Landmark Baptist

Yes, you read that correctly. You won't see that often typed by my fingers, so here's the scoop. About a week ago the Catholic Pope Benedict made news (and angered a lot of people) because he said (among other things) "You can't resolve [AIDS] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem." A Harvard expert in AIDS research agreed, saying, "We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working." Now enter the United Church of Christ. Guess what they think? "The availability of condoms as part of a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention sends the right message and more importantly, it saves lives." And they want to pass them out at their houses of worship.

Here is more data on the subject:

Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse...The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/pope-condoms-not-the-answ_n_175623.html

The head of a Harvard-based AIDs prevention centre says the Pope is “correct” to claim that condom distribution risks aggravating the transmission of HIV...Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies said this week: “The best evidence we have supports the Pope’s comments."

In an interview with the National Review Online, Mr Green said: “We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”

He said condom distribution could lead to “risk compensation”, meaning that, once furnished with condoms, people were more likely to engage in riskier sexual behaviour. -- Harvard Aids expert says Pope 'correct' on condoms and spread of HIV, by Bess Twiston Davies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5987155.ece

Highlighting the need for churches to be places of spiritual and physical wellness, UCAN, Inc. (United Church of Christ HIV and AIDS Network) has issued a statement encouraging condom distribution at places of worship.

Michael Schuenemeyer, the UCC’s executive for health and wholeness advocacy, urges a more scientific and compassionate approach to the prevention of HIV. “The availability of condoms as part of a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention sends the right message and more importantly, it saves lives.”

Making condoms available at houses of worship and faith-based educational settings provides opportunities to open conversations that can save lives...it is our moral responsibility to make condoms available because doing so not only sends the right message about loving responsibly, it saves lives. -- UCC’s health advocates press for increased condom distribution, by Gregg Brekke
http://www.ucc.org/news/uccs-health-advocates-press.html

Alan Wisdom, with the Institute on Religion & Democracy, believes the UCC's statement is dangerous. "It sends a message to youth particularly, the kids who meet in their Alan Wisdom (IRD)Sunday schools, that the church really has no expectation of them in terms of sexuality, that it expects them to enter into multiple sexual relationships in the same way the world does, and that its only concern is they not pick up diseases," he notes.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=468294

[Note: This was not "more right" because the pope and some expert at Harvard said it. Many Baptists have been saying it as well. It is just that they made recent news.]