As The Veneer of Civility Cracks

I've claimed for a very long time that just below the surface of the CPoC currently sitting on the government benches in Ottawa is the squirming base of intolerance and hardline religious bigotry.

With the CPoC sniffing at majority territory, that base is becoming more vocal - and in particular some of what has been oozing out of the National Post in recent weeks has made this very, very clear. Today's bit of vileness comes to us from via Barbara Kay's wisdom.

In it, she manages to invoke not only the wingnut insanity of the anti-gay religious reich, but also the racism of the KKK.

Three causes preoccupy liberal ideologues: the absolute divestment of morality from all sexuality, the normalization of homosexuality and the eradication of racism. Unfortunately, the hard truth around the spread of HIV/AIDS -- a nightmare trifecta for them -- indicts promiscuous homosexuals and certain African black populations, and tends to acquit sexually prudent heterosexuals.

Why yes, Barbara, it's really all the fault of those nasty gay people who have more than one sexual partner. Ever been to a bar like Cowboys in Calgary? If yo have, then try to tell me that there isn't massive amounts of promiscuity among young heterosexuals as well - with a straight face. (and, unsurprisingly, the GLBT people I know who are over thirty are in established, long term relationships.)

As for the issues in Africa, if you can't recognize those as social and educational problems, then you are similarly naive.

But alas for all those non-judgmental AIDS do-gooders: What has worked best and most rapidly to reduce HIV infection among both homosexuals and promiscuous Africans is partner reduction.

Nice theory. Here's your reality check, Barbara. Societies don't change overnight; and subgroups that are held in an oppressed state will be less likely to conform with the social norms of the broader society. (It's funny how that works - alienate a group of people and then watch them go a totally different direction socially to what you want them to.

Sadly, the other problem that Ms. Kay is blithely overlooking is that HIV is transmitted by more than sexual promiscuity, and once a virus like that is in the wild, it will find ways to survive and propagate - nature's funny that way. That, combined with the fact that in Africa in particular, AIDS is literally killing off an entire generation when they should be at their peak of economic productivity. Hardly a combination that says we should stop treating HIV/AIDS patients, or searching for longer term solutions than the chemical cocktails required to survive the effects of the virus.

Epstein credits the decrease in multiple partners to Uganda's "Love Carefully" and "Zero Grazing" campaigns against casual sex, ubiquitously promoted by politicians and the media.

And yet, although the relevant data was available to the AIDS establishment throughout the decade, Epstein observes, "When independent consultants, some of them hired by UNAIDS [The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS], reported to the agency that partner reduction, not condoms, was largely responsible for Uganda's HIV decline, their reports were ignored or never made public."

Worse, international AIDS "experts" scolded Uganda's National AIDS-Prevention Committee for encouraging sexual restraint, which was believed to be naive and ineffectual. Sadly, as advocacy of fidelity and youthful abstinence was systematically undermined, Uganda's HIV rates began to rise again.

In 2006, UNAIDS publicly acknowledged that partner reduction was pivotal to HIV reduction. It took so long because, in the words of a candid insider: "There was a sense that promoting fidelity must be totally wrong if it was a message favoured by the Christian Right. We've made an emotion-based set of decisions and people have suffered terribly because of that." It seems George Bush was actually on to something in his policy of linking aid money to the encouragement of sexual fidelity.

Unfortunately, this realization has come too late. AIDS establishment elites lied; gay and black AIDS victims died.

Ummm, no, Bush wasn't onto anything that wasn't already part of normal sex ed. The Bush-styled "abstinence only" education tries to bury sexual realities, and in doing so is far more deadly. People make better decisions when they have all of the information, not just the half-baked subset that Bush, and apparently Ms. Kay, want to be made available.