A
is for abstinence
B
is for be faithful
C
is for condoms
See?
Anybody who has progressed through the very first books of their lives can get this.
And it seemed to be working, down there in Uganda; here’s what one writer had to say:
By 2003,
Uganda’s AIDS rate plummeted 10 percent. The government’s free distribution of
the “C” in ABC—condoms—proved central to the program’s success, according to Avert, an international AIDS charity.
So—a nice
little success story! But before cracking open that bottle of champagne,
consider this quote, from the same source:
On New
Year’s Eve, 1999, Janet Museveni, who had become born-again, convened a massive
stadium revival in Kampala to dedicate her country to the “lordship” of Jesus
Christ. As midnight approached, the First Lady summoned a local pastor to the
stage to anoint the nation. “We renounce idolatry, witchcraft, and Satanism in
our land!” he proclaimed.
What had
happened? Well, at least some of it had to do with Rick Warren, who teamed up
with a Ugandan preacher, Martin Ssempa,
whom Kay
Warren, speaking through
tears, called “my brother.” And Ssempa, among other things, was the driving
force behind a Ugandan paper publishing the photos of…well, here it is:
Warren, you
see, had
been to Uganda in 2008 to declare that homosexuality is not a natural way of
life and so not a human right. This, of course, was the message that our
old villain Scott Lively had been pouring into their ears. In
addition, it was the message, according to Rachel Maddow,
that The Family, a mostly
secretive group of fundamentalists who have been infiltrating our government
for years now, had given David
Bahati, the sponsor of
the most recent law.
It wasn’t,
therefore, enough to go after homosexuals. What else had to be done? Obviously,
the message that condoms would prevent AIDS had to go, since that was a direct
contradiction to the message that the fundamentalists wanted to get across. Here comes our
born-again first lady again:
Two years
later, Janet Museveni flew to Washington at the height of a heated
congressional debate over PEPFAR. She carried in her hand a prepared message to
distribute to Republicans. Abstinence was the golden bullet in her country’s
fight against AIDS, she assured conservative lawmakers, denying the empirically
proven success of her husband’s condom distribution program. Like magic, the
Republican-dominated Congress authorized over $200 million for Uganda, but only
for the exclusive promotion of abstinence education. Ssempa soon became the
“special representative of the First Lady’s Task Force on AIDS in Uganda,”
receiving $40,000 from the PEPFAR pot.
How
involved was Warren with Uganda? Well, involved enough that Ssempa, when Warren
finally was forced to denounce
the Uganda
anti-gay law, published an open letter to Warren. Here’s what he had to say:
When
you came to Uganda on Thursday, 27 March 2008, and expressed support to the
Church of Uganda’s boycott of the pro-homosexual Church of England, you stated;
“The Church of England is wrong, and I support the Church of Uganda”. You
are further remembered to say, “homosexuality is not a natural way of life and
thus (it’s) not a human right. We shall not tolerate this aspect at all”
Warren, according to The New York Times, is starting a new program within his
church to reach out to people suffering mental illnesses, an issue important to
him since his son committed suicide a year ago. I hope it works but…
…why am I
so unconvinced?
