This headline at Huffpo caught my attention.  Huckabee Compares Safe Sex to Domestic Violence

Mike Huckabee generated that headline by answering a question about whether or not his religious views would stop him from funding programs sponsored by the U.N. to combat aids. These programs promote safe sex practices including the use of condoms in order to stop the spread of aids. Huckabee responded by saying:

“If we really are serious about stopping a problem, whether it’s drunk drinking…we don’t say “Don’t drive ‘as drunk’?” …This is an illogical thing that we apply to that one area that we don’t apply to any other area. And I’m open-minded to all the arguments, if someone can convince me a little reckless behavior is OK. Maybe that’s the message. But it would seem to me that if we’re consistent in saying reckless behavior is undesirable we should ask people to move their behavior to the standard and not move the standard to the behavior…We don’t say that a little domestic violence is OK, just cut it down a little, just don’t hit quite as hard. We say it’s wrong.”

Huckabee uses the wrong analogy here. Encouraging condom usage to combat aids is like encouraging drunk people to take a taxi home. A very small percentage of these drunks will still be involved in traffic accidents during the ride home, simply by dint of being in a vehicle travelling on the roadways. But the vast majority of the carnage caused by drunk driving would still be alleviated, and the same is undeniably true when it comes to using condoms to stop the spread of aids around the globe.

(Following is a reprise on the effectiveness of abstinence only vs condom usage to combat aids. Folks who are familiar with the arguments on both sides may find this tendentious and/or boring.)

Justifying opposition to these aids prevention programs on the grounds that the methods being used are not effective 100% of time is a very thin veil cast on a fundamentalist outlook. By that way of thinking, if even a very small percentage of those dying now will die after the preventative measures are funded, then those measures are a failure. The only answer is to promote an unrealistic approach, which, if entirely successful, would be effective at stopping aids. But the fundamentalist approach actually leads to increased death rates because abstinence programs are ineffective at stopping premarital sex.

In reality, the true objection is the theocratic notion that promoting condom usage somehow encourages extra marital sex. Accordingly, only a reliance on programs promoting sexual abstinence are acceptable, no matter how unrealistic it might be to expect everyone to lead chaste lives until marriage. I disagree strenuously with this conclusion. No one is forcing anyone to wear a condom and have sex. If a person wants to live a chaste life until marriage that is wonderful, and I wish them well. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of humanity must live in ignorance and disease as the well meaning Americans preach the wonders of abstinence, all the while watching the aids epidemic wipe out millions of fornicators.

The question should be, will humankind ever be able to reach, or even approach, perfect uniformity of abstinence before marriage. If the answer is no (and frankly, I don’t understand how any can honestly give a positive answer to that question) then it stands to reason that we should acknowledge reality and do our best to stop the spread of aids by encouraging condom usage. In fact, that seems like the real pro life view.

There may be people who hold fundamentalists views and somehow believe that aids can be stopped via humankind as a whole being brought to chastity. But those people ignore the whole of human history while holding an unrealistic outlook which contributes to the spread of a deadly disease. We are witnessing the results of this type of idealogically blinded outlook from the current resident of the Oval Office, and I don’t think the nation cares for it.