Author: Warren Throckmorton

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

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

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

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…

Another Ron Paul endorser cites the death penalty for homosexuality

Today on Ron Paul’s website, an article by pastor Voddie Baucham is touted on the front page. The article titled, “Baptist Pastor Explains ‘Why Ron Paul?,'” provides reasons why Rev. Baucham believes Ron Paul should be elected. Clearly, the Paul campaign believes this is an important endorsement (as they did the endorsement of Phil Kayser).

Baucham is often cited on theonomy websites (e.g., American Vision and Theonomy Resources). Baucham is a proponent of removing all children from the public schools and an opponent of having age based youth groups.

In a 2009 blog post, Baucham wrote critically of President Obama’s June, 2009 proclamation of LGBT Pride Month, saying:

Hence, sodomites, who who are in large part responsible for the introduction and spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are praised for responding to this plague in an attempt to avoid annihilation (by the way, I know you don’t have to engage in sodomy to get HIV, but that doesn’t change the facts… see  the book, And the Band Played On for an honest look at this issue).  This is revisionism at its worst.

The President goes on to celebrate the fact that this abomination (Lev 18:22) worthy of the death penalty (Lev 20:13) is now being celebrated in the open.  He writes,  “Due in no small part to the determination and dedication of the LGBT rights movement, more LGBT Americans are living their lives openly today than ever before.” This is a clear sign of the devolution of culture.  As Paul writes in Romans, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Rom 1:32 ESV)

Although Baucham writes “this abomination (Lev 18:22) worthy of the death penalty” and follows it with his view of Romans 1, he does not directly call for the death penalty now.  However, he does believe that the authority of civil government comes from God and that the church should inform civil leaders of biblical law. Baucham, like many Reconstructionists, believes that Ron Paul has a biblical view of jurisdiction. In his statement, Baucham says that Paul supports state’s rights and believes in limiting Federal power.

Additional information: In this sermon, Baucham refers again to the Leviticus and Romans passages which he interprets as calls for the death penalty. At the same time, he says gays should not be bashed. The inconsistency is not addressed.

Related:

 

Rick and Kay Warren condemn the denial of link between HIV and AIDS as promoted by the AFA’s Bryan Fischer

Early in January, Bryan Fischer, issues analyst with the American Family Association, threw his support behind the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS. On his daily talk show, Fischer hosted University of California, Berkeley professor, Peter Duesberg, who is the principle proponent of the theory that HIV is a harmless virus and that AIDS is the result of lifestyle choices, such as drug use and promiscuity, which weaken the immune system. Duesberg says that gay men are at special risk since they use drugs and engage in casual sex more so than other groups.

In a column on the AFA website, Fischer wrote:

So what is the cause of what we know as AIDS? What is the cause of this condition that is killing people? Duesberg’s answer can be found in one word: drugs.

And specifically, drug use connected with the kind of sex that is far too common in the homosexual community. While the average heterosexual has somewhere between seven to 14 sexual partners in a lifetime, it is not uncommon for homosexuals to have hundreds, even thousands, of sexual partners.

By partnering with Duesberg, Fischer brought AIDS denialism closer to the mainstream of evangelicalism. In response, Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren and his wife Kay issued a statement to me about Fischer’s and Duesberg’s denial of the HIV-AIDS link. The Warrens’ statement is powerful and decisive. It is reproduced here in full:

Since AIDS was first discovered in 1981, 30 years of non-stop scientific research by the US military, the medical community, our government, and by every international health organization has proven over and over, with countless irrefutable results, that ONLY people with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) develop AIDS.  To imply the disease is caused by anything besides HIV is quack science, like claiming the earth is flat, or the moon is made of cheese. Since 1985, when the virus that creates AIDS was isolated, every doctor on the planet, except Peter Duesberg, has known that HIV is the only cause of AIDS.

