AIDS and Morals
WHAT happened in the 1960’s and 1970’s to lead to such an explosion of AIDS in the 1980’s? It was the adoption of an anything-goes “new morality” of sexual freedom. Commenting on this, New York columnist Ray Kerrison wrote:
“The sudden explosion of AIDS may also prompt society to reexamine its values, which have been going downhill faster than a runaway express.
“For years, politicians and courts have been promulgating the appalling fallacy that private acts by private citizens are no one’s business but their own.
“This bill of goods might loosely be termed the doctrine of consensuality. It says, in effect, that two or more people may do as they wish provided they do not impinge on the rights of others.
“Thus, one moral restraint after another has been removed, unleashing a flood of permissive behavior and an acceptance of standards undreamed of 30 years ago.
“Now the bitter harvest is upon us.”
In particular have homosexuals suffered, and this is due to their extensive sexual promiscuity and the type of sexual practices common among them. Science Digest observes: “One CDC [Centers for Disease Control] study showed an average of 1,100 sex partners during the lifetime of the AIDS patients studied.”
But homosexuals are not the only ones who are promiscuous—society in general has also adopted an anything-goes morality. As a consequence, Harvey V. Fineberg, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, says that AIDS is spreading “slowly yet inexorably into the heterosexual community.”
In Africa, particularly, the disease is afflicting the general population. Last November, Lawrence K. Altman, medical reporter for The New York Times, wrote: “AIDS appears to be spreading by conventional sexual intercourse among heterosexuals in Africa and is striking women nearly as often as men, according to researchers here.”
If a woman contracts AIDS from a male partner, neither may be aware of being infected. Sadly, babies born to mothers having the AIDS virus sometimes become innocent victims. And heterosexual men who have relations with prostitutes may develop the disease.
Everywhere people are scared. What will happen?
A Change in Morals?
“It certainly will end the sexual revolution,” predicts Dr. Donald Francis of the CDC in the United States. As he says: “You can take your chances with herpes and hepatitis B, but you can’t take your chances with this.”
Dr. Walter R. Dowdle of the CDC adds: “We have to understand that we all have to change our way of living.” According to Dowdle, “this is not a question of morality. It’s just a biological fact.”[5, pp. 21, 27]
Yet, it is more than a biological fact—morality is involved. The moral standards that society has chosen to flout did not originate with humans. A superior Intelligence had them recorded long ago. And our recognizing him as Sovereign is what will help us conform to them.
But what standards, or codes of conduct, has he provided? And how can obedience to them protect us?
[Box on page 8]
Arresting the Spread of AIDS
June Brown, writing in The Detroit News, explained how this is possible: “An obvious cure that could drastically slow the rate of increase is a change in the nation’s sex habits. If everybody selected a healthy sex partner and remained faithful to death, AIDS would almost disappear. This may sound like biblical teaching. But as new, sexually transmitted diseases continue to appear, each more deadly than the last, the largely ignored theology about sexual fidelity suddenly makes sense from a modern health standpoint.”