This entry was posted on
Friday, December 31st, 2004 at
9:39 am and is filed
under Christ….

Thanks to this reworked tract by Jack Chick and this pamphlet from ‘Truth’ For Youth Teh Kids now ‘know’ that the AIDS virus is so small that it can pass through teeny-tiny holes in latex condoms.

Summary:

– The assertion that AIDS/HIV can pass through latex condoms is a false one; a lie based on cherry-picked/misinterpreted science, pseudo-science and – in some cases – studies that simply don’t exist.

– A life-or-death medical problem is clearly being used to push a moral agenda.

– Studies focusing on science are being suppressed; education based on religious belief is being pushed.

– Granted, abstinence is the only 100% effective way to avoid STDs, but this 100% figure is based on the assumption that abstinence itself is totally reliable. Catholic priests have trouble with abstinence; teenagers are far more prone to a breakdown of willpower.

– Abstinence-only education results in teenagers not being educated in the correct use of condoms, so when a willpower-failure occurs, condoms are used improperly or not at all.

– There is no proof whatsoever that condoms allow passage of HIV/AIDS. Granted, there is the possibly of imperfections, but the risk of not using condoms or using them improperly is far, far greater (see above).

Further Reading:

Pros & Cons – Voices on the Church’s Condoms Policy
Bush on Condoms and AIDS
The Silver Ring Thing – The Lies of Denny Pattyn

Guardian – Vatican: condoms don’t stop Aids: The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass – potentially exposing thousands of people to risk… In Lwak, near Lake Victoria, the director of an Aids testing centre says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition. Gordon Wambi told the programme: “Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids.”

BBC – Sex and the Holy City: Panorama has travelled across four continents to talk to those directly affected by the Pope’s conservative teachings on sex. The team has discovered that the Catholic Church – contrary to mainstream scientific opinion – is claiming that condoms have microscopic holes in them which allow the HIV virus through. The World Health Organisation has condemned this view as dangerous.

LA Weekly – Bush’s War on the Condom: But in May (2002), at the U.N.’s Special Session on Children, Bush formed an unholy alliance with Iraq and Iran – you remember, two-thirds of the “axis of evil” – to successfully eliminate from the official declaration any references to the right of the world’s children to “reproductive health services and education,” including condoms for HIV prevention… Bush (also) threatened countries with trade and aid reprisals if they didn’t toe the no-condoms, abstinence-only, anti-abortion line in the vote to weaken the U.N.’s commitment to providing life-saving information to those young women… And, here at home, Bush – under the direction of political commissar Karl Rove – has been systematically placing HIV-prevention efforts into the hands of the Christian right – which is pushing the censorious line that abstinence before heterosexual marriage is the only permissible form of HIV-prevention education – and putting condom opponents i