What now?

The political climate of late has been making me cranky. And terrified. And increasingly interested in the prospect of emigrating to Canada. I hear Quebec is lovely this time of year (heh).

Gay marriage issues aside ('cause gawd knows I could rail on about that for a few pages), this force-conservative-Christianity-down-the-collective-throat-of-the-world business is getting out of hand. Case in point, this article in today's Washington Post.

The Bush administration is giving vast sums of AIDS relief money to religious organizations that promote abstinence over other forms of HIV-prevention.

"Conservative Christian allies of the president are pressing the U.S. foreign aid agency to give fewer dollars to groups that distribute condoms or work with prostitutes.

Secular organizations in Africa are raising concerns that new money to groups without AIDS experience may dilute the impact of Bush's program."

"For prevention, Bush embraces the 'ABC' strategy: abstinence before marriage, being faithful to one partner and condoms targeted for high-risk activity. The Republican-led Congress mandated that one-third of prevention money be reserved for abstinence and fidelity.

The U.S. government provided more than 560 million condoms abroad last year, compared with some 350 million in 2001.

Condom promotion to anyone must include abstinence and fidelity messages, U.S. guidelines say, but those preaching abstinence do not have to provide condom education."

It's really quite simple. People are going to have sex no matter how much you tell them not to. It's a fact. The proponents of abstinence-only programs, whether in the U.S. or abroad, are in severe denial of the reality of human sexuality. People have been fucking for ages and shall continue to fuck until the end of time. So why not acknowledge this fact and try to make it feasible for people to fuck more safely? And for the love of everything good and sacred, we are dealing with a goddamn EPIDEMIC! For once, could we all put aside whatever religious and political beliefs we may have and actually work together to do something HELPFUL? ARGH!