in teen prostitution (especially severe in Thailand). I'm talking about folk traditions that the cure to AIDS is for a man to deflower a virgin. I'm talking about war crimes against women. Huge social disruptions and pathologies centuries old, orphans of parents with AIDS having to choose between sex for food or starvation, widows forced off their husband's land, and so on.

So yes, I think an World AIDS Day is appropriate; the epidemic continues to spread in the Third World, at times abetted by government denial of a problem, or even denial that HIV causes AIDS (e.g. South Africa). Awareness continues to be important; even here in our educated U.S. much misinformation about AIDS abounds, which in all too many cases leads to unwarranted shunning of people with HIV by family members and others.

I hope that this World AIDS Day also raises awareness of HIV prevention programs like ABC that have a focus on abstinence and fidelity (link here).

So Stacy and the other wonderful commenters here, we do need to speak the truth fearlessly, even if it runs against popular opinion (as Admin Worm notes). At the same time, we need to speak the truth with love, with knowledge, and with compassion.

Sorry, that last comment was mine. I hit the POST key too quickly.

"..legal/social regulations that require women to engage in unprotected intercourse with their infected husbands at their husbands' whim" = RAPE

".. sexual slavery, including parents selling their children for sexual favors or and the sex trade in teen prostitution" = RAPE

".. folk traditions that the cure to AIDS is for a man to deflower a virgin" = RAPE

".. war crimes against women. Huge social disruptions and pathologies centuries old, orphans of parents with AIDS having to choose between sex for food or starvation, widows forced off their husband's land .." = RAPE

What in heaven's name don't you get? Let's see if I can make a real simple analogy that might just get through to you 'civil truth'....men in the back regions of African have the moral integrity of Bill Clinton.

Can you hear me now? ? ? ? ?

Thank you!

Civil: if World AIDS Day would stick to addressing those issues of the Third World that you mentioned, I'd have no problem with it. But it always--ALWAYS--devolves into a "the US isn't doing enough/giving enough money" sham.

As an aside, yesterday while eating breakfast, I overheard (against my will) the talking heads on CNN mentioning World AIDS Day and President Bush's impending speech. The woman mentioned that the Bush administration prefers a 3-prong program, including emphasis on abstinence. The man snarkily quipped "ah, strings attached".

Gosh, I don't check my blog and look what happens.

Civil-my sister has first hand experience with the innocent children of AIDS in third world countries. She works for a dentist who does humanitarian missions in Romania, Africa and Cambodia. I've heard her heart-breaking stories and my heart breaks as well for those innocently affected. Africa? Geez, I don't even know where to begin with that one. It still breaks down to promiscuity.

But, here in the US most AIDS awareness events center around the gay community. It's difficult to watch their parades, their protests and feel compassion when they contract the disease. But then again; I may just be a heartless bitch.

Maggie,

We're both on the same side as I see it. I have no problem calling these actions rape, or sexual coercion, or sexual assault, or sexual violence, or even just plain immoral and evil! There really is no magic in the label; what's truly important to recognize the content -- the evil, the inhumanity, the degradation of these acts.

(Incidentally, African men are not uniquely immoral; Asia has a grim record of sexual assault too. In fact, a few years back, we had a scandalous case in the next town over of males from an prominent Indian family who were importing girls from their village back in India as sex slaves and workers in their restaurant until one died from monoxide poisoning and another courageously blew the whistle in a newpaper interview.) And then there is the story from Pakistan that continues to attract worldwide attention of the woman from a rural village, the village elders of which ordered here to be publically raped.

My point wasn't to focus on coming up with the precise "correct" label to put on these immoral actions; rather, my focus was that unlike the U.S., women in many Third World countries do not have legal protection against these forms of rape. Indeed for some of these actions (such as obligatory intercourse with one's spouse), not only do the women not have the right to say no, they in fact are mandated by law to have sex on demand. In other words, we're talking about societally sanctioned rape in many instances.

But while we quibble over labels, more and more of these women are getting infected with HIV. If World AIDS Day raises awareness of their plight, then great!

And indeed, one of the really marvelous work of the Spirit is that increasing numbers of leaders and churches from the evagelical Christian community are taking an advocacy role against sexual slavery as well as speaking out against male promiscuity and advocating for the sexual rights of women in Africa and Asia.

