get donkey!

I was poking around the NYT op-ed page and came across last week’s column from Nicholas Kristoff:

Three thousand years ago an amorous Egyptian couple (probably libidinous liberals) experimented with a linen pouch, producing the world’s first known condom. Some right-wingers still haven’t gotten over it.

Over the last few years conservative groups in President Bush’s support base have declared war on condoms, in a campaign that is downright weird — but that, if successful, could lead to millions of deaths from AIDS around the world.

I first noticed this campaign last year, when I began to get e-mails from evangelical Christians insisting that condoms have pores about 10 microns in diameter, while the AIDS virus measures only about 0.1 micron. This is junk science (electron microscopes haven’t found these pores), but the disinformation campaign turns out to be a far-reaching effort to discredit condoms, squelch any mention of them in schools and discourage their use abroad.

“The only absolutely guaranteed, permanent contraception is castration,” one Catholic site suggests helpfully. Hmmmm. You first.

Then there are the radio spots in Texas: “Condoms will not protect people from many sexually transmitted diseases.”

A report by Human Rights Watch quotes a Texas school official as saying: “We don’t discuss condom use, except to say that condoms don’t work.”

[snip]

So far President Bush has not fully signed on to the campaign against condoms, but there are alarming signs that he is clambering on board. Last month at an international conference in Bangkok, U.S. officials demanded the deletion of a recommendation for “consistent condom use” to fight AIDS and sexual diseases. So what does this administration stand for? Inconsistent condom use?

Then there was the Condom Caper on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. A fact sheet on condoms was removed in July 2001 and, eventually, replaced by one that emphasized that they may not work.

You know, my wife yells at me when I shout, “Those damned Christian Conservatives!” everytime I read something like this piece. As an ex-Christian conservative herself, she claims that it is not very liberal of me to judge an entire group of people by the acts of a few idiots on the fringe. On the one hand she’s correct, but when that idiot-fringe controls nearly the entire freaking Federal and, in TX anyway, state governments, they are no longer
granted the benefit of my “live and let live” and “accept all others even if they are different” liberal worldview. Especially since their worldview is “live as we do or die, you heathen scum”.

What the hell is wrong with these people that they are so petrified of sex and willies!?

BTW, as Kristoff points out:

In the time it has taken to read this column, 28 people have died of AIDS, including 5 children. An additional 49 people have become infected. It’s imperative that we get over our squeamishness, accept that condoms are flawed but far better than nothing, recognize that condoms no more cause sex than umbrellas cause rain, and ensure that couples in places like Botswana get more than one condom per year.

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