Not About Options
by digby
My pal Bill sent me this article about how African American churches doing HIV outreach have problems with the use of condoms:
In Tampa’s black neighborhoods, the statistics scream: black family disease. More blacks have HIV than any other ethnic group. One in 85 blacks in Hillsborough County is infected. That is more than four times the rate for whites. The disparity is more pronounced among women. One in every 92 black women in Hillsborough is infected. That is 11 times the rate for white women.
This black family disease — that’s what Favorite calls it — preys on even fathers and mothers in the pews, children in Sunday school.
He wants the full gamut of services for his vulnerable congregation, and he wants it based in his landmark church, one founded in 1865 for freed slaves. He wants a partnership with the Health Department similar to one initiated by Florida’s black AME churches. AME’s Florida bishop has committed to providing a church for HIV screening in every county. They’re halfway to their goal.
But pastors whose beliefs are biblically founded get caught in a moral paradox. If they base an HIV prevention program on abstinence alone, they’re bound to fail. If they provide the common medically recommended option — condoms — they’ve compromised their principles. Religion has never been about options.
This, of course, plays into the problem we have with gay rights, specifically with the Prop Hate campaign here in California. A lot of black churches are socially conservative — like most of the southern based religions. It causes some dissonance. And it’s one of the reasons why I’m really not a big believer in faith based government programs replacing the secular ones. There has to be some place for “science based” solutions to social problems and a lot of these faith based organizations just can’t do that, evidently.
I’m not holding my breath on that:
Blitzer: But did she make a mistake Donna by going to that fundraiser at the home of the woman who professes that there is no god?
Brazile: You know Wolf there are a lot of believers. I’m one of them. And there are people who just don’t believe in an existence of a god. I don’t know why because clearly there’s strong evidence that there’s a god but I believe that you serve all the people. Not just those that profess to have faith but those with little or no faith. That’s how you convert them.
There you have it. You serve all the people (even the heathens!) so you can convert them. I think that perfectly makes the case against faith based programs.
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