THE letter “Restoring Dignity of Men and Women” by Michel Sidibe (KN 8/7/09) is disturbing in its whimsical disregard for science, medicine, the extant law and the truth. It can be rebutted on several distinct grounds each of which illustrates that Sidibe has taken the unprofessional step of arguing his case with innuendo rather than fact. In taking the opposite posture, our approach offers the detail and evidence that all citizens need to make responsible personal and corporate decisions.

Earlier, we had aggressively rebutted (Sidibe’s colleague) Ruben del Prado’s similar outburst one year ago with the aptly captioned “A Departure From Professional Conduct”;
http://www.guyanachronicle.com
/ARCHIVES/archive%2026-05-08.html.
There, in a woeful fascination with the “Yogyagakarta Principles”, del Prado had made the similar mistake of implying that there were not good medical, legal, moral and societal reasons for criminalising homosexuality. The arguments to the contrary in “A Departure from Professional Conduct” still hold, and, if you look closely, Sidibe has carefully side stepped every one of them.

The first and obvious response to Sidibe would be that most PLWHA-treatment in Guyana and the Caribbean is anonymous anyway, and that the focus of any effective epidemiological response needs to be behaviour modification, not accommodation!

Second, there is a geo-political thrust to Sidibe’s arguments, having nothing to do with HIV/AIDS. For Sidibe, then, New Delhi’s activist High Court ruling, already being challenged in India’s Supreme Court, represents a shot in the arm for the tired arguments spawned by gay militancy and a recklessly unprofessional confederacy of its supporters in the UN ….anxious for any “victory” after the astonishing defeat to opponents of Proposition 8 in the USA (see “Why Proposition 8 will Stand in 2010”;
http://www.esnips.
com/web/Proposition8 ).

There, the people simply got fed up with “court decisions” that pilfered their traditional values and democratic principles, and voted down yet another effort to redefine marriage, this being the holy grail of “decriminalization” crowd. We had hopefully addressed some of the issues in the online article “The OAS Resolutions on Sexual Orientation Do Not Reflect the Will of the people of the Region”
(http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009
/letters/06/13/oas-resolutions-on
-sexual-orientation-do-not-reflect-the-will
-of-the-citizens-of-the-region ).

The caption of this article was not accidental, since, with the threat of democratic opposition action at the grassroots, an entire swathe of gay-rights “victories” are being engineered NOT in the polls where the people have a voice, but in activist courts and legislatures, and by executive order. This is slap in the face for voters, and all done in the name of “human rights!

Thirdly, if we were casting our net wide with references to the geo-politics defined by the terms “OAS” and “UN” in response to Sidibe, it will surely come as a surprise to readers/voters in Guyana and the Caribbean that the specious argumentation being resuscitated by Sidibe was in fact being peddled in selfsame short-measure by CARICOM’s PANCAP as recently as 2008. Hopefully, we had provided Guyana and the Caribbean with enough material in the online summary “Arguments Against Pancap and rthe Decriminalization of Homosexuality”
(http://www.esnips.com/
doc/8e2963b1
-92f4-4b9e-b68f-2306587109a5/ARGUMENTS-
AGAINST-PANCAP-AND-THE-DECRIMINALISATION
-OF-HOMOSEXUALITY)
to show the error of that particular effort.

It gets worse. What do current US-indicators tell us about this “glorious” development in India? Sidibe’ denies the fact of MRSA infection, and its affinity 19 times greater for homosexual populations. David Ostrow is in no doubt, however, and shares why the OAS, the UN and PANCAP must now be “fascinated” with behaviour modification rather than “behaviour accommodation”: “…The physiology of the rectum makes it clear that sodomy is unnatural. The inward expansion of the rectum during anal intercourse frequently tears the rectal lining, resulting in spasms, colitis, cramps, and a variety of other physical responses. Furthermore, sperm can readily penetrate the rectal wall (the vagina cannot be so readily penetrated) and do massive immunological damage, leaving the body vulnerable to a bewildering variety of opportunistic infections….” (David Ostrow et al, eds., “Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Homosexual Men”, New York, Plenum Medical Book Co., 1982). Note … the science has not changed from then to 2009, only Sidibe’s rhetoric. He denies the gigantic paradox … that homosexuality therefore needs entire medical brigades to justify its political space under decriminalization, thereby also explaining why gay-militant activity in activist countries has always targeted the health sector, or its Ministers. But medical fact does not supplant “human rights” in Sidibe’s world.

Sidibe’ is careful to point out that his, and UNAIDS’, motives lie in the “fight against HIV/AIDS”. To the extent that a key strategy of the gay-rights and gay-militant lobby has always been to blur and confuse the lines between the legitimate needs of PLWHA and “securing gay rights”, then Sidibe’s comments are disingenuous. Judith Reisman, who destroyed Kinsey’s abysmal outlook on human sexuality documents the ploy by gay activists to “use” HIV/AIDS” as a “marketing tool” to achieve their political goals. Sidibe’s education in this regard should begin by noting the words of homosexual activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen outlined in the law review “Crafting Bi/Homosexual Youth” ( http://www.regent.edu/news/
lawreview/articles
/14_2Reisman.doc ): “According to Kirk and Madsen, “AIDS gives us a chance, however brief, to establish ourselves as a victimized minority”. Reisman goes on …“To hide the fact that most AIDS children appear to be infected by bi/homosexuals, the “World AIDS Day” artfully reports that “16% of adolescents with AIDS, aged 13 through 19 . . . have been infected through heterosexual contact…,” rather than that 84% of AIDS children are infected by male bi/homosexual sex abuse. To place this grievous medical sleight-of-hand in perspective, Kate Leishman reports that in 1988, though representing less than 5% of the U.S. population, “…. homosexuals were responsible for 50% of the nation’s cases of syphilis and a “phenomenal incidence of venereal disease…” ( Kate Leishman, “AIDS and Syplillis”, The Atlantic Monthly. January 1988, 20, 21).

The point? Homosexuality needs medical brigades to justify its space, and that’s a valid enough reason for criminalization. And we have not even addressed the Biblical perspective as yet, or links to violence and pedophilia!

The final words defining Sidibe’s caricature of the Indian High Court ruling, then, belong to lawyer Roger J Magnuson. These words would constitute important advice for unsuspecting, naïve third world populations infatuated with UN rhetoric”: “…. The political proposals advanced by an increasingly aggressive group of gay activists … merit and demand serious discussion and rational analysis. Unfortunately, gay rights proposals have often received neither. The seriousness of the issues has not been matched by a seriousness of analysis. There has been a curious inversion: a high level of public policy interest; a low level of public policy debate….” ( Roger Magnuson; “Are Gay Rights Right? Making Sense of the Controversy!”, p. 137).

Magnuson would go on to document that “…during the first decade of gay rights in san Francisco – the annual rate of infectious Hepatitis A increased 100%, infectious Hepatitis B 300%, and amoebic colon infections increased 2500%….” CDC 2004 figures show remarkably consistent HIV-infection rates among MSM, in glaring counterpoint to Sidibe’s figures.

What are the facts for the Caribbean? India? What can we reasonably expect with decriminalisation? If the above does not constitute valid reasons for the criminalization of a psychosexual disorder that manifests itself in socially and personally destructive ways, then what does? Decriminalisation accommodates a slow but fatalistic degeneracy where everyone loses.
And a New Delhi High Court bought it … hook, line and sinker!
ROGER WILLIAMS