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In a column defending the Pope’s anti-condom stance, Washington Times columnist Jeffery T. Kuhner has some advice today for District residents who don’t want to contract HIV. Let’s take a look!
The District’s official report this week was astounding: The number of people with HIV infections rose 22 percent from 2006 to 2007. More ominously, the report said 6.5 percent of the city’s black men are infected—-that is more than 1 in 20. The disease is decimating not only the District’s gay community, but its African-American neighborhoods. Yet, the city has a major condom distribution program: More than 1.5 million condoms were distributed in 2008. In other words, it is raining condoms and still the District’s AIDS rate is soaring. The answer is not free birth control or more sex education, but a return to the old Judeo-Christian moral order—-marriage, abstinence and personal responsibility.
If Kuhner thinks that marriage is a leading protector against HIV, and that “the District’s gay community” is the one most affected by the crisis, what better solution to stop HIV than to OK gay marriage? Ever since the new District’s AIDS numbers came out, conservatives have been quick to point out that throwing condoms at HIV is about as effective as throwing the Pope at Africa. It’s time for conservatives to bolster their anti-condom stances with real solutions: Allowing men to have monogamous gay sex under legal marriage protection.