Miss America says abstain

The concept of sexual abstinence is medically astute and morally supported by nearly every religion in the world, but it is not politically correct to talk about it. When the newest Miss America, Erika Harold, added it to her platform on youth violence, pageant officials were appalled. A sexual abstinence message did not fit their image of Miss America.
Ironic isn’t it? The same pageant officials who asked for and received resignations from those with sexually explicit photos are mortified at Harold’s insistence that she will return to her original platform issue of sexual abstinence and along with the pageant sanctioned platform on youth violence. The attitude and mind set of the pageant officials is not new – in 1999 Miss Wisconsin was urged to squelch her abstinence program. In other words: Publicly conform to a moral standard – but don’t talk about the lifestyle of abstinence implied by that standard.
While the message of sexual abstinence and faithfulness is a touchy subject for the Miss America pageant officials, it is one supported by the government of Uganda, a country in southeast Africa. Uganda is located in a quadrant of Africa that is devastated with AIDS. At one time the United Nations predicted AIDS would wipe out half the population of some African countries.
In the early 1980s Uganda would have been included on that list. But it won’t be now. In the late 1980s the government of Uganda began an ABC campaign to fight the epidemic of HIV-AIDS: “Abstain, Be Faithful, or wear a Condom” in that order of importance and emphasis. HIV rates dropped 50 percent in eight years in Uganda compared to increases in the surrounding countries, according to a recent Harvard study.
“When the program started in the late 1980s, the number of pregnant women infected with HIV was 21.2 percent. By 2001, the number was 6.2 percent. The Harvard study also reported Ugandan adults are not having as much risky sex: Of women 15 and older, those reporting many sexual partners dropped from 18.4 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent in 2000. The emphasis on abstinence in Uganda’s program is unique. In other nations with high HIV infections, such as Zimbabwe and Botswana, condoms have been promoted as the answer to ending the AIDS crisis. In Botswana, 38 percent of pregnant women were HIV positive last year, contrasted with 6.2 percent of Ugandan women,” reported the Catholic Resources on their website.
While Miss America pageant officials squirm uncomfortably in their seats of political correctness at the mention of sexual abstinence, let it be noted that because a practice of abstinence from sex and faithfulness to one’s mate was emphasized, HIV rates declined in Uganda. Consequently, the overall future looks brighter for Uganda. There will be enough healthy adults around to address the issue of teen violence … unlike its neighboring countries where whole families and villages have been decimated by AIDS. Many HIV-AIDS orphans literally have no one.
Uganda, a simple country, found a simple, inexpensive solution to a deadly modern problem – and the spread of AIDS has decreased. Unlike the thousands of orphaned children in surrounding countries, the children of Uganda have an excellent chance of becoming healthy adults themselves. And it is all happening, not because someone abstained from talking about abstinence, but because a lot of people in positions of prestige like Miss America Erika Harold talked about it, and the population of Uganda once again learned to say “no” to the temporal urges and “yes” to faithfulness to their mates – and to living longer, healthier lives.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times).