While major media characterize Pope Benedict XVI’s prescription for combating HIV infection as “unrealistic and ineffective” and unscientific, an authority on the disease has a different message: “More and more AIDS experts are coming to accept . . .” that “the Pope is correct.”

“We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.” If not for this statement’s academic style, you might think it was rendered by a Pope or prelate. Yet its author is actually Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, who was quoted by Kathryn Jean Lopez writing at National Review Online.

Such pronouncements may seem counterintuitive. With most people today having been weaned on Kinsey Institute inspired sex-education suppositions, they take as a given that there are no risky sexual behaviors, just risky ways of indulging them. Yet, in an example of the intersection between science and faith, Edward Green affirms the Pope’s recent assertion that condom use won’t solve Africa’s AIDS crisis. Writes Lopez:

‘The pope is correct,’ Green told National Review Online Wednesday . . . . He stresses that ‘condoms have been proven to not be effective at the ‘level of population.’’

‘There is,’ Green adds, ‘a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction ‘technology’ such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by ‘compensating’ or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.’

Additionally, Green said that empirical evidence shows the Pope was also correct in saying that the best solution to the African AIDS crisis is monogamy. In other words, the problem is promiscuity, not just how you manage your promiscuity. Ah, could this really mean that the church was right to be opposing the modern world’s “new ideas”? It much reminds me of G.K. Chesterton’s profound observation, “Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are really just old mistakes.” Promiscuity is nothing new. The sexual revolution is misnamed – it should more properly be called the sexual regression.

Understanding that promiscuity is the problem places matters in perspective. To truly grasp the effects of advocating condoms as remedy, we have to consider that they’re an element of libertinism’s pseudo-intellectual philosophical arm, sex education, and understand the moral message sent by that arm.

Condoms aren’t billed as simply a method by which married couples may control births; sex education isn’t designed specifically to enlighten the betrothed. On the contrary, their main stated purpose is to combat the consequences of sex outside of marriage, things such as out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases.

This brings us to the message inherent in sex education. There’s no such thing as a value-neutral curriculum, and sex education is infused with the notion that sex is merely a matter of taste. Its apologists may bristle at this, saying that sex education says nothing about what you should do, only how you should do it. But this is the point. As Chesterton also observed, “It is the things we forget to teach that are learned best,” meaning that values are caught more than they’re taught. What is assumed is often more influential than what must be stated explicitly, and sex education speaks volumes about what we may do through those things that speak louder than words – actions.

To illustrate this, let’s analogize condom distribution. If there’s a problem with teenagers endangering themselves and others through street racing, the obvious solution is to discourage the behavior. Imagine, though, that we instead simply offered them options, saying, “Well, you could abstain. If you don’t, however, take this protective rubber shield and place it on your car; it reduces the risk of traffic-related fatalities.” Would we be surprised if the incidence of street racing and the deaths caused by it subsequently increased?

Nevertheless, libertines may say that condoms are wanting at the “level of population” only because people aren't using them consistently. If people were more educated in health, condoms would be more effective collectively. But that's always the catch, isn't it? I could just as easily say the problem is that people aren't adhering to God's plan for man's sexuality consistently. If people were more educated in morality, that plan would be more effective and we wouldn't have these problems in the first place. We're both saying the same thing, which is that our ideal isn't being applied ideally. But the question remains, what ideal is ideal?

Man has always found moral imperatives more compelling than health ones. People have died for moral principles but only hope that health ones will help them live longer. I would, for instance, have far more confidence that a man would quit smoking if he believed lighting up violated some transcendent moral law than if he simply believed it might add ten years to his life.

The point is that having a chaste society, a place wherein recognition of moral law, and strong social pressure and stigma keep sexuality within its proper context – not just in church one hour weekly but also at home, school and in entertainment 24/7 – has a track record of working on the population level. Dispassionate appeals to health concerns – of which condoms are a reflection – do not. (Note that the out-of-wedlock birthrate has gone from 5 percent to 40 in 50 years.)

Yet the libertines have a very compelling argument for rejecting the Pope’s proposition: free sex is fun.

