The Preventable Epidemic
The Catholic Church may have been the only one with the right answer all along.

By Tom Hoopes, executive editor of the National Catholic Register
June 15, 2001 10:35 a.m.

t is astonishing to think of it, but many apparently mature adults among us today were in junior high when the world learned about AIDS, whose 20th anniversary is being marked. (Or, for the famously young web audience, think of this: Some people were already 30 when they first heard of AIDS.)

But even more astounding — and tragic — is how the world has changed in these two decades. The sexual activity most closely associated with AIDS has become more mainstream, more protected, more promoted than ever before in American history.

Though not by everyone. If May 31 was the anniversary of AIDS first being diagnosed, these early June weeks mark the anniversary of some weighty decisions that were made by homosexuals. For many, it seems, the outbreak of the disease had provided just the right incentive to "go straight."

But soon, homosexual leaders were reacting in all the wrong ways, Toronto homosexual John McKellar (the founder and president of HOPE, Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism) told the National Catholic Register (which I edit — look for these quotes in the issue on newsstands June 13).

McKellar says gay leaders should have told homosexuals to stop having anal sex; they should have closed the bathhouses, and they should have instituted standard operating procedure for epidemics (mandatory reporting, etc.). If they had done so, precious lives could have been saved.

Instead, McKellar says, "It was more important for them to canonize the victims of the disease…than to condemn the behavior that caused their deaths." They were worried — rightly so, adds McKellar — about further stigmatizing homosexuals.

Well, the strategy worked. Homosexuality is becoming less stigmatized every day. But the consequences have been devastating.

Reporter David Curtin compiled these statistics: Overall, male homosexuals and bisexuals between 23 and 29 are becoming infected at a rate of 4.4% annually, and the annual infection rate among blacks of that age group stands at an alarming 14.7%.

Last year Dr. Ronald Valdiserri of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention reported that the rate of HIV infection among homosexuals in San Francisco had nearly tripled over a two-year period, rising from 1.3% in 1997 to 3.7% in 1999. Dr. Willi McFarland of the San Francisco Public Health Department reported a dramatic decrease in consistent condom usage, from 70% in 1994 to 54% in 1999.

In terms of AIDS infections, it's like the 80s all over again, Centers for Disease Control epidemiologist Linda Valleroy recently told The Washington Times.

Perhaps this is simply because of too much trust in new life-extending AIDS drugs. Or perhaps it's because homosexuals are hard-wired to sexual danger.

What the data does seem to suggest is that the Catholic Church, previously presumed to be out-of-touch, may have been the only one with the right answer all along.

Many have tut-tutted the Church for opposing condoms even as an AIDS prevention tool. Some have even called the Church complicit in AIDS deaths. But, as it has turned out, condoms aren't a very good AIDS-prevention tool after all. It's the Catholic way that is saving lives in Africa.

As Msgr. Jacques Suaudeau of the Pontifical Academy for the Family wrote last year: "The publicity given to the condom in the fight against HIV/AIDS could have an effect contrary to what is desired inasmuch as such publicity might lead people to riskier sexual behavior because of the sense of safety they feel when using a prophylactic."

He went on to point out the one way we know we can prevent AIDS: Save sex for marriage. He and millions of celibate priests prove that life without sex is well within human capabilities (no snickers, please — cases of priestly infidelities are miniscule, percentage-wise, the claims of scandal-hungry journalists notwithstanding).

And there are plenty of others who have learned to do without sex. For one, homosexuals with AIDS. When I lived in San Francisco, friends and I spent many hours talking to them at Mother Teresa's Gift of Love home. They were as varied as any group is, but they had a few things in common: They liked to smoke (a lot); they all assumed that any young male in their midst was also a homosexual (which introduced whole new conversation topics to us Catholic types); and the kind of sex that landed them there had lost all its charm.

Others who have moved past homosexual sex are the homosexuals who participated in a study by Dr. Robert Spitzer (who, in 1973, convinced the Psychiatric Association to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder).

The subjects in Spitzer's study — 66% — changed. They became heterosexual for at least the five years of the study, through mentoring relationships with buddies of the same sex, and via psychological therapy. Of the 200 subjects, nearly 75% of the men and 50% of the women had found spouses by the end. (Find the full story here.)

One of those happily married men spoke with the Register — and told us about the 2-year-old daughter he and his wife now have. Chance are, she'll probably learn about AIDS in elementary school. And she'll probably have friends who will die of it — that is, unless we stop the deadly condom games, and get serious about saving precious lives.