Catholic Policy on AIDS Programs: Acts of War or Love? : Activist: He claims that the church has waged a campaign of misinformation and that its attempts to deny medical information cannot be divorced from its long history of vicious attacks on homosexuals.

In December of 1989, AIDS and abortion rights activists invaded St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City to protest Cardinal John J. O’Connor’s efforts to defeat AIDS prevention programs, and to deny women access to safe and legal abortions.

This demonstration, along with demonstrations in California--where Catholic churches were desecrated with red paint spelling out anti-Catholic and pro-safe sex/pro-abortion messages--began a loud and often angry discussion about the tactics used to protest the church’s policies and political activities.

Because Catholic dogma prohibits the use of contraception, the church is waging an ongoing battle against programs that would provide condoms and/or educate people on their use.

As an AIDS activist who has spent the last four years in organizations providing health care and services to people with AIDS, I have seen the results of similar policies. I have known “throwaway” kids, forced into prostitution by parental neglect and abuse, dying of opportunistic diseases that, before AIDS, were unknown.

I have watched men in the prime of their lives, bright and successful, reduced by AIDS-related brain infections to immobility and incontinence. I cannot conceive of a situation in which it would be moral to deny anyone medical information that has been proven to prevent transmission of this terrible disease.

That said, and with the understanding that I was arrested in the demonstration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I must acknowledge that there is room for discussion about the tactics used to protest the church’s AIDS and abortion policies.

To the extent that discussion of these demonstrations has too often revolved around a crushed wafer or the use of sex toys to mock Catholic ritual, one could argue that the real issues--people’s right to scientifically validated information about their own health--have been obscured. There is vital work to be done, and if activist tactics undermine this work then it will be necessary to change tactics.

However, any debate about activist tactics must not ignore the church’s activities regarding safer sex and condom use.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, the Catholic Church has waged a campaign of conscious misinformation, insisting that condoms do not provide protection against human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. This ignores evidence presented at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS that infection rates in San Francisco’s gay community dropped from approximately 20% to less than 2% per year after implementation of widespread condom education programs.

While the church is correct in stating that condoms do not provide 100% protection, the failure rate of condoms, when used correctly, is less than 0.5%. With such compelling data, it seems grossly unethical to pretend that the efficacy of such programs is unproven.

Discussion must also include the church’s historical treatment of gay men and lesbians. The church’s attempts to deny us medical information cannot be divorced from its long history of vicious attacks on our bodies and lives.

Almost since its inception, the Catholic Church has been supportive of, and often responsible for, abominable crimes against gays: beating, stoning, castration, burning at the stake, whipping, exile, dismemberment, lobotomies and electroshock therapy.

Even today, as violent attacks on gays increase by more than 100% each year, according to the New York City Anti-Gay and Lesbian Project, O’Conner states, “People shouldn’t be surprised when a morally offensive lifestyle is physically attacked.”

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, ignoring statistics that one-third of all teen-age suicides are committed by gays, ruthlessly lobbies against a project to provide support services for gay high school students. People have expressed surprise that activists would dare to attack the church; I am amazed that we have waited so long.

Finally, no discussion of these tactics can be complete without recognition of the church’s assault on women’s constitutionally protected right to safe and legal abortions. Not only has the church retained a prestigious public relations firm to design advertising campaigns to build public support for overturning Roe vs. Wade, but church leaders have endorsed and participated in the brutal intimidation campaigns of Operation Rescue, waving decaying fetuses in the faces of distraught women and screaming: “You’re murdering your baby!”

Are such aggressive demonstrations to be regarded as the sole privilege of those who side with the church? Are the church’s political campaigns to be regarded as protected religious belief, immune to criticism and free of accountability to those whose health and safety are jeopardized? We believe not.

Mahony has tried to focus on activist tactics alone, excluding any discussion of the church’s activities that provoked the demonstrations. He would have us believe that criticisms of the church represent nothing more than anti-Catholic bigotry devoid of any substantive content. To that end, he has harshly criticized public television station KCET for airing “Stop the Church,” a film by AIDS activist Robert Hilferty on the demonstration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

If Mahony is successful in his efforts to censor criticism, we will have lost a vital opportunity to consider the interplay of politics and morality in our efforts to prevent AIDS. If AIDS activists are silenced, then discussion ends and we are all denied the opportunity to judge the issues on their merits.

The tactics of AIDS activists have been intentionally offensive, as offensive as attempts by religious leaders to interfere with our health care.

Even within the gay communities these demonstrations have been controversial. However, while we may disagree about tactics, there is widespread consensus on our goal--those vicious attacks on our bodies and lives must end immediately. We are no longer prepared to offer ourselves as sacrifices to archaic religious violence and ignorance.

The Catholic Church has invested significant energy and funding to ensure that this epidemic will devastate yet another generation, and sadly, their efforts are paying off. In some high-prevalence areas in places like Oakland and Los Angeles, 2% to 4% of all teen-agers are thought to be infected with HIV. Additionally, studies show that infection rates are rising rapidly in young gay men, according to the Hetrick Martin Institute for Gay and Lesbian Youth in New York City.

Activist tactics may be offensive, but church policies kill.

BACKGROUND

Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and Spencer Cox, a member of ACT UP in New York City, discuss guerrilla theater tactics used by the homosexual lobbying group and the film “Stop the Church,” which criticizes Catholic policies toward AIDS and homosexuality.