Yes, and so is street racing.

At the end of the day, that’s what their argument boils down to: Christians must be wrong because they violate the pleasure principle.

It really has to make you wonder who the unscientific ones are after all.

Selwyn Duke is a columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show, at WorldNetDaily.com, in American Conservative magazine, is a contributor to AmericanThinker.com and appears regularly as a guest on the award-winning, nationally-syndicated Michael Savage Show. Visit his Website.

In the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court ruled that all state laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional. Ever since the Roe v. Wade (and the less publicized Doe v. Bolton) decision, the primary strategy among pro-life people has been to overturn Roe by electing so-called pro-life Republican presidents who will appoint strict constructionist justices to the Supreme Court. Theoretically, this strategy will eventually lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

However, despite the best efforts of members of the pro-life movement, it is 35 years and an estimated 50,000,000 deaths in the womb later, and abortion — for any reason and at any stage of pregnancy, is legal in every state and territory in the United States. Federal courts have also rendered other decisions contrary to traditional family values, as well, including negating state laws mandating school prayer.

As to why the best-laid plans of armies of pro-life people have not ended abortion or returned prayer to our schools, a compelling explanation was made by Chuck Baldwin (a Christian pastor from Pensacola, Florida, and the 2008 presidential candidate of the Constitution Party) in an address before the National Committee of the Constitution Party on October 25, 2007 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Dr. Baldwin asked: "So, please tell me why, after having control of both houses of Congress and the White House for six years, did these ‘pro-life’ Republicans in Congress and a ‘pro-life’ President not pass [U.S. Rep. Ron] Paul’s bill? Why? Because they really do not give a hoot about abortion, but only use pro-life rhetoric to dupe conservative voters.”

The legislation referred to by Dr. Baldwin was H.R. 300, which had been introduced in the 110th Congress as the “We the People Act,” to limit federal courts’ right to rule on matters related to religious liberty, sexual orientation, family relations, education, and abortion. This bill has been re-introduced in the 111th Congress as H.R. 539 by Rep. Ron Paul (R.-Texas) and initially cosponsored by Reps. Walter Jones (R.-N.C.) and Ted Poe (R.-Texas).

Article III, Sections 1-2 and Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution give to Congress the authority to rein in an abusive judiciary and remove abortion (or school prayer, or homosexual marriage, or fill in the blank) from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and all other federal courts. This means that should Congressman Paul's bill become law, state abortion laws would be removed from the apellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and all other federal courts, and Roe v. Wade would no longer be "the law of the land."

Passage of H. R. 539 would not only remove federal courts from life and family-related issues that should best be settled at the state level, it would also help restore the proper balance of power between the states and the federal government as envisioned in the Tenth Amendment and help prevent judicial travesties such as Roe v Wade from occurring in the first place. Through our previous well-intentioned, but misguided practice of transferring the authority to oversee equal protection of the laws from the states to the federal government, we have inadvertently also given the federal courts the converse power to abolish those rights! In this case, the most fundamental right of all — the right to life!

Click here to urge your representative to vote yes to Limit Federal Courts' Right to Rule on Abortion. Utilizing the powers found in Article III, Sections 1-2 and Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution is the most effective way to prevent federal judicial tampering with matters related to personal morality that are best left to the states.

The central argument for those individuals and organizations that promoted the legalization of abortion on demand was “We won’t go back,” meaning to back alley operations which they illustrated by graphic pictures and stories of “coat hanger” abortions. We were told that safe and legal abortions would put and end to these risky behaviors.

What has happened instead, is the face of abortion was commandeered to represent a clean, safe, sterile “procedure” that harms no one, physically or mentally. Abortionists were portrayed as compassionate health providers who cared deeply about women and their lives.

This marketing strategy has changed the public’s perception of abortion, making it more acceptable in society. In fact so much so that there is increased pressure on women, especially on young women and girls from their boyfriends and even parents, too seek an abortion as it is now an accepted viable alternative to carrying a child full-term. This includes surgical abortion methods, and the newer legal methods of drug-induced abortions as well, that are really throwbacks to the poison methods practiced for centuries.

