Posted on 03/03/2005 6:29:40 AM PST by NYer
As anyone involved in the 12-Step recovery culture knows: "Denial is not a river in Egypt." It does, however, appear to be a river flowing through present-day Western Culture. A recent study from the Journal Sexually Transmitted Infections showed that one in 100 American deaths is related to sexual behavior.
Sexual ideologues from Planned Parenthood to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) relentlessly pound away with frantic urgency on the need to dump condoms and contraceptives into American high schools and developing countries. Yet, as was recently noted in this publication, the Philippines seems to be doing just fine with an emphasis on fidelity within marriage and chastity outside of marriage. The Philippines has a healthy fertility rate but virtually no AIDS.
Yet, the situation in the Philippines has the UNFPA apoplectic. Despite the good news they must rush to the rescue with contraceptives. They must stop the Philippines from proving their ideology wrong with what most civilized people — including those in the developing world — have known instinctively all along: Good morality is good medicine.
Let me state it even more clearly: 1. You can die from sleeping with the wrong person. 2. If Catholic teaching on sexuality were taken seriously, let alone obeyed, there would be no AIDS crisis. Period.
I made these statements in a college newspaper 20 years ago at a Catholic university and one of the Deans of Students looked at me as if I had uttered a racial slur. It is considered bigotry to state the obvious when it contradicts modern sexual ideology.
To cite another example of the "conventional wisdom" of sexual ideology: The Boston Globe in a Feb. 18 editorial entitled "Better Choices," states, "Access to reliable birth control is an obvious way to reduce the need for abortion . . . but religious conservatives have blocked making even condoms available in high schools." What the Globe writers don't understand, like many sexual ideologues, is that contraception is the gateway to abortion, not a preventative. In the adolescent mind especially, contraception, including condoms, creates a false security to indulging in risky behavior that involves a great deal more risk than simple pregnancy.
Without imputing motives to anyone several questions come to mind. How much risk are the sexual ideologues willing to expose the young to in order avoid the truth that sexual activity is not merely a recreational activity or means to relieve tension? And that to engage in it recklessly is simply dangerous and wrong? And that there is a connection between the dangerous and the wrong? That their goal of creating a sexual utopia has resulted in disillusionment, alienation, sickness and death?
Does it occur to them that a sense of guilt may be the soul's natural warning system to danger rather than something imposed from the outside by religious stiffs? Do they think pangs of conscience are a mere social construct that must be overcome on the way to "sexual freedom"?
Eliminating religion-based morality may seem the pathway to this utopia but it has led to a culture of addiction, which is to say enslavement. Building on St. Augustine's statement that "Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in you," C.S. Lewis, in his classic book, "The Four Loves" points out that whatever is not God, which we turn into a god, becomes our addiction and enslaves us. St. Thomas Aquinas said, "No one can live without joy. That is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures."
One need not be a believer in order to see the truth of this. This is simply observable common sense. Sexual expression in its right context is for love, health and life. Misused, it results in loneliness, sickness and death. How many lives are the lemmings of sexual ideology willing to trash for their doomed cause?
Related Ping!
The leftys want a "Brave New World" style of sexuality.
But what about diversity? /sarcasm
I think I met this guy! He went to Boston College, I think. I was up visiting my daughter and ran into a protest at a local abortion mill. By this time, of course, I was well aware of what a "Jesuit education" really meant and I was delighted to meet an actual Catholic from BC. Good for him. I'm glad to see he's still fighting the good fight.
ProLife Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
What about catholic teachings on hypocrisy? Or pedophilia?
Bible teaching would be a better choice.
All.
Not so sure about the Philippines. They have pretty large and unhealthy sex industry.
QUOTE
Philippines sitting on HIV/AIDS iceberg: health minister
Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said that the Philippines had 2,200 confirmed cases of HIV and 676 cases of AIDS according to latest figures, but officials feared that the true level of infection could be far higher.
"We in the Philippines are sitting on the tip of an iceberg and we don't know how big the base is," Dayrit told the conference organised by various bodies including the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS.
Dayrit said that up to one million prostitutes and an estimated one to two million of their clients were vulnerable to HIV/AIDS but emphasised that the problem was no longer limited to the sex trade.
ENG QUOTE
full article http://www.aegis.org/news/afp/2005/AF050269.html
The religous atmosphere in the Philippines may only be aiding a state of denial that, as in other 'conservaive' Asian nations, will come back as an AIDS epidemic born in the endemic culture of commercial sex. How often do you see a brothel in the US? In most Asian countries they are part of every town, large of small. I live in Taiwan now, another 'conservative' [by the locals' reckoning] country, but there are 'barber shops' and 'KTVs' on every other street and noone thinks it odd. So far the known AIDS figures are low, but I expect a wave of infection to sweep through the 'respectable' community sooner or later, as the family men who unwind with prostitutes at home and abroad start bringing more than a smile back to the wife.
I tried but couldn't resist commenting on the first paragraph reference to 12-Step recovery culture. Years ago, I was attending an AA meeting and the topic for discussion veered into the informal rule about how a person shouldn't get involved in a "relationship" during their first year of recovery. One guy put into words what I think most in the group were actually thinking. He said, "It means you can sc$#w 'em as long as you don't talk to 'em".
Refreshing to see the truth written without apology or equivocation.
whereas my point is that what is being taught is "Biblical" instruction taught by many Churches.
The Catholic church is not the sole authority on morality, if one at all.
BTTT
Bump.
DainBramage,
What did the Church teach for three hundred years before the Bible was compiled (by the Catholic Church, by the way)?
Christianity did not start, nor does it end, with the Bible. If the Catholic Church is not the original source of the lesson, what praytell, is?
Sorry The Bible is only a transcription and interpretaion of Holy scriptures written down long before the Catholic church.
DainBramage:
What about all the Gospels, letters, prophecies, etc. that were not included in the canon? If the Catholic Church doesn't have authority, how on earth can you be sure you're even reading the right Gospel? There were many more than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I hope you understand.
Also, the Catholic Church goes back to St. Peter, the apostle. The gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, John, James, Peter, and the Apocalypse were written after the Catholic Church began. Peter was the bishop of Rome.
John Mallon used to edit the newpaper for the Oklahoma City Archdiocese. It went downhill when he left.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.