AIDS is a disease we can manage, control and prevent. But we have not mostly because of people who hate.
These haters impose their beliefs using violence on people that do not agree with them – people who live here and around the world.
They are terrorists and they are the reason AIDS is a worldwide crisis.
Terrorism is not just a suicide bomber. It is public policy, political agendas, religious repression and homophobia
In some sections of India, people are being beaten for trying to teach people about condoms.
Around the world, sex workers are stigmatized by fanatical religious groups. Governments, intimidated by the churches, are not implementing programs that would stop HIV. Such programs would test sex workers for HIV, give out condoms and try out new methods of protection like antivirals and microbicides.
Worldwide, many women are at the receiving end of violence from men who get HIV from prostitutes and drug use and then give it to their wives who have no power to force them to get tested or use condoms.
Countries are pressured into not implementing safer sex by US right-wing fanatics.
Countries feel unable to push the use of condoms because they rely on US sales of their exports. Our fanatical President will not fund prevention programs unless they are based on teaching abstinence.
Religion substitutes for science, as study after study has shown teaching abstinence is a complete failure.
The hatred of gays and lesbians is another key hate, another target of terror slowing down the fight against AIDS.
This has been a huge problem around the world, especially in countries with large numbers of religious fanatics. Take this news from Nepal for example (excerpted & edited by Search For A Cure from the news outlet Agence France Presse - July 26, 2004):
KATHMANDU, July 26 - the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), a group championing the rights of homosexuals in conservative Nepal is frantically seeking international support to help it..... Nepal's Supreme Court might shut it down.
Nepal's civil code punishes any kind of "unnatural sex" with up to one year in prison. This has led to arrests of homosexual men and the transgendered.
1,000 gays and lesbians have joined BDS, which is trying to educate people across Nepal about HIV/AIDS.
This is just one example of the institutionalized terrorist acts going on around the world.
Hundreds of gays have been arrested and killed in Saudi Arabia.
In Thailand there have been reports of many drug users being taken by police and murdered to lower the HIV rates.
Initially, Haiti insisted there are no homosexuals and therefore no AIDS in the country.
The former dictator of Malawi made it illegal to talk about AIDS in that country until it was too late to stop the disease from creating hundreds of thousands of AIDS orphans.
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All of these actions are acts of terrorism whether committed by a government, a church, a husband or a paramilitary group.
What connects them all together is the belief that freedom comes to an end when a person does not obey some religious or cultural norm.
That violence is OK if someone is "different."
This terrorism is killing millions around the world.
This terrorism makes people afraid to get tested for HIV. It makes it impossible for many groups to teach safer sex. It is the biggest reason AIDS continues to kill.
This terrorism makes countries slow to pitch in and help end the epidemic, which can be stopped.
Some terrorists are angry fanatics that fly airplanes into buildings.
Others are parents or churches or governments who would rather see their children die of AIDS than admit they are gay or need to use a condom.
If you want to help, you can find your local Nepalese Embassy at this site (http://www.welcomenepal.com/info_diplomatic.asp). Write a letter to protest the possible banning of Sunil Pant’s Blue Diamond Society.
And tell others about this type of terrorism that has already killed 25 million people.
We don’t have to scour caves in Afghanistan to stop these terrorists.
We just need to vote out the haters.
--David Scondras is the founder and chairman of Search For A Cure. Scondras developed the nationally-recognized HIV treatment series, Reasons for Hope. All articles in the series are reviewed by expert HIV doctors and scientists and an HIV positive and negative focus group to ensure both accuracy and understandability.
If you have any questions or would like to receive the Reasons For Hope series contact Search For A Cure at 34 Edgerly Road #1, Boston, MA 02115 or call Search For A Cure at 617-536-2474 or fax 617-266-0051, or e-mail at hope@sfac.org.
