Mageth

I ran an errand at lunch and just happened to catch the opening of Focus on the Family (Dr. James Dobson). They're crying out against Bush's appointment of Dr. Julie Gerberding to head the CDC. The following is a link to an article about it on their web page:

<a href="http://www.family.org/cforum/feature/a0021308.html" target="_blank">'Safe Sex' Supporter to Head CDC </a>

They leave out a comment Dobson made along the lines of "the homosexual community and the safe sex industry [sic] have controlled the CDC for many years." He also seems to be worried about the Bush admin not being in the pockets of the religious fundamentalists.

How he gets the idea that the CDC is the "world's largest promoter of homosexuality" is beyond me.

This load of homophobic, uninformed crap would almost be funny (I laughed at some of the ridiculous things he said) if it weren't so damned scary.

Also read the press release linked at the bottom of the page.

[ July 03, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Mageth

Mods - would this get some responses in a different forum (perhaps Pol)?

Grumpy

Good Lord! Do you mean to tell me we have someone who's in favor of disease prevention now in charge of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention???

Arrowman

Given that sexual abstinence inhibits the growth of families, one wonders why someone who is allegedly "anti" abstinence would worry "pro-family" people...

But seriously - during my time on the Baptist Board, I instigated a discussion on "abstinence vs education" partcularly in relation to the responsibilities of public officials. (There had been some criticism by BB denizens of something Colin Powell had said on "safe sex".)

Unfortunately when this subject is discussed with fundies, it does tend to get bogged down in questions of morality, "you're promoting promiscuity" etc as opposed to facts and practicalities (ie., reality).

The position I put was essentially
- yes, abstinence when successfully practiced is the only 100% sure fire method of preventing STDs and unwanted pregnancy.
- trouble is, when abstinence is not successfully practiced, and combined with lack of education, the person in question is at greater risk of STD/pregnancy than the person who has had education.
- government officials and leaders have a responsibility to promote policies which work for a population at large and not for individuals; in particular, policies which do not rely on or assume a particular personal moral code (or ability to conform to a given moral code).
- therefore, while individual parents have every right to establish and promote a given moral code within their families (although I would debate the effectiveness of such this in practical terms), the role and responsibility of government is different. - etc....

The redoubtable Barnabas leapt on my first point and said "Thank you for acknowledging that. End of discussion." Which pretty much sums up Barnabas' attitude to sensible debate.

But more importantly, what struck me about the remainder of the thread was the complete inability of (most of) the "pro-abstinence" people to engage with facts and practicalities.

When statistics were cited to support the point that more "liberal" countries actually have a lower incidence of teen pregnancy, Joseph Botwinick cited the Bible as his preferred source. When asked to cite the passage in the Bible which gives teen pregnancy stats, he went silent.

Moral: It is impossible to engage fundies in fact-based debate on these matters. But very educational to try!

JohnR

I love it! I used Dobson's own website form to send Bush a email saying "good job" on the appointment.