Posted on 11/26/2008 6:20:12 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
(CNSNews.com) – Religious leaders and AIDS activists told CNSNNews.com Tuesday that labeling sex outside of marriage as sinful or having multiple partners as immoral behavior is “biased” – something society has “moved beyond.”
At a telephone news conference in advance of World AIDS Day, AIDS activist groups and representatives of various religious groups said that counseling teens and others to be abstinent and restricting sex to marriage just isn’t “realistic,” and called on churches and the incoming Obama administration to deal with HIV/AIDS in a “truthful” and “medically accurate way.”
The Rev. Michael Schuenemeyer, executive for health and wholeness advocacy in the national offices of the United Church of Christ, said the church should be “nonjudgmental” when it comes to HIV/AIDS – and cited a recent workshop he attended as an example of how the Church should act.
“The young people in that workshop were so grateful that faith leaders were willing to be real with them, create a safe space for them to ask questions – to share their views, experiences and ideas, and to provide them with value-based, medically accurate information, along with the tools for making healthy and responsible decisions,” he said.
The religious leader called on churches and “faith perspectives” not to engage in what he called “stigma” and “discrimination” – and appealed to Christian tradition to make his point.
“(Jesus) sent his disciples out to heal the sick, and he encouraged people of faith to be alert and ready, saying, ‘If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into,’” Schuenemeyer said.
“In terms of HIV, we already know how HIV breaks into the body and robs the immune system of its capacity to respond to disease,” he added. “But too many people, young and old, are not effectively prepared with the information and tools they need to prevent an infection.”
But Schuenemeyer balked when CNSNews.com asked why religious groups shouldn’t label risky behavior the way religion has traditionally regarded it -- as immoral.
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CNSNews.com: Let me ask you this: Outside of medical accidents -- like blood transfusions or children born to HIV-positive mothers -- is it possible for an unmarried person to contract HIV without basically someone committing an immoral act?
Rev. Michael Schuenemeyer, United Church of Christ: I think your question exemplifies why we are struggling with stigma and discrimination in our culture, because it betrays a bias about what is moral and immoral. So, I think we’ need to take a public health approach; we need to be nonjudgmental when we speak to people and we need to make sure people have accurate information.
Stigma and discrimination keeps people from getting the information that they need. It’s often fear-based. And when people are faced with judgment they don’t get what they need to respond effectively. So I think we need to take much more of a public health approach for their concern.
It’s not about whether people are engaging in moral or immoral acts, that’s a personal judgment that is being made. It’s about realizing what behaviors cause transmission and preventing those behaviors.
CNSNews.com: Isn’t ‘having multiple partners’ one of the major causes or routes for acquiring HIV, and doesn’t your religion label that as promiscuity or immorality? Shouldn’t religions counsel against sexual immorality?
Rev. Schuenemeyer: (No response.)
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Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, did proffer an answer, and acknowledged that CNSNews.com’s questions weren’t “inappropriate” – but nevertheless dismissed them.
“None of that has anything to do with what, as far as I know, all of the world’s religions share -- and that is to meet the needs of the people in any form of economic and physical distress for any reason,” Messinger told CNSNews.com.
Messinger said labeling behavior as sinful was “an issue back in the history of HIV/AIDS in America” – way back in the early ‘80s.
“There was an early effort in this country to sort of suggest that how you contracted the virus would determine whether or not you got treatment -- and where,” she said.
“I think all secular groups, all service organizations, and all religious organizations have moved beyond that,” she added.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, in 2005, in the United States, 73 percent of new infections occurred in males -- 45 percent were in blacks and 53 percent were in men who have sex with men (MSM).
In 2006, a more detailed analysis found that 72 percent of the HIV infections among men occurred in MSM -- men who have homosexual sex.
Among females, the predominant HIV transmission category was high-risk heterosexual contact, which accounted for 80 percent of new infections among women.
Having sex with husbands and boyfriends who had had sex with men -- or women themselves having sex with multiple partners -- accounted for the overwhelming number of new HIV infections among women.
World AIDS Day is Dec. 1.
UCC... hmm... that sounds familiar...
oh yeah! The “church” that the Buttock family attended for 20 years!
The Lord says: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Try getting past that on Judgment Day, bozos!
Sounded like Unitarian BS but I didn’t find the word in a search...
Rev. Michael Schuenemeyer, United Church of Christ: I think your question exemplifies why we are struggling with stigma and discrimination in our culture, because it betrays a bias about what is moral and immoral.
If he can't find some guidance in the Bible, "Rev" schuenemeyer needs to spend some quality time with Plato's Republic.
Where is the “Go and Sin no more” passage from these clergymen?
Time to weigh-in, Rev...
Guess they never read this!
But people who are cowardly, unfaithful, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars will find themselves in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death. Revelation 21:18
> I wonder what *religion* this would be? The religion of moral relativism?
Liberalism.
They're calling me biased...I thought society had "moved beyond" judging people like that...
I think the preacher there is a queer. Whacha’ think?!
So according to our enlightened progressives, harmful behavior isn’t harmful if you don’t acknowledge that it is harmful. What lunacy.
By being “nonjudgemental” and “being real”, people are till dying from a disease we knew how to stop 25 years ago.
More people die from cancer, and they get it even without direct actions that will cause it.
After 25 years, and bazillions of dollars, concerts, and free condoms, why do we even need to deal with this anymore? It’s a politically correct disease and untouchable.
And 100% preventable.
Time to put our resources into other diseases that affect more people.
Time to move on.
more propaganda to remove the distinction between right/wrong, good/evil, moral/immoral, male/female and straight/gay.
These atheists in drag would be happy to destroy anything our society has built no matter how long it has existed.
The good Sisters of Providence would straighten out the Rev and his Church of Christ in no time.
Good point! Words by Jesus himself too.
Here’s a question: when you determine that someone is “biased” or “judgmental,” isn’t that conclusion based on your own biases and (gasp!) judgment? What am I saying? These are people who hate haters and are intolerant of the intolerant and can’t fathom why people are laughing at them when they advocate such things.
The false church continues its march to hell. And trying to grab recruits on the way.
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