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Bryan Fischer responds to Rick and Kay Warren over AIDS-HIV link

January 18, 2012 by 8 Comments

In a column hosted on the American Family Association website, Bryan Fischer defended his denial of the HIV-AIDS link. On Monday, Rick and Kay Warren released a statement to me which condemned Fischer’s recent campaign to support the work of Peter Duesberg. Duesberg is a professor of biology at UC – Berkeley who claims that HIV is a harmless virus and does not cause AIDS.

In his rebuttal, Fischer restates arguments from his previous columns and at times, inadvertently argues against himself. For instance, Fischer chides the Warrens with Uganda as an illustration:

Warren knows for a fact that the only nation in Africa that has been able to dramatically reduce its AIDS rate is Uganda, which has done it by emphasizing abstinence before marriage and fidelity after. It makes perfect sense. If the cause is bad behavior, the cure is good behavior. Pastor Warren ought to be down with that, since that’s exactly what the Scriptures teach.

If you want to solve the AIDS crisis, the solution is simple, and it’s not found in a test tube. If you’re a man, stop using poppers, stop having sex with other men, and don’t shoot up. The beauty of that solution is that it doesn’t require billions and billions of dollars.

First of all, Uganda has reduced the AIDS rate by reducing HIV transmission among straights. According Harvard AIDS prevention expert, Edward Green, gays have a very small impact on the situation there. The ABC approach (abstinence, be faithful, condom use) has been quite helpful there, but this is not what Fischer suggests in his very next paragraph. Instead, Fischer’s advice to men in Uganda — “stop using poppers, stop having sex with other men and don’t shoot up” — would be nearly meaningless. Fischer and Duesberg’s Stop, Stop and Don’t Shoot won’t stop HIV but the ABC method does.

What Fischer does not do is confront the horrendous consequences of his campaign already realized in South Africa. As the Warrens pointed out, the South African government took Duesberg’s advice from 2000-2005 which led to thousands of babies being infected and over 330,000 deaths, as estimated by two follow up studies.

Yesterday, I wrote the AFA’s Tim Wildmon to ask if the AFA agrees with Fischer’s views. No reply has come as yet.

Related:
Rick and Kay Warren condemn the American Family Association’s denial of link between HIV and AIDS

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You can’t make this stuff up: South Carolina endorsements for Rick Santorum

January 18, 2012 by 7 Comments

If I wanted to write a parody of an anti-gay, Mormon-baiting news release, I couldn’t do a better job than this real one from three South Carolina fundamentalists claiming to be evangelicals and to speak for evangelicals.

Some money lines:

  • Days before Saturday’s GOP Presidential primary here, there are signs that South Carolina evangelical Protestant leaders are starting to follow the lead of peers in Iowa and Houston who have rejected Mitt Romney, a Mormon, in favor of Rick Santorum, a Catholic. The driving thrust of the evangelical argument: Homosexuality.
  • Mills said, “The Word of Almighty God, from the Books of Moses to those of the Apostle Paul, commands faithful Jews and Christians to be homophobic. Carolinans have a God-fearing homophobia, while Mitt Romney wrongly endorses homosexuality as a good choice for our young people.
  • Rev. Mills said, “Because Rick Santorum was willing to sign this wonderful Iowa vow last summer while Romney was calling for more gay hiring and other silly liberal things that Massachusetts RINOs embrace, I’d say Senator Santorum has proven himself a courageous Catholic Christian whom any Bible-believing Jew, Protestant or evangelical can support. He does not drink the anti-science Kool-Aid to the effect that homosexuality is inherited and immutable like fingerprints.
  • [Endorser Molotov] Mitchell said, “Mitt Romney is kind of like the RINO country club hetero version of Dan Savage, and in his own vacuous way, far more dangerous to hetero-traditionalism. I hope Santorum makes a big splash on Romney’s empty suit this Saturday.”
  • Rev. Mills said, “Romney’s liberal support for homosexuality is not only at doctrinal odds with traditional Judaism and Christianity, it’s even at odds with latter-day cults like Islam and Mormonism. As an evangelical pastor, my core problem with Romney is not necessarily with the fact that he has been an elder in the cult of Mormonism – which holds that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, that we have a Heavenly Father and Father and that Jesus is the created brother of Satan – but rather, that Romney rejects traditionalist Mormon stands as well as basic Judeo-Christian stands against homosexuality in favor of a cluelessly-liberal, anti-family public policy.

 

The “wonderful” marriage vow referred to above that Santorum signed was the one that initially said, “Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-­American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-­parent household than was an African-­household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

Those familiar with Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill might remember Molotov Mitchell. He is the friend of Martin Ssempa who misled his audiences with falsehoods about the scope of the bill and offered his support for passage of the legislation.

I wonder if Rick Santorum will tout this endorsement…

7 Comments