July 09, 2005

The New Hot Zone

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/07/08/aids.prostitution.ap/index.html

Government places new restrictions on AIDS funding
Friday, July 8, 2005; Posted: 4:28 p.m. EDT (20:28 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. groups fighting AIDS overseas are being given an ultimatum by the government: Pledge your opposition to sex trafficking and prostitution or do without federal funds.


Influenced by the reasoning (though incapable of imitating its glittering irony) of the Confidence Man's post "George W. Bush is a Great American," I confess that my initial objections to this new policy (the by-now-boring Republican tactic of making you state the obvious in policy in order to reduce your flexibility in practice) have been replaced by a more long-term view that supports its implementation.

If successful, this initiative will promote first abstinence and then monogamy and unprotected, reproductive sex among folks currently with or at risk for HIV. This will channel HIV propagation to the heteronormative, reproductive, fundamentalist community, and in particular, will target recent converts. Then we will see if the Lord will provide. At the very least I suspect funding for HIV research will rise.

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