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Powell’s condom comments far from shocking
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Last week, hard line conservative family values teetotalers were aghast when fellow conservative, Secretary of State Colin Powell, dared to suggest the usage of condoms, following a question from a Roman Catholic teenager on an MTV on-air forum.
“In my own judgment, condoms are a way to prevent infection, and therefore, I not only support their use, I encourage their use among people who are sexually active,” was the text of Powell’s comment, taking a slight deviation from President Bush’s abstinence-focused educational philosophies.
Why this harmless, well-intentioned and medically sound statement sparked any debate at all boggles my mind, but leave it to the religious right to defy reality.
“Colin Powell is the secretary of state, not the secretary of health,” said James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family. “He is talking about a subject he doesn’t understand. He clearly doesn’t understand the science regarding condom efficacy.”
I realize that the usage of condoms come as a difficulty for some, but was unaware that it required a Ph.D., or government-appointed position to understand the physics of prophylactics. Dobson also left it up in the air what qualified him to talk about such subject matter.
Recently, it came to national attention that AIDS is expected to surpass the death toll of the Bubonic Plague. One can’t help but think that the efforts to lay the groundwork for prevention would be much simpler if it weren’t a sex-related disease.
Condoms clearly are not a 100 percent effective solution, which Dobson was probably implying, however, advocating total celibacy over the usage of a simple barrier to disease is not only misguided, but complicit in the contraction by millions of fatal disease.
It’s like implying that you should never leave the house if you don’t want to get a cold.
Powell further impressed me by making among the most honest comments I’ve heard from a politician recently, “Forget about taboos, forget about conservative ideas with respect to what you should tell young people about,” Powell said.
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer responded to Powell’s comments, saying they were not totally out of step with Dubya’s.
“There’s, of course, a group of people who are going to be sexually active no matter what anybody in the government, or anybody’s family, says about abstinence. The president’s point is they both need to be highlighted,” Fleischer said.
Powell, while not deviating from Bush’s philosophies, finally makes plain from the mouth of a politician what is discussed candidly in movies, TV commercials and sitcoms.
The fear of candidly discussing sexual (i.e. health) issues is not unique to the Republican Party, President Clinton kicked out former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders for daring to suggest that masturbation might be an alternative to two-party sex.
Oh, we couldn’t dare! After all, masturbation causes no known illnesses. And certainly we can’t have a high-ranking health official discussing such issues, this debate is better left to films such as “American Pie,” shows such as “Seinfeld” and songs such as “I Touch Myself.”
If the Secretary of State is not qualified to discuss issues of personal health and safety with young people, as Mr. Dobson implies, than why is Jennifer Aniston?
Young people are exposed to colorful ideas every day, it’s time politicians stop tripping over carefully chosen words and start competing for young people’s attention with honesty and candor.
Sean C. Hayes