In copy-cat style of chemically-induced abortions, there is a story out of Wisconsin that says rural teenage girls are using livestock drugs meant for bovine breeding to end their unwanted pregnancies.

The veterinary-prescribed prostaglandins are ingested and do indeed evacuate anything in the womb. But the drugs can be deadly. Strong enough to force an evacuation of anything in a cow bed, imagine what they can do to a female body. Sold for around $16 for a small bottle, they’re cheap and relatively easily available, but in humans they could cause excessive hemorrhaging, infection if the tissues aren’t fully cleared from the body, blood clots, heart attacks, and constricted bronchial tubes, a serious complications for asthmatics.

Keep in mind prostaglandins are used in non-surgical legal abortions. The drug Misoprostol contains these prostaglandins and has been suspected in causing deaths in mothers during abortions, and when the abortion was incomplete, severe birth defects in the babies. It is coupled with other drugs in the infamous abortifacient RU-486 which also has a bad track record when it comes to adverse side effects and deaths.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says they know of no such documented incidents of teens using the drugs to induce abortions. But the American Veterinary Medical Association says it has, from the state of Delaware. The AVMA has posted an advisory on their website cautioning farmers about properly locking up the drugs. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin says if the story is true, “It’s disturbing.”

Why should this be disturbing to PP? Oh, because they’re all about safe surgical and medically- or chemically-induced abortions, right? And they’ve had no deaths resulting from any of their procedures?  Or is it because they’re just not getting their piece of the pie?

No one should be surprised by this new tale. After all, culturally we have devalued human life so much that pregnancies are ended via surgery or drugs in matter-of-fact terms. We’ve promoted this. Our President is all for it. And since we’ve taken away the rights of parents in many states to be notified about a young girl’s pregnancy, we’ve sent a message to these girls that to keep promiscuous behavior and the end result a secret from their parents is not only acceptable, the adult world sanctions it with their blessing.

Legalized abortion has not saved women from unsafe abortions. In fact, the opposite may be true. The black market mentality will always be with us as long we predicate the argument that the killing of the pre-born is safe and legal and approved by society. It is for these reasons that women will continue end their pregnancies by killing their unborn children in secret and with more inexpensive methods.

Changing the legal status of abortion has done nothing to make abortions safer, or reduce the abortion rate. It has, however, exposed a whole new segment of society, the young and very vulnerable and impressionable teens, to new and serious dangers — on several levels.

If ever there was a prime example of the federal government creating a problem and then offering a solution that will never work, besides the bailouts of course, it’s the newest: “A Guide to Getting Through Tough Economic Times,” set up by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The federal government, which includes a Congress that simply no longer represents the people and appears bent on making us all crazy with their latest policies, wants us to know that they will be there for us when we all go insane.

Wanting all of us to stay hopeful and striving for better attitudes whilst they bankrupt the country, sentencing the next five generations to economic slavery and tyranny, they are offering tips on how to stay mentally healthy, and how to recognize as possible mental health problems, on their new website.

After elaborating a bit on the effects stress can have on a person’s health and the warning signs — like drinking, overuse of medications, anxiety and crying (already there), they then go on to give ways to manage the stress. Unfortunately, alleviating the economic situation via limited government isn’t one of them.

Of course, they want you to know that you can seek help from a number of federal and state agencies, or a local spiritual leader if need be. The proletariat is reminded that “strengthening connections with family and friends” will be essential (for sheer survival), and developing “new employment skills” is bound to make anyone feel better, even though there are no jobs to be had.

The parting suggestion? “Work together to help all members of the community build their resiliency and successfully return to healthy and productive lives.” Because having all hands on deck and serving the state is going to be a must. How else could they keep the regime going?

Oh, and as an aside to the news media: Please don’t glorify or report in detail any suicides that might be attributed to the economy. They wouldn’t want the general public to know just how many people have been driven to it, and besides there might be copycat suicides credited to the economic disaster that would mess up the real numbers.

Just another day of your fed-gov at work.