williamonthehill

I am not an Anti-Catholic Bigot... but then again...

You may remember a few posts back that I mentioned two Peers and the debate about the Catholic Church and Condoms in the fight against HIV.

Below is my letter to them,,,

Baroness Flather of Maidenhead

The House of Lords

Westminster

London SW

6 April 2008

My Lady,

I am aware of your many discourses on the subject of HIV/AIDS pandemic on the African continent in the Upper House and elsewhere. I am also aware that for a reason known only to yourself you are inclined to place the blame for this human tragedy on the Catholic Church.

You may wish to know what the Catholic Church teaches and believes on this matter. Firstly , that sexual intercourse may occur only within a marriage, between two spouses. Any sexual encounter outside of the marriage context is illicit and is commonly called fornication. For those who remain unmarried chastity (abstinence) is a valid state and is greatly to be desired. Therefore chastity without marriage, and continence within marriage are the sole guarantors against HIV infection or indeed against any STD infection. Abstinence is the key.

Condoms are absolutely not the answer to this situation. You will be aware one hopes of the failure rate of Condoms, which reaches near to 20 % in some studies (1-in-5). You will also be aware that the latex of the average condom does contain holes of microscopic proportions through which infection can and does travel.

To use a condom is said to be practising ‘safe’ sex. Well, actually no. Over twenty years ago as a counsellor in a street drugs agency the message I was told to give to our service users was not to use the word ‘safe’in this context. The preferred word was ‘safer’ but that the risks of condom sex were to be spelt out to the clients.

So, to return to the Catholic Church. The Church teaches the faithful that sex is something which may occur only within marriage. The spouses are to be loyal and faithful to each other and to practice continence within the marriage.

For those outside marriage sex is not allowed. Yes, I will put it as strongly as that. That means not just hetero, but homo, trans, bi and any other personal preference of sex with or to. This is fornication which is a mortal sin. Those Catholics who are faithful and serious followers of the faith will have no difficulty with this teaching since the church has taught it from the beginning and chastity has Biblical backing.

my Lady, I have some difficulty in following the logic of your argument with regard to the Catholic Church being the principle obstacle to the resolution of the HIV pandemic in Africa. Perhaps you can explain it to me? As I understand you, the Catholic Church refuses to support the use of condoms in Africa. This leads to the continued infection of Africans.

my Lady, I find this argument to be so absurd and illogical. You lack any statistical method by which you might assert this argument. Do you even know how many Catholics there might be on the Continent of Africa? And do you suppose that if Catholics were ignoring the major teaching of abstinence and chastity in this matter, that they would bother to heed the call of the church to use a condom?

I think you would agree with me that South Africa has possibly the highest rate of HIV infection in the Continent? Given that Catholics are fewer than 10% of that countries population I cannot see in what way or manner the Catholic Church can be seen to be blamed for the HIV situation in South Africa. Can you? I would not expect any non-Catholic to heed the voice of the Catholic Church on the issue of fornication or using condoms as protection against STD’s or on anything else for that matter. It is a fact, easily verified that the Catholic religion is actually the minority Christian faith on the African continent and that, overall Islam is better represented on that continent.

I believe, and common sense would appear to support me, that abstinence from any sexual activity is the safest way to avoid contamination from any form of sexually transmitted disease.

I am perfectly capable of controlling my sexual urges, passions and lusts. I am sure that you are too. That is human nature. We all have a conscience and we all understand right from wrong. This is a universal phenomenon. I think that what disturbs me the most about the call to deluge the African continent with Condoms as if this was the sole and only solution to this dreadful disease is, I feel, inherently racist. It seems to me that the message behind the Condoms to Africa movement is one of acute racism and which is beholden of some very archaic colonialist thinking. my Lady, what your message in support of condom distribution in Africa says is this ( I use parody): “Those Africans; children, animals.” What I mean is that the logic which supports your position does not allow for Africans possessing the same nature as you and I. Indeed, the message which your policy seems to put across is that the African is, at best a child who cannot help himself but must be always engaging in promiscuous sex. Or that the African is actually a mere animal who, just like a dog must engage in sexual intercourse when confronted by the bitch on heat.

Thank God that the Catholic Church has a higher view of humanity than do the Secularists and the so called Humanists. That is why the Catholic Church calls for abstinence from sexual activity outside of the Sacrament of Marriage.

The real issue in the debate on HIV infection on the African Continent is surely this; that the only guaranteed way of avoiding infection (from any STD and not just HIV) is not to engage in sex with multiple partners. Africans need to hear the correct message; that only celibacy outside marriage, and continence (loyalty to one’s spouse) within marriage can give any guarantee of avoiding infection. The condom message gives entirely the wrong message, namely one that fully supports promiscuous sexual activity.

My Lady, I am forced to the conclusion that your position on this issue, and your, sometimes intemperate language towards the Catholic Church in the many debates in the House in which you have contributed, is motivated entirely by plain, old-fashioned anti-Catholic bigotry.

