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.
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