Maggie, if you're working with a group advocating for these women, great. And if not, I suggest that you take your energy, your passion, your anger, and direct it productively towards finding an advocacy group to work with -- rather than harranguing your allies over choice of words and labels.

Indeed, we often find God's calling on our lives through the things that get under our skin and irritate us, through our gripes, through the things that most stir our passions. Peace...

Stacy,

I'm confident know me well enough by now to know I don't consider you to be a "heartless b***h".

I guess that due to my media habits and work situation I haven't actually encountered the gay rallies, etc, in my community (or elsewhere) that marked World AIDS Day.

However, what I think chafes you, as it does me, is when we are confronted by a spirit of entitlement which demands the right to engage in any sexual behavior that one chooses and which also presumes a right that society protect them from the consequences of their immoral sexual choices. Talk about chutzpah. I agree, that spirit of arrogance does not exactly evoke a spirit of charity in me either.

That said, I think it also true that no one "deserves" to get HIV, heterosexual or homosexual. It's not something that we would wish on another human being, even if we don't approve of their behavior. Nonetheless, all of us have to recognize reality, and the reality of the world we all live in is that sexual immorality has the natural consequence of exposing oneself to the risk of contracting one or more sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection.

So in that context, I think we are free to show compassion for a person with HIV infection in their suffering even while me may may disapprove of their past actions. Indeed, through compassion, God's love may perhaps change their heart. Remember, it was while we were yet God's enemies that God reconciled us to Himself (Romans 5:8-10).

But if you right now don't "feel" compassion towards people who contract AIDS as a consequence of immoral sexual behavior, that's okay. You see, we are not called to feel compassion in the abstract. We aren't to go walking around admiring how compassionate we "feel".

Rather, it is when we are confronted with suffering in the flesh though another human being whom God brings into our life, when we see in our limited fashion "through a glass darkly" something of the way God views that person, then compassion will begin to find root in our heart. Until that fullness of time, however, sufficient for today are today's burdens (as I'm sure you well know). We don't have to add to our burdens by worrying whether we can rise to the challenges of tomorrow.

I think I'll stop here. I have a pertinent story to share, but I'll do that by e-mail. Don't be too hard on yourself. God bless.

Glad to see you back.

You are right, now that the problem of blood transfusion transmission has been all but eliminated, this is a 100% preventable disease. It just requires people to actually do the right thing.

One question that is so obvious that nobody ever seems to see it is this?

How are all of these men in Africa getting AIDS?

I've asked that question many, many times and have never gotten a good answer.

In America if you're a heterosexual male who doesn't shoot drugs, your chances of getting AIDS is almost non-existent, barring a bad blood transfusion.

After doing a little research on my own, I've come up with a couple of possibilities.

The first is that there is, apparently, a huge amount of homosexual sex going on in Africa that no one ever speaks of. I found one story on it that dates back to the the early 20th century, where an explorer noted that bisexuality among the men was "quite common".

The second possibility is that sexual relations between men and boys is considered normal in Muslim culture, which covers a huge portion of Africa.

That, too is rape.

And this isn't just propagandizing the enemy during wartime. I've found articles from many respected sources, including Muslims themselves.

So yes, Stacy, you are (of course) correct. The lack of moral values, especially Judeo-Christian values, is causing the AIDS epidemic.

And it just shows what's wrong with liberalism that the word "rape" had to be dragged out of Civil Truth for fear of offending a non-white culture. If it were in reference to American culture, there would have been no hesitation.

Hope you're feeling better. I can understand having to take breaks from blogging to keep other things from suffering. I wish people would realize the wisdom found in God's words. People have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to sex. You and I both know how great marital sex is and that nothing outside of our marital beds compares to what we have been given!

I've missed you...
Love and hugs,

Civil-deserve AIDS? No, but like any unhealthy behavior; be it smoking, drinking, drug-use or poor eating habits, one cannot expect to live that way and not suffer any consequences. If there were no consequences then there would be no deterrent to any choices we make in our lives.

My personal goal has always been not to disappoint God. By attempting to hold myself to that standard I'll most likely not disappoint my loved ones.

I love reading your blog and all the comments, but I think Civil needs to get his/her own soap box and quit using your comment sections to pontificate. Yes Civil, that was meant in a not very nice way. I tire of mucking through your long winded comments, then realizing you didn't have that much to really say. Have you ever heard the quote, "Brevity is the soul of wit?"