Yours sincerely

Clive Baulch

Here is the reply which I received from the good Lady.

Dear Mr. Baulch

You talk about the teachings of the Catholic Church which is to practise abstience and chastity and no  relationships outside marriage. Would it surprise you to know that every other religion teaches the same? So then what is the difference? The other religions accept the fallibility of human beings and do not put restrictions of the kind which people are not going to follow. I would have thought that a person as intelligent as you appear to be would understand that not everyone or in fact hardly anyone is like yourself. Should the rules be for the one or two exceptions like yourself, or should the rules be such that they will help those who constantly fall off the pedestal?

I am sorry to say that it is complete nonsense to say that the condoms do not help STDs or protect from HIV infection. If you go on saying these things you just join the Embeke group of heads in the bucket people. The two biggest problems facing the world today are overpopulation and the spread of HIV, both of which require some intervention. The Catholic church does not allow any kind of family planning devices or condoms which would be helpful in both.

I accept the fact that everybody is not a Catholic but the catholic church does have influence and BEPFAR, President Bush's fund for AIDS alleviation in Africa is being largely administered through catholic churches. That surely would have an enormous impact on the efficacy of the money spent. Most of it is being wasted on a "pie in the sky" dream of promoting abstinence. You say that I am motivated by bigotry/ I am not motivated by bigotry, I am motivated by facts. It is the Catholics who never cease to surprise me by their bigotry.

I will not argue with you anymore. We will just have to accept the fact that I view the world reslistically and you view the world from your own moral standpoint, but perhaps you could explain to me how your own prists have been buggering little boys in their care?

Team UK wins the Olympic Flame Relay event

This morning I am very proud to announce that after the third and final leg of the Flame Relay, held in San Francisco on Wednesday, Team UK has come out as top team.

The event is San Francisco descended further into farce to the point where many of San Franciscos finest did not even know where the flame had gone. At one point the torch 'disappeared' into a building before turning up completely on the other side of town!

After counting up all the points and replaying the news footage the judge (me) has no doubt that Team UK is the clear winner. This judgement is based on the fact that in London alone the torch managed to follow the planned route, was never doused, was never snatched from the hands of the rightful runner,and the Police did their duty impeccably and with minimum force, thus upholding the Olympic ideal.

Team UK are the  proud winners of the first Olympic Gold of the 2008 Olympics! Yeeeah!

Lost in the memories of time

Over on my favourite blogspot - www.mulier-fortis.blogspot.com  my friend Mac blogs on her surreal experience of getting lost in a place you know so well!

Well, this happened to me this week. On Tuesday I visited a client who has moved out of area to Ilford. I had looked up the address in the A-Z and I thought I had memorised the route. Plus, as a lad Ilford was a place I visited very regularly. Ilford was the place we went as kids for the 'special' shop - birthdays, Easter, Christmas. And I remember many Saturday afternoons trawling in and out of the shops along Ilford High Street. Of course, this Ilford which I knew was the one of thirty odd years ago...

Firstly, the bus drops me off in an unexpected place. Something to do with road works. So I find myself in an urban sort of desert. Large urban motorway, flyovers, big roundabout, buildings I have never seen before. It is called the "Redevelopment of Ilford" or something. I find myself walking up and down the road looking for a familiar landmark so I can orientate myself. I get sweaty, stressed, anxious before I clap eyes on a shop which seems to me to be familiar. Then I spot another, and slowly I discover where I am. Thank goodness for old Bodgers! And Waring and Gillow!

Today was another "lost in space" experience. This time I was down in Canning Town and boy, has that place changed! Its a horrid effect of old age! Its called progress... or something!

Olympic Flame Relay - Leg reports

London 6 April:

This leg was never seriously in doubt even though there were two or three moments when one's heart was in mouth. The two teams were unevenly matched from the beginning. The Metro Police are  at the top of their game perhaps not surprisingly. They are used to the regular exercise of crowd control in the Nation's Capital and they really are very good at it. What we should be truly proud of is how so very amateur they appear when compared with some of the other contestants in this competion. Never a scent of CS Gas, nor sight of a baton, a riot shield, a side arm or a water cannon.

Sure we saw some rough struggles and a lot of very poorly tailored uniforms. That 'Blue Peter' moment was truly a moment when hearts stood still. The opposition was very good and competed quite hard. The plucky little Tibetans are due a special mention for semingly remaining polite even while manifesting great anger.

I would comment that the Police might have done even better if they had not had to contend with the so called inner circle of the special Guardians of the Flame. At times they sowed nothing but confusion and at other times they acted like cheap thugs, lashing out and kicking at any demonstrator who dared to venture close. This was both uneccessary and in clear breach of the code of amateurism so gallantly upheld by the Metro Police. 

But as the flame entered the O2 Arena we knew that the Metropolitan Police had won the day yet again. A magnificent game and one which makes me quietly confident that Team GB will take this competion yet.

