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22 July, 2004
22 July 2004You can't expect to find nuanced discussion of the role of religion in the lefty Nation, but occasionally you will find facts that'll help you understand the big religion stories of the day. One of the biggest in recent years -- mostly overlooked by the secular press -- has been the mobilization of Christian evangelicals who now see fighting AIDS as an important corollary to the Great Commission. There's nothing cynical about saying that the Bush administration's commitment to the cause is a direct result of pressure applied by his evangelical base -- indeed, some evangelical activists boast of their accomplishment in elevating AIDS onto the president's priority list. But there's been some trouble on the follow through, as Esther Kaplan reports: "Though Bush trumpets his commitment to the global AIDS fight, the delegation he sent to [the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok] was rather anemic... Read more. 3:35 pm:Meanwhile, Tracy Quan, author of Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, notes the negative impact of evangelical anti-AIDS activism -- a disinclination to deploy the full range of scientific responses -- and its mirror image on the Left: "this tendency to demonize medical technology -- i.e., the use of medicine to protect the body from the consequences of human behavior -- is hardly a preserve of Bible-thumping conservatives. Authoritarian attitudes about the body -- especially the female body -- can also stem from ardent, well-meaning worship of Nature..." Read more.
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