Only religion can be used to argue that a pandemic disease is a good thing. By all means, support abstinance and fidelity - but dont rely on it, espicially outside the US and western Europe. If a few thousand years of 'sex outside marrage, go to Hell' doesn't wipe out all STDs, a new approach is needed to suppliment that.

As well as which, it is all too easy to reduce HIV to a simple issue of sexual morals. That is not good - it promotes the idea of splitting people into 'The Rightous Clean' and 'The Hoards of Infected Amoral Heathens,' which in turn means people will put asside the issue as something that only affects those who deserve it.

HIV is largely, but not purely, a sexual problem - prior to the introduction of the ELISA test, HIV transmitted through blood donation was a major problem. Its roots were largely political (Many countries and companies were in denial for reasons of profitability (US), politics (France) or social standards (Japan)). But it was a problem, particually affecting haemophiliacs, many of them children. HIV-positive babies are also born, and of course there are the issues of prostitution to survive and cultural demands of sex mentioned above.

Interestingly, the vaccine for HPV is to be combined with one for genital warts in many countries where women are considered less-than-equal - otherwise men would have no reason to use it, and women would be too scared to as if their husbands found out then they would conclude either the woman was cheating, or she thought he was. And women is those places never accuse the man of infidelity, even when its obvious.

My final point: HIV is also no longer a homosexual problem. While it did start as such, the infection rate amoung heterosexuals is rising rapidly.

I'm with stacy on this. Aids is a preventible disease. At least in the United States. All it requires is moral values. And if you think the homosexual lifestyle is moral than you are just to stupid to argue with.

The other countries have their own issues to deal with and they have to deal with them.

"My final point: HIV is also no longer a homosexual problem. While it did start as such, the infection rate amoung heterosexuals is rising rapidly."

This is patently false in the US. HIV/AIDS is still almost exclusively (close to 93%) confined to those who either are homosexual/have engaged in homosexual acts, are IV drug abusers, or both. Cut-and-dried fact.

And you can quibble all you want about "social customs/mores" in other cultures, but the plain God's honest truth is, immorality is the main vector of transmission of this disease. Period.

Immoriality? By your standards. Morals are not fixed, espicially where sex is involved.

I did a bit of quick research. In the UK, 45% of HIV-positive people are male homosexuals. In the US... amazingly, 45%! So much for your '93%' statistic, which I am unable to verify without a source (http://www.avert.org/statindx.htm). You are just a little out of date - I think that statistic was from a few years ago.

Sandy, you are falling into the exact trap I mentioned: Dismissing HIV as a disease of immorality, which only affects those who somehow deserve. Its a disease. It spreads. If not controled, it can spread surprisingly rapidly and widely.

There's a reason it's called a 'sexually transmitted disease'. You can lie to yourself all you like but the overwhelming majority of contracting AIDS is SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED!!!!

True. But not every case - so you cannot just dismiss it. It can spread by non-sexual transfer, even into those who you would consider morally perfect. It can even spread by sexual transfer to those who you would consider have done nothing wrong, if a married partner is unfaithful.

Also, sex outside of marrage is not the great crime you seem to think. Its always happened, and its happening a lot more openly and frequently now. Usually, the people involved will eventually pair up, settle down and marry.

HIV is, as diseases go, quite bad. No immediate symptoms, no cure (It takes a large quantity of mixed antivirals just to reduce the risk of HIV being passed from pregnent women to child). But the promise of AIDS and death in the future. An expensive death too - and we have tax-funded healthcare here. Until its detected, the infected person is going to spread it to everyone with whome they have sexual contact. Its endemic in some countries.

So really, everything should be done to control and reduce it. And perhaps one day, if antivirals become cheaper and more effective and a vaccine is developed somehow, it can even be elimimated completely. It worked for smallpox. But just controling it is difficult as long as there is the political obstical presented by those who dismiss it as "The Gay Disease" or "The Promiscuious Disease." An obstical which is a problem with all STD-related treatment - particually when people start using flawed science to campaign for abstinance-only campaigns because they believe everyone must live by their own moral code.

I seem to be ranting now... I will just save the rant about HPV vaccination for another day.

I believe in God but I am not Christian (mother Jewish, father Christian but not really practicing, husband Lutheran and here I am at 36 trying to find my way :). But one thing I don't think is that AIDS is some kind of punishment for sin. I don't believe that at all.

