HPV Culture War
For eight years, the Family Research Council (FRC) has been trying to tell people about the link between HPV and cervical cancer, and that condoms were little defense. From Gina R. Dalfonzo in Christianity Today:
In short, just as the commercials tell us to do, they told someone.
And they were told to shut up.
A chorus of voices from the media, politicians, and organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) derailed the condom-labeling effort, claiming that FRC and its allies were putting teenagers and young adults in danger by making condoms look bad. “What no one in the HPV brigade mentions,” scoffed Sharon Lerner in the Village Voice in 1999, “is that, even by conservative estimates, a teeny number of people who have the virus—far less than 1 percent—will develop cervical cancer.” The implication was that it was hardly worth putting warnings on condoms for that minuscule number of women.
Interesting bit of history, that. The pointed quote from my perspective comes toward the end of the article.
Instead, we need to learn something from the bitter ironies on display here: namely, that our society will gravitate toward any message that endorses sexuality unencumbered by biblical morality. If “telling someone,” as the ad campaign urges, means that they’ll be advocating safe sex, all well and good. But if the cause of free sex is better served by keeping silent, the message becomes, “Tell no one.” Not even if it might put her health at risk. The urge for absolute sexual autonomy and freedom from any kind of control is that powerful—and that deadly.
The politics of sexuality are alive and well, and not simply the preoccupation of those evil no good Christians.
Pingback by LeStourgeon Online » Blog Archive » Gay Sex or No Job
[…] As more gay advocates and Democratic party members make their statements, it becomes clear that their view of America has no place for Christians (or objective Americans) of good conscience. Increasingly, the Left’s vision for public health in America is one driven by ideology and carefully selected “facts.” Anyone who is not fully supportive of the drive for absolute sexual autonomy and freedom from any kind of control is unfit for any public office of any kind - regardless of how personal opinions have impacted a person’s professional career. […]
Posted on June 8, 2007 at 12:42 pm