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HIV 'is a
Homosexual Disease'
How
should society deal with a behavior -– a lifestyle choice --
that places those who engage in the behavior at a high risk for poor
health and grave disease? If the behavior in question is smoking,
American society does everything in its power to discourage the
behavior to the point of passing laws that make it illegal to puff in
public places, even if the public venue is privately owned.
However, if the
behavior that results in probable poor health and potentially fatal
disease is promiscuous sex, particularly homosexual sex, society only
encourages those who engage in the behavior to do so safely.
The result of America's collective attack on smoking is that the rate
of those who smoke has decreased dramatically in the United States.
Additionally, the attitude toward smokers has shifted from tolerant
acceptance to intolerant disgust.
What has society's "safe" approach to immoral and aberrant sex
produced? Sexually transmitted diseases that are rampant and
common-place, so much so that drugs designed to deal with them are now
routinely advertised on television.
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
adopted new counting methods that have revealed an HIV rate in America
that is 25 percent higher than originally thought.
The CDC estimates there are 50,000 new cases of HIV infection reported
each year. Currently 1.1 million people in the United States are
believed to be infected with HIV.
All HIV infections are a result of someone's behavior. According to the
CDC, in 2006 59 percent of new HIV infections were caused solely by
male-to-male sexual contact, and 7 percent by both male-to-male contact
and drug use. That means that homosexual men, who comprise
approximately 2 percent of the population, accounted for 66 percent of
new HIV cases two years ago. Of the remaining HIV cases, 17 percent
were transmitted by high-risk heterosexual contact and 16 percent
solely by drug use.
The one thing that all the HIV infections have in common is they are a direct result of behavior.
For years homosexual activists insisted that HIV was not a homosexual
disease. That has changed. Matt Foreman, executive director of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, told the organization national
conference in February that HIV is "a gay disease."
"Folks, with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV
being gay or bisexual," Foreman said, "we cannot deny that HIV is a gay
disease. We have to own that and face up to that."
Foreman acknowledged what many of us have known for decades: HIV and
its companion disease AIDS is dramatically disproportionate among male
homosexuals.
The safe-sex message in relation to HIV has been neither wise nor
helpful. A report released in 2001 by the CDC concluded that condom use
reduces the risk of contracting HIV by only 85 percent -- and then only
when used "correctly and consistently."
In a "game" of Russian roulette there is an 83.4 percent chance of
firing an empty chamber. However, no one encourages participation in
the dangerous game even though the odds of getting a bullet are
relatively low. Why? The stakes are simply too high. The same is true
for condoms and HIV.
What I find utterly amazing is that while STDs, including HIV, are
spread solely on the basis of behavior, society continues to send a
message of safety rather than abstinence. And homosexual sex continues
to be portrayed as some civil right rather than an incubator for a
deadly disease.
It seems that a majority in American culture have surrendered to the
idea that sexual desire is so overwhelming, so part of our nature, that
it simply cannot be restrained.
In the classic movie "The African Queen" these is a scene where Charlie
Allnut, played by Humphrey Bogart, is justifying his propensity to
imbibe alcohol. He says to Rose Sayer, a missionary played by Katharine
Hepburn, "A man takes a drop too much once in a while, it's only human
nature." To which Rose replies, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put
in this world to rise above."
Man can rise above any and all negative aspects of human nature --
whether it is a desire to light up a cigarette or engage in risky
promiscuous sex.
Given the fact that promiscuous sex, and homosexual sex in particular,
is so fraught with negative health consequences and the potential for
dread disease, it would seem that society would embrace the same
message that it directs toward smokers: Just say no!
Source: Baptist Press
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