Family Group Says DC Should Learn Lesson From Failed Safe-Sex Approach
by Bill Fancher
December 11, 2003
(AgapePress) - Pro-family leaders are disgusted that city officials in Washington, DC, seem to be turning a blind eye to the results of the failed policies they have used for fighting AIDS and sexually-transmitted infections.Genevieve Wood of the Family Research Council is appalled by city leaders' proposal to place free condom distributors in office buildings throughout the District of Columbia. She finds it hard to understand why the political leaders who are pushing this program still have not learned their lesson.
"They're putting more money into a program that we know doesn't work," Wood says. She notes that Washington, after handing out condoms in its public schools and offices for years, "now has the highest HIV rate per capita of any city or state in the country."
Wood believes DC officials are making a grave mistake by ignoring the rise in AIDS virus infections and other STD infection rates in the city while they expand condom distribution efforts and create new programs emphasizing "safe sex." She feels that Washington's policy of promoting that myth has led to the city's distinction as the HIV capital of the nation.
"That's a tragedy, but unfortunately the policies the DC government has followed over the years ... talk about abstinence, but they never put any money behind it. All the money goes to so-called 'safe sex' education programs in the schools and condom handout and giveaway programs," Wood says.
According to the pro-family spokeswoman, those leaders who talk about abstinence but never seem to find the money to fund abstinence-based efforts must finally recognize the tragic failure of their strategy and choose a new course. "They need to put their money behind the one thing we all know works, and that's abstinence," she says.
Wood feels it is tragic that city leaders have not yet learned their lesson from using failed solutions to the AIDS problem. As a result, she says, the safe sex myth continues to be pushed, and the incidence of AIDS/HIV infection increases along with the spread of other sexually-transmitted diseases.
