No condoms till marriage...

The first of December each year is World AIDS Day, a day when people around the world unite to demonstrate their commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS. President Bush, in his proclamation of World AIDS Day, used the announcement to brag about his "compassionate conservative commitment" to AIDS.

This commitment was first made last February by President George Bush to spend 15 billion dollars over five years fighting the AIDS epidemic in more than 100 countries around the world. Sounds great right?

But keep in mind that a pillar of Bush's AIDS plan both at home and abroad is ABSTINENCE EDUCATION. Which is all well and good, fine, tell people not to have sex and see how well that goes. It certainly worked for the War on Drugs. Thanks to Nancy Reagan, there is no longer a drug problem in this country. Oh, wait no, that must have been her husband's dementia talking.

The problem is that there's no evidence at all that abstinence-education works to prevent pregnancy, STDs, or AIDS. In fact, a study of thousands of teenagers who had made chastity pledges found that they were just as likely to get STDs as their non-pledging pals.

Bush's faith-based just-say-no AIDS plan is a joke, but a dangerous joke; the administration is doing all it can to sabotage the message that people should use condoms when they have sex. Needless restrictions on condoms and HIV/AIDS information are undermining the global fight against the epidemic. Condoms remain the single most effective device against sexually transmitted HIV, yet they face government-imposed constraints in numerous countries across the globe, and much of America's so-called "aid" refuses to provide or even talk about condoms thanks to this administration. They are undermining real HIV prevention efforts at home and around the world.

But, faith-based abstinence educators still got a whopping one hundred million bucks in the latest spending bill.

Happy World AIDS Day.