I am so in love with you right now.

Good blogging, sir.

good morning it's mark mitchell. well played.

Someday we will defeat them. Someday soon.

Are these people insane? Oh, wait, asked and answered.They're Republicans. When will mankind acknowledge that abortion has probably been around almost as long as sex, and will probably persist at least as long as sex does?

I love you! Please, stay forever.

I hope all the 20 year-olds thinking of barebacking each other tonight get a load of that dude. Try hooking up on Manhunt after that, boiz...

Right on, Mark.

"...nasty, brutish and short". It's not like anyone else will care, but that's the correct Hobbes quote.

What we really need is a Republican with AIDS.

Roy Cohn wasn't enough for you?

Less than 200 days ...

Steve P @8 Correcting a misquaote is fine, even helpful, but to then insult the entire slogosphere with your dismissive tag: "it's not like anyone else will care" undermines your point. If no one cares, why do you bother to note it? Do you consider yourself the last bastion of learning in the world?Instead of sounding knowledgeable, you come off as supercilious and passive-aggressive. Not attractive.

I apologize for not proofing my previous post. Mea culpa.

eventually this 'abstinence only' thing will become too obviously damaging and downright stupid to pretend anymore, probably in ten years or so, and it will abandoned. and then after millions of lives have been lost or broken and immeasurable energy has been spent arguing and fighting for common sense and we've finally dragged all the conservative dopes out of the 17th century we can all take a deep breath and say "thanks for wasting the last 30 years by being a complete retard, that was really helpful." of course, there will be no real catharsis about the tragedy that is this country's bone headed approach to sex and public health, and after 'abstinence only' is gone religious wackos and women hating douche bags will come up with some other cracked out theory about moral fabric and the well fare of society that decent people will have to contend with. i'm bitching and i apologize, but this shit is for real and people are dying because of it.

Am I allowed to be against encouragement of male circumcision, even though it seems to lessen the risk of HIV transmission? And are the fundoservatives really against the male circumcision part of the program? Jesus had his foreskin cut off, after all.

@14 -- Wrong! Unfortunately.

It's kinda like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland - this is just one of the six impossible things to believe before breakfast

You see? It's about protecting God's precious, innocent life in the womb from those embryo-sucking monsters at Planned Parenthood and the like, not providing treatment to the dirty sinners that have successfully fought their way past the birth canal to find that life is nasty, brutal, and short.

You are damned right. Killing the poor and underprivileged is not mercy, unless you are a member of the Nazi/Darwinist party. They are precious, but obviously, not to some.

And the main reason that abstinence does not work is that, in a world that glorifies the lack of self-control and mocks the virtue of chastity, abstinence can never work. However, as someone once said, no government (or program) can succeed if the people lack virtue.

So you keep on treating the symptoms (which is necessary now that we are in such dire situations), while ignoring the fact that *if people were monogamous and faithful until and in marriage, AIDS would not spread at all.*

But of course, you have no hope of people exercising self control, because not only do you not want to have to, you expect that others are as spineless and lacking in virtue as yourself. You can point to the studies that show that people lack the ability to be faithful to their spouses before or during marriage, and use that to excuse such poverty of virtue, rather than attempting better efforts at encouraging abstinence - better than what usually passes for abstinence education among liberals and PP instructor, which amounts to "abstinence is a choice, but we know that no one can really do it, wink wink, so have all the sex you want, just use this condom."

Furthermore, you are half right in thinking that government can not preach morality or self-control, but since you persist in thinking that only government can save us, rather than contributing to moralizing and spiritual renewal, of COURSE you have to fall back on your governmental symptom-only treatments. Good luck with that.

The rest of us will work towards promoting virtue, which is the real cure for the spread of AIDS and most other STDs.

And btw, i see that your site encourages lust, porn, and general rebellion against self control. So just to alert you - YOU are contributing to the problem, no matter how many condoms you contribute to those poor Africans, and no matter how many of their babies you allow PP to kill in an effort to help them.

@17: Research shows that not only do people not follow your 'virtue,' as you call it, but that the poor ones that PEOPLE LIKE YOU have trained to be 'virtuous' are the worst at using protection and getting checked for STDs when they do have sex. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE MAKING THE PROBLEM WORSE, AND PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE OF IT.

If you can't deal with the global AIDS crisis as it is, and not as you want it to be, then put it out of your mind and let it be handled by others who have more wisdom and compassion than you do, others who won't let others die for their own self-righteousness.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU have trained to be 'virtuous' are the worst at using protection and getting checked for STDs when they do have sex.

This is because people UNLIKE me teach abstinence ONLY, rather than the ABC method which has successful in Uganda:

When HIV was rapidly spreading through the population of Uganda in the late 1980s, President Yoweri Museveni, unlike most other African leaders at the time, recognised the danger and took swift action showing forceful leadership. Uganda's response was powerful and wide-ranging. The government launched an aggressive media campaign involving posters, radio messages and rallies; they trained teachers to begin effective HIV and AIDS education; and - most importantly - they mobilised community leaders, churches and indeed the public in general.

The government worked alongside many independent organisations, using different messages to address different groups of people according to their needs as well as their ability to respond. Young people were encouraged to wait before first having sex, or to return to abstinence if they were not virgins. All sexually active people were given the message of "zero grazing", which meant staying with regular partners and not having casual sex. Those who did not abstain were encouraged to use condoms, which were promoted to the population as a whole.

In order to encourage people to take up such strategies - and to make them effective - action was taken to encourage candid discussion of HIV and AIDS, to reduce stigma, to better the status of women, to improve testing facilities, to treat other sexually transmitted infections and to provide better care for those already infected. Fear was also a part of the strategy, but the campaigns explained how to avoid or reduce risk and so not be overtaken by fear.

There is no evidence of the term "ABC" being used in Uganda's campaigns at this time, although they did incorporate some elements of abstinence, being faithful and using condoms.

What appears to have worked in Uganda was a combination of risk avoidance and risk reduction approaches.

This is what we should be doing, which was the aim of Bush's push for 1/3 abstinence training. Unfortunately, if you downplay either end of the equation, you make the problem worse.