Today is World AIDS Awareness day and looking back, I wonder if we have learned anything from what this horrible disease had brought? I mean we are wrangling over funding to third world countries because they simply don’t teach abstinence. I mean how crazy is it to attach strings to countries where nearly the entire population is afflicted with HIV and AIDS?

Then there are those who cut funding to research or add stupid conditions for funding for real sex education. I mean what is it about those religious right wing nut cases who think that their way is the only way? I mean the world isn’t one religion, so why do they feel that they need to convert us all to their chosen path? Last time I checked the bible, GOD granted us the right to choose, not making belief mandatory. Still, many would rather see people die than accept that real education must include condom use as well as abstinence.

Fact is many are no longer contracting this disease because of gay sex. Yet many conservatives still buy into that notion, that HIV and AIDS is predominently an affliction to Gays. How sad to see thier bias colour their humanity.

More than 8 million people were living with HIV in Asia in 2005, and roughly 520,000 people died of AIDS across the region, according to the United Nations. In most Asian countries, the epidemics are driven by a combination of intravenous drug use and unprotected sex, much of it commercial. (see story)

Twenty Five years of this epidemic ravaging the world and still these conservatives, these psuedo religious zealots, continue to bury their head in the sand. They ignore the statistics that show over half a million Americans died from this illness. They ignore that over 1 million are currently living with HIV and AIDS. (Kaiser Family Foundation Statistics).

Stephen Harper is too busy to attend AIDS conferances about it, (see Gay Talk comment) and yet the cost to our National Health system is immense. If he truly wishes to protect our system, he should be aware of what is adding to the costs. Proper sex education in our public schools is needed to insure that kids know what the risks are. To simply tell them to abstain is stupid, callous, and irresponsible and yet that is their solution to this pandemic.

As pointed out in Gay All The Time, AIDS is not just something to remember today. It is something we need to actively discuss and keep in the forefront of people’s thoughts if we are to stand any chance of reducing this disease.

Given all those who have died from AIDS world wide, I wonder how many more must suffer before leaders get serious about fighting AIDS?