In Case You Were Wondering…

What’s wrong with missionaries, and why I don’t give my ‘charity’ dollars to religious groups…I mean, they go and bring education and medicine and try to help people, correct? But at what price. The fact of the matter is that the whole goal of missionaries is to try to convince the ‘other’ that the best course of action is to change from being ‘other’ to being ‘self’. To be a bit more clear, those people over there have a problem, and the best way to fix it is to make them more like us. Because, you know, we’re doing so damn well over here. We don’t have problems with poverty, racism, sexism, education, etc. Wait, all of that doesn’t matter, because at least we’re christian and we’re going to heaven. Except for me. Never baptized, so I guess I’ll just wait over here.

So, that was a bit of rambling vitrol, wasn’t it? Sorry. My anger comes from an article I read about GW’s plan for AIDS prevention in Africa. Abstenence. 1/4 of the money that is going to Africa for AIDS prevention is going to teach people to not have sex. Condoms? Not so much. Grrr. Because, you know, teaching abstinence works so well. To quote, from the article linked here:

Responding to the latest review of abstinence-only programs, James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, stated last week: “The report reads like an indictment. Abstinence-only is bad science, bad policy and a blatant violation of medical ethics and basic human rights. Enough is enough. The time has come for Congress to declare an immediate moratorium on federal funding for these programs. It is a national scandal that we have already spent over $1.1 billion of taxpayers’ dollars on programs that don’t work and that censor vital public health information for young people.”

To decide that abstinence only education is the way to go for teens is bad enough. To push it on a continent as a method of preventing a so far incurable disease is criminal. I wonder if they’re going to pass out the lame ass rings to children in Africa who have been infected by their sick mothers? Or just the ‘pure’ kids?

My puritan ancestors are probably spinning in their graves right now. Spin, baby, spin.