Community Levee Association

NOTE: The Community Levee Association disagrees with the Post editorial below. We believe their rejection of morality's necessity and power harms our Loudoun County youth because it assumes (and thus contributes to their perception of self) they cannot control their physical appetites. Not only can they, but they must. Historian Will Durrant wrote "[a] youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group" (Durrant, Will and Ariel. The Lessons of History. New York: Simon and Schuster, p.35, 1968).

 
MARCH 19, 2009 WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL:
THE LATE New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts." This holds true even for the pope.

While on a flight to Cameroon on Tuesday to begin a weeklong journey through Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said, "You can't resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem." In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed relationships. But the world isn't perfect -- and neither is Pope Benedict's pronouncement on the effectiveness of condoms in the battle against HIV/AIDS. The evidence says so.

Are condoms foolproof protection against infection by HIV, which causes AIDS? No. Sometimes they break, and sometimes people put them on incorrectly. Still, doctors on the front lines of the fight against the AIDS epidemic established long ago that the use of condoms greatly diminishes the transmission of HIV, the cause of a disease that has no cure. That the pope chose to question the value of condoms in fighting the nearly 28-year-old scourge while heading to the continent whose people are most affected by it is troubling. According to UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa is the epidemic's center, with 67 percent of the world's 32.9 million people with HIV and with 75 percent of all AIDS deaths. Heterosexual intercourse is the "driving force" of the epidemic.

The pope's comment was so alarming that a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry said, "We consider that these statements endanger public health policies and the imperative to protect human life." What the pontiff said was especially discordant to us coming a day after the District's HIV/AIDS Administration released its startling survey showing that 3 percent of this city's residents are living with HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define a "severe" epidemic in a specific area as at least 1 percent of the population being infected. To halt the march of HIV/AIDS, those who have the infection must be treated. Those who do not have it need all the information and tools possible to remain HIV-negative. The pope's denunciation of condoms is of no help.

The Community Levee Association agrees with the Pope that fidelity in marriage and abstinence before is the best way to fight HIV. On the other hand, we believe emphasizing condom use belittles humankind, assuming that one cannot control one's self, and that the better angels of our nature don't even exist at all.

 

Pope Says Condoms Worsen HIV Problem
In His First Papal Trip to Africa, Benedict Brings a Message of Sexual Morality
By Victor L. Simpson
Associated Press
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; A09
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, March 17 -- Condoms are not the answer to Africa's fight against HIV, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday as he began a week-long trip to the continent. It was the pope's first explicit statement on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients.

Benedict arrived in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital, on Tuesday afternoon, greeted by a crowd of flag-waving faithful and snapping cameras. The visit is his first pilgrimage as pontiff to Africa.

In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence -- not condoms -- was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.

Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of the battle against AIDS.

"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the plane heading to Yaounde. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease.

The Roman Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.

About 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS. In 2007, three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide were there, as well as two-thirds of all people living with HIV.

Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope was serious about preventing new HIV infections, he would focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how best to use them.

"Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," said Hodes, head of policy, communication and research for the organization.

Even some priests and nuns working with those living with HIV/AIDS question the church's opposition to condoms amid the pandemic ravaging Africa. Many Africans do, as well.

"Talking about the non-use of condoms is out of place. We need condoms to protect ourselves against diseases and AIDS," teacher Narcisse Takou said Tuesday in Yaounde.

On his arrival in Yaounde, the pope was greeted by Cameroon's President Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982 and whose government has been accused of abuses in crushing political opponents.

The pope made no specific reference to the situation in Cameroon but said in general remarks on Africa that "a Christian can never remain silent" in the face of violence, poverty, hunger, corruption or abuse of power.

"The saving message of the Gospel needs to be proclaimed loud and clear so that the light of Christ can shine into the darkness of people's lives," Benedict said as the president and other political leaders looked on.

Benedict's African trip this week will also take him to Angola.

Rebuilding Young Lives and Communities
100 People Join in Constructing 'Green' Home for Family That Lost Trailer in Hurricane
By David Betancourt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; B02
Corey Carswell was headed nowhere when two YouthBuild recruiters approached him seven months ago with this offer: Join us, and help us rebuild your community.

At the time, he was homeless and out of work and hadn't attended school since 2004.

But now the 22-year-old has a job, an apartment and plans to get his general equivalency diploma.

"I now have a passion to finish school, get my GED and get a higher education," Carswell said. "I'd like to be a general contractor or work for a big organization."

Yesterday on the Mall, Carswell joined first lady Michelle Obama and 100 young people from across the country to construct an environmentally friendly home for a family in Texas whose mobile home was damaged in July by Hurricane Dolly. The event also celebrated YouthBuild's anniversary.

The organization, founded in East Harlem, N.Y., in 1978, focuses on giving low-income people ages 16 to 24 a chance to rebuild their communities and their lives. Since 1994, groups across the country have built 18,000 units of low-income housing.

The home on the Mall was built with recycled wood, inexpensive but long-lasting cement siding and windows designed to keep energy bills down.

Rebuilding lives is just as important, said Richard Halpin, founder and chief executive of American Youthworks, a national partner of YouthBuild.

"If we make America's youth a part of the solution," Halpin said, "they won't be a part of the problem."

At the time he was approached in his Southeast Washington neighborhood, Carswell said, he sold drugs and slept in a shelter. Since he joined YouthBuild in August, Carswell said, the family atmosphere and mentorship -- new experiences for him -- helped to turn his life around.

"They showed me another way," he said.

The same was true for Sydney Jimason, 22, of Northeast, who dropped out of high school when she learned she was pregnant; her son is now almost 3.

"I wasn't paying attention in school," she said. "I wasn't going to class."

Jimason said YouthBuild helped her learn construction skills that she hopes will lead to a job. But Jimason said she also enjoys helping people.

"It makes me feel good that I'm able to help somebody," she said. "It's great because there are a lot of people who need help."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031703003_pf.html