San Francisco Chronicle - October 19, 2004
Columnist - Jon Carroll, jcarroll@sfchronicle.com

The ad is signed by 25 Nobel Prize winners (including Kenneth Arrow and Henry Taube of Stanford and Charles H. Townes of UC Berkeley), 24 religious leaders (including Desmond Tutu), business leaders, health experts, former heads of state (including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton), and, most impressively, 83 current heads of state, including the leaders of Pakistan, Mongolia, Benin, Ireland, Denmark, Nepal, Botswana, Canada, Cyprus, Cape Verde, Namibia, Bosnia, Germany, Bhutan, Sweden, Latvia, Peru and, yes, Poland.

Conspicuously absent is any representative of the current administration in Washington. This is one coalition of the willing the president is unable to join.

There are probably several reasons for that, but let's concentrate on one. The ad notes that "the largest generation of adolescents in history -- more than one billion people -- are now entering adulthood in a rapidly changing world." The biggest threat to this generation is HIV-AIDS.

There is, of course, a simple way to drastically retard the spread of HIV. It is simple and cheap. It requires three minutes of training and has no moving parts. It's called a condom. And the United States is against it.

The Bush administration apparently believes that abstinence is the only acceptable means of birth control. If people refrain from being abstinent, then they must suffer the consequences. Increasingly, one of the consequences is death.

In the simplest terms, that's the choice: sex or death. The administration chooses death. Tough beans, Africa; you shoulda thought of that before you started playing slap and tickle.

This is supposed to be the pro-life administration, but one of its most far-reaching decisions is pro-death. This administration is supposed to uphold morality, but there is no more deeply immoral position than this: Sex is punishable by death. It is disgusting; it is disturbing; it is being done in our name.

The United States has always been weird about sex. It promotes faux-naive peep shows -- cheerleading contests, beauty pageants, beer commercials, fashion advertising -- but becomes upset when the actual animal act looms in the window. It's the culture of the dry hump.

HIV first manifested itself in the gay community. Now the preponderance of sufferers are straight, but they are also (what's the word I'm looking for?) black. They live a long way away. Their cooties are nothing to worry about. Let us, in the spirit of Christian charity, give them a loving lecture about morality, and then move on.

Say, kids, how about bowling? That's fun! Or hayrides! Join a choir. Learn to build a fire. Enjoy a hearty session of sewing. For you advanced students, let's talk about how giving money to rich people actually makes your life better. The rising tide, the boats, and please keep your hands to yourself.

You bet this makes me angry. It's bad enough that people right here in the U.S.A. with full access to condoms don't use them. (Guys, if you're sexually active and don't use a condom, you're a potential murderer. You are in danger of killing the ones you love. Put on a party hat, bro.) But that we should niggle and quibble about helping Third World countries prevent the spread of a killer pandemic -- it makes me want to throw something. Or someone.

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Really, the world would be a better place if everybody just settled down and got married heterosexually.

Oh, the hell with something clever -- jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.

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