Duesberg’s denial of the entire body of research, and his rejection of thousands of scientific trials and papers, would be laughable if millions of lives weren’t at stake.  But his view is deadly.  Unfortunately, Duesberg convinced some people in Africa that HIV was not the cause of AIDS and as a result many people there needlessly became infected with the virus, and some have subsequently suffered and died.

It is frustrating – and frightening – for those of us in AIDS ministry to see someone like Dr. Duesberg play to people’s bias and prejudices.  For the past eight years we have worked with thousands of churches around the world and in America who have ministries to those infected and affected by AIDS.  No one deserves this illness, and we must not ignore those among us who are infected or affected by HIV and AIDS.  There are numerous ways to acquire the virus – sexual activity, blood transfusions, being born to an HIV positive mother, dirty needles –  but what matters isn’t  how a person became infected as much as how we will respond. People with living with the virus are people that Jesus created, loves, and died for. Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan teaches us that when you find someone bleeding on the side of the road, you don’t say “Was it your fault?” You just help them in love!

Let’s be very careful about what reality we deny; lives are at stake.

When the Warrens write that Duesberg convinced some in Africa that HIV and AIDS were not related, they are referring to the period of AIDS denial in South Africa from 2000 to 2005. In 2000, Duesberg was invited by South African President Thabo Mbeki to provide advice on AIDS policy. Subsequently, the South African government displayed antagonism toward AIDS treatment and prevention programs which involved anti-retro viral drugs (ARVs). Nicolo Nattrass, writing in African Affairs, said that President Mbeki questioned the science behind the epidemic. However, the consequences were devastating. According to a Harvard University press release and a study from the journal African Affairs, over 330,000 deaths could have been prevented if ARVs had been used. The Harvard release, citing a 2008 study, added that 35,000 babies were born with HIV due to failure to implement appropriate drug based prevention programs.

If anything, the African epidemic provides evidence counter to Duesberg’s theory. The epidemic there is driven by heterosexual activity. The stereotype about gay men spreading HIV via lots of drugs and sex is not applicable there.

Given what is at stake, the Warrens’ statement is important. The American Family Association has a sizable audience which includes GOP Presidential candidates. Confusion over something as basic as what causes AIDS could become a barrier to the progress made in ministry and treatment for those with HIV/AIDS. As the Warrens remind us, lives are at stake.

Former Bachmann advisor says Santorum should apologize to Bachmann

In other news, Peter Waldron thinks Rick Santorum ran a sexist campaign in Iowa and owes Bachmann an apology.

Santorum Owes Michele Bachmann an Apology

“…children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president” Jamie Johnson, Senior Santorum Advisor

Contact: Dr. Peter E Waldron, 727-415-7189, [email protected]

OPINION, Jan. 14, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ — Presidential candidate Senator Rick Santorum deployed a sexist strategy in IA. His IA Evangelical surrogates promoted the idea that a female cannot be an elected official or a commander-in-chief. The same Evangelical surrogates repeatedly called upon Rep. Michele Bachmann to withdraw from the race although she led the Senator and other male candidates in the polls. Bob Vander Plaats, CEO Family Leader and Santorum endorser, also, rejected two consensus votes in favor of Rep. Bachmann polled among Evangelical pastors at a meeting hosted by an organization close to the Family Leader. Home school parents circulated a treatise written in 2004 titled, “Should Christians support a female civil magistrate.”

Further, the Des Moines Register ran a story on Friday, January 13, 2011 written by Jennifer Jacobs that published excerpts from an email written by the Senator’s senior advisor, Jamie Johnson. Mr. Johnson sent out an email saying that “children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president”. He continues, “The question then comes, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, His biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the Family, the Church, and the State?'”

If the issue were “racism” or “anti-Semitics” I believe that Senator Santorum would terminate the staffer and apologize to Michele Bachmann. Sexism and misogyny require no less of an expeditious response.

The longer that the Senator takes to step up and apologize to Michele Bachmann, the guiltier he looks.

(Peter Waldron is the former National Faith Outreach Coordinator for Bachmann for President. He is based in Florida.)