Catholic League president Bill Donohue questions why STD rates are exploding again:
David Harvey is executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. He recently called the spike in Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) “out of control.” Syphilis cases are now at their highest rate since 1991 and the total cases hit its highest since 1948. HIV is up 16 percent from last year.
As usual, those most responsible are not white people, Asians, heterosexuals or women: blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and homosexuals have the highest rates. Drug use and alcohol use are contributing to risky behavior.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “In the U.S., gay men are more likely to smoke than are heterosexual men and gay men are more likely to deal with alcoholism than is the general population.” Moreover, the latest news comes on the heels of monkeypox, a disease that is overwhelmingly driven by gay sexual behavior.
In other words, self-destructive behavior is taking a toll on those who refuse to tap the brakes that God gave them. Even more bizarre, it was found that condom use is declining.
So what does Harvey’s group and other public health organizations suggest we do about this crisis? Spend more federal dollars—at least $500 million—for STD clinics. Also, Dr. Leandro Mena, director of the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, is calling for policies that reduce stigma.
Neither of these recommendations are based on scientific evidence. Indeed, they are postponing the day of reckoning and are therefore contributing to the problem they claim to check.
Take condoms. Is there anyone alive in the Western world who hasn’t heard about the wonders of condoms? Why is it when no one learned about condoms in school, and there was no massive educational campaign—including the free distribution of condoms in cities and on college campuses—that STDs were hardly a problem? Why is it that the more we spend to curtail this problem, the worse it gets?
In the fiscal year that ended in 2008, the New York City Health Department under Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave away 39,070,000 male condoms to community groups. That figure was more than double the rate from the previous fiscal year. The result: syphilis cases increased by 20 percent. What lesson did they draw from this? They said they would hand out 51.6 million condoms the next year.
Therefore, the idea of spending more federal dollars on entities that worship at the altar of condomania is positively absurd. These are nothing more than money-grabbing schemes designed to keep the incompetents in business.
WebMD has some commonsensical observations about anal sex that homosexuals need to respect.
“The lining of the anus is thinner than the vagina, it lacks natural lubrication. That makes it much more vulnerable to tearing. Tears can allow viruses and bacteria to enter the bloodstream. This can include sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV. Studies have suggested that anal exposure to HIV poses 30 times more risk for the receptive partner than vaginal exposure.”
Translated this means that anal sex is abnormal, though few are willing to tell the truth. Consider the first sentence again. “The lining of the anus is thinner than the vagina, it lacks natural lubrication.” Why does it lack natural lubrication? Because the anus was not designed for penetration. Why don’t they teach that in the schools?
Every time we have another increase in STDs we hear about the need to lessen stigma. It never seems to occur to those who voice this position that the less stigma we have, the worse matters get.
Lest some think that stigma is cruel, think again. Stigma is a form of social punishment, but it carries no normative value. It only acquires moral meaning when we know the object of stigmatization.
The same people who are horrified about stigmatizing those who engage in reckless sex—it should not matter whether they are straight or gay—have no problem stigmatizing others. Trump supporters, conservatives on college campuses, conservatives who voice their politics in public, conservative blacks and Hispanics, conservatives on social media, people of faith—these people are routinely stigmatized by the “tolerant” ones.
Many of the elites in the healthcare industry have failed us. They overreacted with draconian measures during the Covid pandemic, now they are underreacting to the STD crisis. In both cases, they have allowed politics to impair their objectivity.
