Posted on 08/24/2006 5:26:10 PM PDT by Pyro7480
An Open Letter to Melinda Gates
For many years the world has paid close attention to the foundation that bears your name. No one faults you or your husband for funding excellent programs to keep kids in school and assisting with the advancement of healthcare for the Third World, but the real concern of people of faith has been how the Gateses will use their money when it comes to fighting AIDS, something your husband has called "Public Enemy #1." If there had been any doubt about it up to this point, your recent address to the 16 th World Conference on AIDS in Toronto settled that question. You are using your high-profile position and extreme wealth to push condoms as a solution to this deadly disease, and that, quite frankly, is irresponsible.
For the moment, we'll overlook the fact that your opinion is clearly at odds with the defined teaching of your own Church (see Family Values vs. Safe Sex), and we'll focus on the latex "solution" to AIDS from a purely pragmatic point of view. If you are so sure of your position then please show us any actual success of the condom as a solution to the AIDS pandemic in the last quarter century -- any. The tidal wave of ideological rhetoric delivered at the World AIDS Conference does not constitute real proof that condoms have worked to stop the spread of AIDS. In fact, all the evidence is against you.
Show us, Mrs. Gates, how the condom prevented the deaths of the twenty-five million people who died by the irrepressible furor of this disease—or the forty million who are presently living with the disease. You have written about the women and children who are true victims of this disease, but you have not recognized the role that the flawed piece of latex has played in their infections or deaths. I'm sure that the majority of these people were told that the condom would keep them "safe," only to be given a death sentence for their naive trust in that deception. There are 5 million new cases of AIDS every year, and please don't tell us that all these people were practicing irresponsible "unprotected" sex. It's easier to blame the victims for their deaths than to find real solutions to prevent more deaths.
We will never hear that the condom has left a string of victims on every continent. I remind you that our own government in 2001 recognized a 15% failure rate of the condom in preventing pregnancy which can be contracted only a few days a month let alone sexually transmitted diseases which are communicable 24/7. Even the population controller's "bible," Contraceptive Technology, admits an 11% failure rate! Your own people have documented the recklessness of this method, and you continue to tell people that it is "safe." Now who is irresponsible? Every infection contracted through the use of a condom was entirely avoidable with the right behaviors that condom promoters refuse to preach.
Show us the evidence that condoms have worked, Mrs. Gates. You will have to contend with some heavy hitters like Kofi Annan who publicly admitted in June that the present approach to stopping AIDS ( i.e., the condom solution) has been an abject failure. Last year there were more deaths and greater expansion of the pandemic than ever before, a fact which just fuels the criticism that maybe condoms are adding to the problem, not solving it. It is not an exaggeration to say that a minimum of twenty billion condoms have been thrown at AIDS in this quarter century, and despite $8 billion a year being invested in this problem there is no moderating the aggressive march of this plague. If your husband ran his business like the condom bosses have managed this disease, Microsoft wouldn't exist and you would never have been given a platform in Toronto to advocate continued failure.
There is a way to stop AIDS, Mrs. Gates, but your advisors may not have informed you about it. The only program that has shown dramatic and consistent success against this enemy is that of the government of Uganda which for twenty years has applied a humane, chastity-based message throughout its society geared to altering the disordered sexual behaviors that lead to the disease. In 1986, the prevalence rate of the disease in Uganda was about 30%; today it's down to about 7% in the general population. This is real and verifiable success, not rhetoric or wishful thinking. The government of Uganda believes its people have the human capacity to change their risky behaviors. That's the humanitarian message that needs Gates Foundation funding.
It's time for the cabal of elitist westerners with huge bank accounts and American tax dollars to stop the irresponsible program of condom genocide, Mrs. Gates. Continuing partnerships and coalitions, declarations of commitment to combating AIDS, fierce evangelical language denouncing the disease mean absolutely nothing if you use the wrong methods to fight the enemy! How many more people must die while population controllers in New York and London sketch out failed five- and ten-year plans when the only plan that has worked is ignored? Organizations and people who mindlessly parrot failed rhetoric actually become part of the problem—and they will be judged accordingly. Heed well the words of the Gospel: "To those who have been given more, more will be required."
Now, as to the question of the Catholic position on this issue, I really wish you would preface your statements about condoms with the following disclaimer: "The position I advocate is not the actual position of the Catholic Church, and I am not speaking as a Catholic." That would be more honest than allowing people to think that the Catholic Church endorses condoms as a solution to AIDS under any circumstances. Cardinal Lopez Trujillo of the Pontifical Council for the Family has dismissed any notions of the sort even in the face of recent challenges by disingenuous church officials. If you need a copy of that document I will be happy to send you one.
