AIDS and morality (a rant)
OK, so I keep trying to convince myself that it was just pregnancy-related hormone weirdness that had me yelling at the television last night and crying tears of frustration. But, the truth of the matter is that I've done it before (though not so much the crying part.)
I was watching Frontline's documentary The Age of AIDS, broadcast just on the eve of the United Nations' big meeting on the AIDS crisis. (Frontline is being re-broadcast on the web on Friday at 4 pm Chicago time, if you want to catch it.)
And the thing that had me going was the interview with Franklin Graham. (Read a partial transcript of the interview here.)
He's a "spiritual advisor" to President Bush and is rightly credited with encouraging the evangelical community to show compassion for people impacted by HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa.
Franklin was talking about the "moral imperative" of the AIDS pandemic. And he's right about that.
Of course he left unsaid the widespread feeling that the women and children of Africa are "innocent" victims of AIDS, while the drug users, sex workers and others who make up a large portion of the infected population globally are somehow less deserving of compassion. I'm not super-familiar with the Bible, but I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't into making those distinctions.
More than that, though, it was Franklin's stance on prevention programs that had me going crazy.
Because, while he can rightly claim some credit for influencing the US policy that has provided vital medicines for 2 million AIDS sufferers worldwide, he is also the person most responsible for continually whispering in the President's ear that the US should not support sex education and condom distribution programs.
Around the world, community organizations face the terrible choice of missing out on US funds and medicines if they dare to educate people (including, I might add, married women) on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.
15 million people have become newly infected with AIDS. How many of them might have been spared this fate if they'd had basic education and access to condoms?
Is it really better for the state of person's soul that they get infected than that they make the practical, personal choice to use a condom? I'm at a loss to understand what is "moral" about that. I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than digustingly cruel.
Personally, I don't believe in hell. But Franklin Graham does. I'd like to ask him who he thinks winds up in hell. Because it seems like an excellent place for someone who would condemn millions to death and call it "moral."
I just want two minutes with Graham. I just want to ask him, "Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive that sex is such a sin that you're willing to condemn people to death for it? Would you rather watch your own children suffer and die than give them a chance to protect themselves? Why do some people get to be 'born again' after a lifetime of sin while others get no second chance?"
I don't want to send him a letter. I don't want to write a column about him. I just want to talk to him. And, failing that, I want to scream at him.
In the Frontline documentary, there's a section about Uganda. They had a hugely successful public health campaign there, which has gone a long way toward bringing new infection rates way down. President Bush even showed up there to praise it.
And then his administration's policies, via PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief, backed the Ugandan government into dismantling a key component of it.
It was the ABC approach: Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms. Now, it's pretty much just AB. And, if that doesn't work for you, or your partner isn't honest with you . . . well, too bad.
A Ugandan health educator, Noerine Kaleeba, is interviewed in the Frontline piece and says, of this development,
"I have met President Bush twice. He strikes me as a very brilliant, very passionate and very caring person. But when I contrast the President Bush that I have met with the policies and practices that are coming out of the United States, I can't reconcile it.
I can't, either. Where is the compassion from these men who once called themselves compassionate conservatives?
Comments
Debra says,
"Personally, I don't believe in hell. But Franklin Graham does. I'd like to ask him who he thinks winds up in hell. Because it seems like an excellent place for someone who would condemn millions to death and call it "moral.""
I think that I can answer for both Grahams because I know them so well back to 1957. The rich man described in Luke 16 did not believe in hell either, but he went there. The scriptures tell us that we are not perfect, and cannot measure up to God's standard; not one of us. Because we could not measure up to God's standard, He provided a substitute, Jesus Christ, who died and took our rightful place of commendation, and offered down through the generations since then, a really free offer of eternal life just by accepting the gift.
The deal is, that Christ takes our punishment (or hell), and gives us His heaven, by our choice.
If anyone understands that, and rejects the free offer, that person condemns themselves to hell by their own decision. So Debra is right; self-condemnation is deserved by those who do go to hell. The only ones that go there are the ones that decided to.
Posted by: Jack Denman | June 3, 2006 04:30 PM