Live and let live? Sorry, but George W. Bush's god has other plans for your life.

President Bush flip-flopped again. Remember all that money he supposedly devoted to fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa? Well, apparently the radical conservatives let the president know who's boss, because Bush reneged on his written pledge not to subject African AIDS relief funding to his Global Gag Rule. [Read The Center for Health and Gender Equality report (.pdf)]

On Our Word, moiv writes:

How can we do this? How can we not, when it is so clearly what Jesus Christ requires of us? These are a few of the God-enlightened people who assure our president that the Bible tells us so.

The shadow president, James Dobson of the pseudo-Christian Focus on Family, seems delighted.

"President Bush deserves praise for his leadership and efforts to provide real solutions to the millions of AIDS sufferers in Africa,� Dobson said. “We cannot continue to offer this country the same faulty ideology that has increased sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy among our own young people.�

Dobson's solution to AIDS is to waggle fingers at people for feeling sexual urges. Never mind the reproductive urge -- you know, the one that's in the Bible? Dobson thinks it's better to just pretend it doesn't exist and, um, leave the "dark continent" in the dark.

Homophobia plays into it, too, with wingnut leaders urging African American churches to not only reject "gay money" (you know, green stuff from purple people) but even money from congregations that allow gay clergy.

How many people's lives would be saved if these sexually neurotic conservatives just got a little therapy? Fear of being gay seems to have driven them crazy.

And so people must die.

moiv writes:

These people are George W. Bush's kind of Christians. This is what their peculiar version of the Word of God has already wrought in Kenya . . .

The thunder comes not from bombs, but from the holier-than-thou posing by these supposedly "moral leaders."

How can we do this? How can we not, when it is so clearly what Jesus Christ requires of us? These are a few of the God-enlightened people who assure our president that the Bible tells us so.

As bayprairie says:

Make no mistake about this people. This is a death sentence for poor African women and men and others around the world. Next time you shake the hand of anyone who helped put George W Bush in office, be sure and thank them. But wear gloves -- their hands will be covered in blood.

How is this Christian in any sense? Millions of people must die because sexual education and birth control?

From the report (.pdf):

[T]he expansion of the gag rule to HIV funding represents a “formal admission� of what the Administration has been doing all along--excluding family planning and maternal and child health programs from U.S.-funded HIV prevention efforts. Field research by CHANGE has shown that since 2003, family planning organizations in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda have been outright denied funding under PEPFAR due to confusion about the application of the Global Gag Rule and due to the rush by this Administration to fund “faith- based� groups, shift prevention funding to abstinence-only programs, and otherwise undermine effective HIV and reproductive health programs.

If anyone tries to tell you that this is just about abortion, they're lying. When you take away from people in Africa all forms of birth control and push the abstinence-only fantasy -- especially in rape cultures -- you're not promoting life, you're cultivating death.

More here.

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