Paris, 7 April

Sad to say but today's leg was never very far from descending to farce. The hard faces of the Corps Republican Securite even with their magnificently tailored uniforms and their sense of Elan, so very French could not conceal the marked lack of enrthusiasm and the boredom with which they greeted their task today. The CRS are used to having rings run around them, the good students of Paris have been doing so for forty years. The very fact that the arrest figure given was a mere five says it all. The cRS were clearly not into their task.

Tonight rumours are circulating that the CRS 'threw the match', thanks to a rather mixed message from the French Government which manged to both uphold the Beijing Olympics, and condemn the Chinese Government for its behaviour in Tibet. We shall see what Monsiieur Sarkozi does at Beijing.

The Olympic flame is due to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday. Already the protesters are gathering. We shall see how San Francisco's finest will handle their leg.

Olympic Flame Relay competion

So far, with two sections already completed, Team GB is ahead.

London - 18 arrests, flame protected successfully

Paris - 5 arrests, flame put out 4 times.

Early days yet and we shall see what happens in San Francisco on Wednesday but I am quietly confident that Team GB (Metro Police) may yet pull this competion off. Our first Gold!

Mugging

Here is a further comment on New Labour and the breakdown of society. O' all right this is about my son getting mugged.

Yes he was, last Wednesday afternoon in the Horniman Gardens. Him and his mates were held up at knifepoint by a gang of blackboys. The usual things were taken - phones, MP3 players, bus passes, money. The Police responded very quickly but they do not get into my good books today. Asking the victims about the describing the perpetrators one of the Police Officers apparently commented words to the effect: if they were about the same height and build as yourselves why didn't you just have a fight with them? If you had beaten them up they would not have taken your stuff.

Yes, right Mr. Policeman. And it is true that you do not require 'A' Levels to join the Police. What would have happened if a bunch of esentially 'nice', well mannered, middle class white kids had tangled with these other kids? Who are not 'nice', not well mannered, actually quite feral, amoral, armed with knives and who knows what else.

Catholic Church "To Blame" for HIV Infections in Africa say Tory Peers.

In a debate in the House of Lords yesterday (Thursday 3rd April) two Tory Lords attacked the Catholic Church for failing to stop the spread of AIDS.

Lord Fowler said: " [it was] Extraordinary that the Roman Catholic Church can do so much in dealing with the casualties of AIDS... but so little to prevent those casualties from coming about."

Baroness Flather accused the Church of breaching human rights no less. She went on to say;

" If it [the Church] were to say, 'use Condoms', I think we would see a change instantaneously"

This does prove my thesis that most of the incumbents of the Upper House are flakey indeed where they aren't actually Ga-Ga.

Baroness Flather is a regular anti-catholic bigot. She has spoken in similiar vein several times in the past year on this topic, and she usually ends up invoking the Human Rights Act against the Church.

Of course both peers are very badly informed on this issue. The African country with perhaps the highest rate of HIV infection is South Africa, which country also has the lowest population of Catholics (7%). So, tell me 'Me Lawd' how the Catholic Church can be blamed for the situation in South Africa? Why should the average non-catholic give a single moments thought to what the Catholic Church might say about HIV?

Uganda on the other hand has a higher Catholic population (34%) and the Health Ministry has invoked the 'ABC' programme which argues for sexual abstinence as well as Condoms. The infection rates in Uganda are the lowest in Africa.

I intend to write to these two rather ignorant Peers concerning these matters. I urge others to do the same.

Armoured Harriet

Harriet Harman wears Kevlar body armour to tour her own constituency. Whoa! There! Isn't she one of the New Labour harridans who lambastes us ordinary folk all the time about how the crime rate is falling year-on-year? Doesn't her colleague the Home Secretary tell us how safe it is to live in London and other big cities? So, what was she scared of? Why did I so not believe her self justifying (self righteous?) interview.

As a Londoner what am I to think of Harriet's stunt? What message am I to read into this? As is usual, the message I take from this stunt is the one that perhaps she never intended (or perhaps she did?). That she, one of the governing elite is worth more than I. I mean, her life is clearly worth more than mine.

Today I had to go out and see a highly disturbed young man who, last night had tried to strangle his own mum. I visited him at home. He would only sit in the kitchen (all those knives). Its my job. I am a mental health social worker. It doesn't happen every day, but it does happen some days. My boss doesn't think I am worth that much to him that he wants to give me a Kevlar vest. I don't know of any social worker who is issued with such kit. But we social workers are not just walking the streets (and, no, I never feel endangered on the streets during office hours) but, actually going into people's houses, sometimes challenging our clients, telling them things they don't want to hear, telling them we are going to take their kids away, send them to a mental hospital they don't want to go to. And, no, the Police don't always attend  even when we ask them to. In people's houses (all those knives), in their spaces where they feel (perhaps) particularly invulnerable. Yes, a few social workers have died doing their duty. I don't know of any Labour MP who has ever died in similiar circumstances.

So, who is she kidding? No, I don't like Harriet Harman. Never have. But I expect the feeling is mutual.