Enough
is enough!
by:
Pastor Dan M. Appel
Another year of the excruciating pain of HIV and AIDS has passed. Another international conference has convened with papers presented by eminent researchers. Another year of articles have appeared in print and countless programs have aired in the broadcast media. 1.2 billion dollars has been spent on prevention in the United States, alone, and another 10.4 billion on treatment. Yet the disease marches on. Something is drastically wrong!
Over 2.3 million people died of AIDS in the past twelve months,1 the majority of them between the ages of 15 and 35. In the United States alone, almost 31,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS this last year. It is estimated that today over 30 million people, worldwide, have HIV/AIDS, with 16,000 new infections occurring every day. By the year 2000, it is estimated that over 40 million people will have AIDS/HIV, one quarter of them children.2 Millions more children will become orphans. The economic impact of this many people dying or disabled in the prime of their most economically productive years, or left without role models cannot be fathomed.
In the midst of this, I and the rest of the world have waited in vain to hear somebody, anybody, publicly cite the one clear fact that would stop the spread of HIV and AIDS dead in its tracks. It is the unspeakable statistic - the fact nobody wants to hear. To even whisper it invites vituperativecation, vilification, and the wrath of those with a vested interest in keeping it from being heard.
Well, it has to be said. There is just too much at stake not to say it! And it has to be said clearly, concisely, bluntly, and directly so that there can be no misunderstanding. So here goes:
Heterosexual, monogamous, non-intravenous drug users whose parents and partners practice the same lifestyle virtually never get HIV or AIDS.3
There, I said it. AIDS is a preventable, lifestyle propagated disease. It is not caught from someone else's sneeze, a quirk of genetics, a random bug or a wandering animal. It is pandemic because of lifestyle choices we, or others close to us, deliberately make. It is the result of a willingness to trade instant gratification for our lives, or the lives of those we impact. It is akin to jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge just for the thrill of the journey to the bottom.
We live in a society where we want to blame everyone else for our problems. Well, we can blame no one but ourselves for the spread of a communicable disease that promises to be far worse than the Black Death of medieval Europe.
I believe that the issue goes much deeper than AIDS or HIV.
The popular wisdom, conceived in modern times by Aldous Huxley and birthed by Charles Darwin, states that we are nothing more than highly evolved animals. As such, we are prisoner of our genes, our urges, and our desires. If it feels good, we have no choice but to do it.
The Jewish and Christian scriptures and the Koran, on the other hand, teach that man is created a free moral agent. In other words, we are born imbued with the power of choice. As such, we are responsible for the results of our choices.
Society's antipathy against the Bible, today, exists largely, I am convicted, because we do not want to claim that responsibility for our own actions. The scriptures teach moral and societal responsibility. "As a man sows," they say, "so shall he also reap." We would rather blame our parents or our teachers, our neighborhood, our genetics, or our primal urges. We live in an age when we want to place the responsibility on anyone but ourselves for the mess we find ourselves in. And, we'd rather search for a cure than prevent the problem before it occurs. We would rather live like hell and ask everyone around us to pay the price than make the intelligent choice to prevent HIV. We would rather pass out condoms or demonstrate for more government investment in research in curing the disease than we would in making the tough, responsible, decision to stop it.
Unfortunately, we cannot afford that bad choice any longer. We have sacrificed our morality and our Judea-christian heritage on the alter of hedonism and we are paying a price that we can no longer afford to pay. That price is much more than the impossible financial toll. It is the cream of the next generation cut down in their prime. It is whole nations decimated. It is friends who are no longer there. It is uncountable orphans growing up without their parents. It is the death of families and relationships and of an ideal that says that I will put the safety and well being of others before my own desires.
Instead of handing out condoms, why not hand out the truth to our kids, our friends, and even to the man or woman on the street: "You don't want AIDS? Live a lifestyle that excludes it!" Instead of making quilts in memory of those who have died, why not really care by telling the truth? Instead of AIDS concerts, why not prevention concerts? Are we in such denial; are we so much in love with the lifestyle that spreads HIV, that we will endure the carnage to live it? Shouldn't we bring this to a halt while there are any of us left?
We hold the magic bullet to stop the AIDS epidemic, and we can use it any time we choose. All we have to do is decide to do so. It is nothing that government can legislate or anyone can orchestrate. It has to come from our own personal choices, from our freely exercised decision to do what is right for us and for our world.
It is time to return to a safer lifestyle. It is time to return to the morality of our forefathers. It is time to re-examine our Judeo-christian heritage. Maybe, just maybe, it has something of value to offer us, after all. Maybe the New Age of no absolutes or moral responsibility we've ushered in isn't so great. I, for one, don't think so. I am tired of it. I am tired of what it is doing to my nation and my world. I am tired of the friends who are gone and my brothers and sisters in the human race who are dying for no good reason. So, I guess I care enough to wave my arms and to jump up and down and cry out:
Heterosexual, monogamous, non-intravenous drug users whose parents and partners practice the same lifestyle virtually do not get AIDS!
There, I've said it again! Is anybody listening?
1. U.S. Department of health and Human Services, National Center for HIV , STD, and TB Prevention.
2. Ibid
3. Less than 3%
(This essay was written by the author in late 1998. The statistics have only gotten worse since then.)
© Dan M. Appel
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