Canada's TheoCon$: No Condoms - You Should Just Obey Us

Apparently, Gwen Landolt isn't satisfied with lecturing Canadians on the immorality of anything other than missionary sex for making fetuses, and is now whining about the fact that our prisons make condoms available to help reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in the prison population.

Landolt said that distributing condoms avoids the central problem leading to AIDS.

“AIDS is a tremendously serious health issue,” she emphasized. “They should be dealing with the problem, not trying to deal with the consequences. They should be monitoring the inmates to prevent them from carrying on this activity which is causing the AIDS.”

Landolt said that condoms “only encourage the inmates to be involved with this dangerous activity.”

Apparently Ms. Landolt thinks that telling prisoners not to engage in sexual activity means that they won't. I don't think it's news to anyone grounded in reality that sexual activity happens in prisons - regardless of what the regulations say. This has been the case for as long as prisons have been bigger than a few cells in a castle's cellar.

The reason for distributing condoms is simple - they work.

Ms. Landolt seems to be of the opinion that anything even remotely related to sexuality is automatically giving "permission" for sexual acts. It isn't, but just telling people not to engage in sexual acts isn't going to stop that either. I may not like the idea of sex happening in prison, but that doesn't mean it's going to stop either.

Ms. Landolt might want to consider the consequences of allowing our prisons to become a primary source of HIV infection. Does a prisoner infected with HIV have anything to lose when they get out of prison?

The Pope, Condoms and Next Generation Media

Apparently the Vatican has its feelings all hurt by the coverage of the Pope's anti-condom remarks on a recent trip to Africa.

It said the remarks had been "used by some groups with a clear intent to intimidate, as if to dissuade the Pope from expressing himself on certain themes of obvious moral relevance and from teaching the Church's doctrine."

Apparently, the Pope thinks that condemning people to a slow death as a result of ignorance is "moral".

It's time that this pope realize that in the era of the Internet, news travels fast, and the daft ramblings of an old man in a cassock will be picked up on even faster - especially when they are so obviously rooted in dogma rather than the reality on the ground.

H/T: Canadian Cynic

Why The Pope Is DEAD WRONG About Condoms

It's not like Pope Ratzinger hasn't been swatted around already for his statements about condom use in Africa, but then again, today I spotted a story on BBC's website that puts the whole tragedy into into human terms.

Zenthu lives in a shack where she sleeps in the same room as her father and adult older brothers. She says that they are often drunk and sometimes there is no food for the family in the evenings.

The moment I ask her about her mother she bursts into tears, sobbing and sobbing.
...
Her mother gave birth to her baby sister two years ago, but months later still looked pregnant.
...
Despite the presence of other adults in the household, the care for both the new baby and her dying mother fell to Zenthu, then just 12 years old.

She began skipping school to tend to her mother.

Eventually, in Zenthu's words her mother "succumbed to the excruciating pains".

She had died from HIV/Aids. One in three pregnant mothers in some townships has the virus - so everyone must surely know someone with HIV. But the stigma means it is not discussed.

Imagine being twelve, and being the primary caregiver to the person who brought you into this world. Watching her wither away and die day by day - slowly and painfully.

Why? Because she had sex with someone who was HIV+...whether or not they knew it.

What's worse, is that the tragedy repeats itself with the next generation:

Or perhaps once they have been orphaned they are more likely to develop relationships with older men who can give them clothes and mobile phone time, but whose age makes them more likely to have HIV.

Or that without their parents' protection they might be more vulnerable to rape, a crime so common that some mothers living in the townships take their daughters to have long-lasting contraceptive injections at the age of 12 or 13, not because they think they're going to choose to have sex, but because the likelihood they'll be raped is so high.

Think about these things a bit. The dogmatic insistence of the Pope on "abstinence" is rooted in some fantasy world where everybody follows the same rules. Out in the real world, it's a much harsher, grittier picture. Condoms are a necessary part of the fight against HIV/AIDS, just like realistic sex education is. Sticking your head in the sand isn't going to do it.

Unfortunately, people in Africa are dying, and because old men in cassocks don't want to face the reality of that situation, simple things that could be done are being suppressed. This isn't just wrong, it's a moral failing far beyond that which they are so quick to criticize others for.