Team Obama likes to cite Warren's work on AIDS in Africa to combat criticism about the controversial pastor. But how does burning condoms save lives?

Once hailed by Time magazine as "America's Pastor," California megachurch leader and best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren now finds himself on the defensive. President-elect Barack Obama's selection of Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer has generated intense scrutiny of the pastor's beliefs on social issues, from his vocal support for Proposition 8, a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in California, to his comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia, incest and bestiality. Many of Obama's supporters have demanded that he withdraw the invitation.

Warren's defense against charges of intolerance ultimately depends upon his ace card: his heavily publicized crusade against AIDS in Africa. Obama senior adviser David Axelrod cited Warren's work in Africa as one of "the things on which [Obama and Warren] agree" on the Dec. 28 episode of Meet the Press. Warren may be opposed to gay rights and abortion, the thinking goes, but he tells evangelicals it is their God-given duty to battle one of the greatest pandemics in history. What could be wrong with that?

But since the Warren inauguration controversy erupted, the nature of his work against AIDS in Africa has gone unexamined. Warren has not been particularly forthcoming to those who have attempted to look into it. His Web site contains scant information about the results of his program. However, an investigation into Warren's involvement in Africa reveals a web of alliances with right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education. More disturbingly, Warren's allies have rolled back key elements of one of the continent's most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told the New York Times their activism is "resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred."

Warren is the same old sour, outdated wine in a shiny new bottle. People who reject modern science by promoting creationism (or cretinism), ignorance-based sex education, homophobia, intercessory prayer, miracles and other nonsense are laughingstocks in Europe nowadays, but in the US they're taken seriously.

The best way to undermine these charlatans is with dispassionate, logical, scientific arguments. You won't convince the deluded, but you can reduce their recruiting success.

That's how we have to fight an epidemic of a deadly disease called ignorance.

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
If he supported STD prevention by using condoms, instead of, you know, being all super-Christian... maybe somebody would still be alive who isn't.

Condoms are so inexpensive and they could be the key to combatting AIDs in Africa.

For men who have extramarital affairs either due to migration or post-partum abstinence, awareness of the risks of contracting HIV/AIDS would be the first step in preventing further spread of the virus. However, the prevalent assumptions regarding masculinity must be targeted as well. For example, the belief that a man's need for sex is beyond his control explains and legitimates the social expectation for having many sexual partners. Sexual excesses by urban men are often hallowed and viewed as prestigious.13 Men are also much more likely than women to see themselves as being invulnerable to illness or risk, which may contribute to the ineffectiveness of awareness messages. Condoms are often viewed as "unmasculine," and sex without a condom also adds to the sense of danger that traditional concepts of masculinity encourage. Clearly, the awareness campaigns will have little effect unless a deeper ideological change occurs as well.

www.scu.edu...