And You Wonder Why the World Hates Christians…
Spend just a brief period time on the global environment of the Internet, and you will come across Christian-bashing. Christians are a distinct minority often viewed with suspicion at best and hatred at worst. We are accused of being closed-minded, unaccepting, pushy, bigoted, unintelligent hypocrits. I try to ignore most arguments, realizing that accepting Christ is personal choice that must be made through free will as God intended. And then I read an article from a Christian source that makes me cringe and think, “No wonder you hate us!”
In a press release featured on Christian News Wire, the organization Concerned Women for America (CWA) published ” ‘Gays’ May Spread Deadly Staph Infection to General Population.” Based on a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, CWA is using a report rife with “maybe’s” to call for Christians to take action:
Citizens, especially parents, need to stand up and say, ‘No More! We will no longer sit idly by while politically correct cultural elites endanger our children and larger communities through propagandist promotion of this demonstrably deadly lifestyle.
The press release does not mention that MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) is classified two ways — hospital-associated and community-associated. It does not bother to cite information from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one of the world’s most respected public health organizations, that states men who have sex with men are only one of six different groups at higher risk for contracting the disease, which also include inmates in correctional facilities, competitive sports participants, military recruits, day care attendees, and Native Americans. The “homosexual lifestyle” is used as umbrella statement in the release, never mentioning that drug abuse, multiple sexual partners, inadequate hygiene and compromised immune system factor into that higher risk. And no where in the propagandist release will you find the cautionary statements from the published study itself:
Limitations: The study was retrospective, and sexual risk behavior was not assessed.
Cautions: The data were passively reported or retrospectively collected and are therefore subject to bias.
“Our study has limitations. Our incidence estimates for San Francisco come from a passive surveillance system and may underestimate the incidence of true infection. We relied on retrospective chart review for identification of risk factors for multidrug-resistant USA300 infection in the 2 clinic populations; because data were not collected or documented systematically, our estimates of risk may be influenced by selection, referral, documentation, or other biases. Specific sexual behaviors were not assessed or documented in clinic charts; we therefore cannot comment on the association between multidrug-resistant USA300 infection and specific male–male sexual practices. Finally, because the number of multidrug-resistant USA300 infection within risk-factor subgroups was small, some of our higher estimates of risk are statistically compatible with more modest risk increases (that is, many of the CIs are wide and their lower bounds approach 1.0).”
["Emergence of Multidrug-Resistant, Community-Associated, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clone USA300 in Men Who Have Sex with Men." Annals of Internal Medicine. Retrieved January 17, 2008.]
The CWA press release appears to be strongly approaching hate propaganda, using a thinly veiled concern for public health to stoke fear and prejudice against homosexuals. Is CA-MRSA going to replace AIDS as the next Christians-against-gays rallying cry? Matt Barber certainly seems to be trying his darndest to make it so. The spread of the disease in the community has to do with lifestyle choices, period. The term “gays” is not called for, and requires much more research and more controlled studies, as admitted to by the researchers themselves.
Barber further stated, “The human body is quite callous in how it handles mistreatment and the perversion of its natural functions. When two men mimic the act of heterosexual intercourse with one another, they create an environment, a biological counterfeit, wherein disease can thrive. Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences.”
He makes it sound as if MRSA is a direct result of men having sex with men. Never mind that it has long been a very real health concern in hospitals. Never mind that over-use of antibiotics increases risk. MRSA did not develop in the gay community. It is the natural evolution of a species (bacteria) fighting for survival against extinction by man’s development of antibiotics. Plants do the same thing by developing poisonous berries or thorns to keep from being wiped out by herbivores.
History has shown time and again that diseases will develop and spread. This is a process of nature, or even risky sexual behaviors, but not exclusively homosexuality. AIDS began its spread down the Kinshasa Highway due to the prevalent prostitution trade. The plagues in Europe owed their rise to economic trade. Ebola developed in the jungles of Africa. Christian medical missionaries were the first to bring Lassa fever to the US.
When I first read the press release on Christian News Wire, I sent it to fellow blogger Adrien who writes Darkside Rainbow. I was interested in knowing how it made him feel as a gay man. He very eloquently expressed his reaction in his post, I will stand. I urge you to read it and think about his emotions. Is this how you want your Christianity to impact someone? Is the goal of your Christian witness to alienate and ostracize? Or to love?
CA-MRSA is a very valid health concern. I simply ask that you take time to read the facts before buying into the latest anti-gay campaign. Exercise your Christian compassion and love. God accepts EVERYONE, and in His eyes your life is no better than anyone else’s. For Christ’s sake, use the brain God gave you to learn the truth!
Get the facts on MRSA from the CDC
christian, christians and homosexuals, MRSA, MRSA facts, Concerned Women for America, Christian News Wire, Christian witness
January 21st, 2008 at 1:02 am
[...] April Gilford, the one who tipped me off to the CWA article about gay men and staph infections, has done her own post on the article over at Life as a Christian Woman. In it she covers a lot of facts about MRSA, dispelling much of the fear-mongering and myth that [...]
January 21st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
On behalf of gay Christian guys everywhere, Thanks, April, very well put!
“Exercise your Christian compassion and love. God accepts EVERYONE, and in His eyes your life is no better than anyone else’s. For Christ’s sake, use the brain God gave you to learn the truth!”