Some really great posts here I enjoyed reading. Unfortunately the attempt to eradicate AIDS in Africa isn't going to ever be successful. I've learned just through talking to people from that part of the world that the men find it an insult that they must wear a condom when having sex. Virility is important to their status in their communities/tribes, and part of a man's power and status lies in his ability to procreate. It's insulting to his manliness to do something that would inhibit that. Now that's in uncivilized areas where AIDS runs rampant.

In America, we have people having sex with anyone they want, whenever they want. In the projects in inner cities you have women on welfare with babies by three or four different guys. It's insane.

The ways to prevent AIDS are to not have sex with someone who has it and not share a needle with someone who has it.

Seems so simple doesn't it? Too bad it isn't :(

BTW I really love your blog and I enjoyed looking at your family photos, you all look so happy, I hope you have a nice Christmas (yes, I said Christmas! :)

Jessica

True, it is a cultural problem... to some extent, education can help with this, but its difficult in cultures where just discussing HIV is problematic.

It relates to the HPV vaccine combination I mentioned earlier - the culture in some areas presents such a problem, the only way the vaccine has the slightest chance of success is to combine it with that for genital warts. Even then, its difficult. Simerially, in the US, the vaccine will be marketed to parents as a way to protect their daughters from rape - otherwise, many parents would just assume their little angel is far too sensible and moral for sex before they are twenty, and thus has no need for vaccination.

But I digress - much as I enjoy discussing HPV, the topic is currently a different disease. Culture is, as discussed, a huge problem here - but how can it be combatted? I am not a sociologist, but I can guess it may have come from the region having a historicly high infant-mortality rate. If few children survive, and parents are dependent on their children for support when they become too old to work, then clearly there is an incentive to have as many children as possible. It becomes culturally desireable for men to be verile and women to be highly fertile, with a large family. Factor in the difference between male and female chilren (The males work, the females marry off and work for someone else), and you also find an origin for the strong male bias - in some countries, there are many stories of female children being quietly lost or simply killed because the father insists that he will have a boy, and not settle for second-class offspring.

When it comes to changing the culture, not much can be done - perhaps bombard them with US-produced television for a century or so, and see what happens?

Suricou_Raven: "In the UK, 45% of HIV-positive people are male homosexuals. In the US... amazingly, 45%."

First, you completely overlook IV drug use, which I specifically mentioned: "those who either are homosexual/have engaged in homosexual acts, are IV drug abusers, or both."

Now, to refute your numbers, which are wildly inaccurate.

Take a look at this report from the CDC's HIV/AIDS Surveillance data, specifically Table 3: Estimated numbers of AIDS cases, by year of diagnosis and selected characteristics of
persons, 2000–2004 — United States" (pg. 12), focusing on the Transmission Category numbers:

TOTAL CASES HIV/AIDS diagnosed 2000-2004: 944,305
Male-to-male sexual contact: 441,380 (46.7% of total)
Male injection drug use: 176,162 (18.7%)
Male-to-male sexual contact and injection drug use: 64,833 (6.9%)
Female injection drug use: 72,651 (7.7%)

TOTAL via a directly attributal to immoral conduct route: 755,026 (79.96%)

Even ignoring the repeatedly verified assumption that many of the "other/non-specified" category, when further investigated, prove to be via previously unreported/unadmitted homosexual contact or IV drug use, or contact with known homosexuals, IV drug users or prostitutes, it would appear that 80% contract the disease due to clearly immmoral behavior through every fault of their own.

And 80%, my dear friend, is a lot closer to 93% than it is to 45%.

To sum up: my claim of 93% was more accurate--and provably so by the numbers--than your claim of 45%, especially since you conveniently ignored that I was speaking of homosexual and IV drug routes of transmission.

I overlooked the IV infections - an easy mistake, as the topic is currently heavily concentrated on the adjacent entry.

The morality of homosexuality is also debateable - this is a Christian site, and the bible is quite clear on this issue, but to non-christians the issue is not so clear. Over here in Europe, it is accepted rather more easily than in the US - a cultural difference.

Prostitution was not mentioned when discussing the statistics before. It is a problem. Not an easy one to overcome. Simpley human nature - Men want sex, and enough of them dont care who with that it creates a suitable market for unskilled female labor. I think its a problem that can be best handled by indirect means - improve education and employment, and prostitution becomes less common. And some policing too, but that mostly as a deterant.

"The morality of homosexuality is also debateable."