Having money does not qualify a Catholic to publicly contradict the Catholic Faith; in fact, it makes her more accountable to God and to the truth that the Church proclaims. If you wish to continue to promote the condom, kindly leave the Church so that you will not be judged accordingly and refrain from scandalizing those of us who really want to stop AIDS.
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I wonder why they feel that way? Cancer and heart disease kills far more people than does AIDS, and AIDS is a very preventable disease. One could almost consider the disease curable in the fact that it's so preventable.
You summed it up, KoRn. AIDS is preventable. Most cancer, so far, is not. Even in Africa, AIDS isn't the biggest killer, malaria is. There's nothing wrong with trying to eradicate any disease. I'm all for disease eradication efforts. But to call AIDS the #1 health threat (in fact, to imply that it's the #1 threat of any kind), is just plain stupid.
Uganda Winning the Battle Against AIDS — Using Abstinence
Uganda may be on its way to wiping out AIDS by using the Biblical values of chastity and fidelity, a new Harvard University study finds. According to the study, abstinence education has shown significant effectiveness in reducing AIDS in Uganda, with the HIV infection rate dropping 50 percent between the years 1992 and 2000.
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0074.html
Billys own mother died from cancer! Put some money in that.
There's a lot more to the agenda than preventing AIDS. If it was just about protecting the population of African countries than Uganda's ABC method would in use through out the continent.
"It is probable that the number of new infections peaked in the late 1980s, and then fell sharply until the mid 1990s. This is generally thought to have been the result of behaviour change. Increased abstinence, a rise in the average age of first sex, a reduction in the average number of sexual partners and more frequent use of condoms are all likely to have contributed.15, 16
"In the late 80s and early 90s, condom use rose among unmarried sexually active men and women, and since the mid 1990s, condom promotion and distribution in Uganda has increased dramatically. It is thought that this has helped to keep down the number of new infections in recent years."
http://www.avert.org/aidsuganda.htm
Why can't we all agree that a comprehensive approach is best? Abstinence and monogamy in Uganda have increased because people have seen the devastation of the disease and fear it. But people are still going to have sex. Shouldn't we be teaching them safe sex?
Condoms are a good start. When will these Muslims...I mean Catholics...stop demanding that the rest of us to observe their faith.
When the program started in the late 1980s, the number of pregnant women infected with HIV was 21.2 percent. By 2001, the number was 6.2 percent. The Harvard study also reported Ugandan adults are not having as much risky sex: of women 15 and older, those reporting many sexual partners dropped from 18.4 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent in 2000.
The emphasis on abstinence in Uganda’s program is unique. In other nations with high HIV infections, such as Zimbabwe and Botswana, condoms have been promoted as the answer to ending the AIDS crisis. In Botswana, 38 percent of pregnant women were HIV positive last year, contrasted with 6.2 percent of Ugandan women.
Ah, the jihadi corollary to Godwin's Law. I knew that was coming at some point.
Snide retarded logic!
Even if they don't stop AIDS, they DO stop pregnancies. Who's going to feed them tomorrow or next year?
You want to ensure that a billionare leaves your pet projects out in the cold? Write his wife a sanctimonious letter accusing her of vacating her faith.
...please show us any actual success of the condom as a solution to the AIDS pandemic in the last quarter century -- any.
US homos from the late-80's on.
We don't want the rest of you to observe our faith, but would like you to stop having the pollyannish view that condoms are a panacea to the AIDS epidemic. Condoms are not 100 percent effective in stopping the transmission of AIDS.. abstinence is. Condoms can break, have pindot holes in them, or slip off during sexual intercourse.
Don't have those little problems with abstinence.
Excuse me, but condoms are readily available in this country and there is still an epidemic among our Black Americans. WHY??
US homos from the late-80's on.
That's a naive and misinformed comment. AIDS is still very much a homosexual disease and effects more men in this country, especially black homosexual men. I just watched a special about this tonight on Prime Time.
I sincerely doubt the good Father gives a hoot about their money, nor should he. The Catholic Church has survived for more than 2000 years without Bill or Melissa Gates. I daresay that we can go another 2000 without them.
Ooops! Above post was suppose to go to Zeroisanumber.
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