Not in God's eyes, it isn't.

"The morality of homosexuality is also debateable."

"Not in God's eyes, it isn't."

That was my point :) If you justify any action against homosexuals - or, in this case, lack of action - on religious grounds then you are in some way imposing your Christian ideals and morals on others. While this makes sense internally to Christians (Who must, of course, work on the assumption that they are correct), there are some of down-sides. It creates tension between Christians and non-Christians - I can assure you that currently most of the academic community currently thinks of Christianity in general as anti-science zealots who want to return society to the middle ages, following the ID fiasco. This impression is not accurate - but it is how you are coming to be soon. In regards to homosexuality... do you want people thinking of Christians as an army of Phelpses?

(*Appology for the many typos in that post*)

Wow! Just found your blog, and let me tell you, it's a rvelation. Would you all mind if I jut listen in and occassionally pipe up with questions about your views, lives and opinions. It's just that, since I started studying medieval European history, I've been having problems getting to grips with the medieval social patterns concerning religious beliefs and how people viewed "the other". It's really difficult because that whole religious and social climate was left behind a long time ago here in Europe, so to find a group of history scholars like yourselves, who are obviously putting a lot of effort into re-enacting a whole belief system, is a big help for me. Tell me, are you funded by a university history department, or are you just enthusiasts?

I particularly like the way you've used your site to demonstrate the medieval attitude to leprosy by showing the sentiments people had about contagious diseases a thousand years ago but updated with HIV. Very clear, and very instructive. It' a great way to demonstrate that in those days, poeple REALLY BELIEVED these things about disease simply being an overt sign of sin. Hats off to you all!

I'm sorry you're so full of hate.

That's not hate dear, that's the truth, that's reality. The sooner you accept the better off we'll all be.

This thread isn't going to end :) Fortunate I misclicked and returned here, I really wouldn't want to let Stacy have the last word on this.

Billy's sarcasm does have a point here. To many people, the oppinion of the religion people does come off as 'these people are sinners and if they are going to die, tough, im not going to help them.' Sometimes you seem to be adding a thin cover of science or statistics in order to prove some point, but its clear you just want to be moral elitists: The Holy Ones, the Saved, who are so perfect and moral, raising yourself above a sea of perversion. Its a comforting self image - but an inaccurate one. You just want someone to look down on.

Quite simply, I have yet to find any convincing arguement against homosexuality. In terms of health, its not as bad as many think. The stories of halved average lifespans are an exageration. In terms of disease transmission probabilities, its no worse than male-female sex (female-female sex, I would imagine, is safer than either). Its true that the STD infection rates are higher amoung homosexuals, not just for HIV but also hepititus and probably others. This is a consequence of culture, not biology. You can try to alter the culture, encouraging more monogamous relationships - legal recognision for the partners seems likely to help here. Or you can try to combat the STDs, encouraging the use of condoms and in the long term investing in medical research. One thing you cannot do, at least with clear ethics, is preach at people on how evil and sinful they are, and threaten eternity in hell if they dont return to being 'normal' people.

I often hear people argueing against anything they percieve to be remotely pro-homosexual. Not just legal recognition but, as this thread illustrates, argueing against actively compating diseases they consider to be mostly 'a gay thing'. Argueing against schools studying books with homosexual characters, worrying that if children are exposed to any talk of homosexuality outside of the religion context of sin they may consider it more normal. Argueing against non-discrimination laws that make it illegal to fire someone purely on the grounds of sexual preference. Argueing against laws that would make it illegal to incite violence - and I point out that noone has proposed a law in either US or Europe that I am aware of that would make criticism of homosexuality illegal. Only Phelpslike incitement to violence.

But so far, everyone I find making those arguements does so either out of personal dislike (The Eww factor), or religious objections. Or, very often, personal dislike justified with religious talk to add credability.

Honestly SR I haven't read all the comments here. I quit blogging and just randomly come back. Last word? Dear, it would take nothing for me to ban your narrow-minded ass and even keep you from even being able to access my page. You think you know all about me from this one post? Did you know I'm in favor of civil unions? Did you know that I'm not homophobic? Did you know my best friend is a lesbian? Obviously not. Consequences are a key element to anything in society. Why do we exercise and eat healthy? Why do we go to our doctors for exams? Why do we wear our seatbelts? I take issue with those who are irresponsible. When you make poor choices you often pay for them. This post will now be closed for comments.