Over the past year we’ve already seen ample evidence that Obama has indeed been affected by the Marxist marinade he stewed in over the years. Some of us were not so shocked by the massive spending, government takeover and the nascent socialism in most of his proposals. But the sheer radical nature of so many of his appointments was truly eye-opening, wasn’t it? (See “Czar She Blows” earlier this year.)
As the year went on, we saw many other disquieting examples. (Anita Dunn comes to mind, as well as his subsuming of the Census) Well, it seems the radical Marxist, anti-religious beat goes on.
The Catholic News Agency is reporting that former minister Harry Knox, appointed by Obama to his Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership, is standing by his comments attacking Pope Benedict XVI as “hurting people in the name of Jesus”.
…Knox, a former licensed minister of the United Methodist Church and a leader with the homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign (HRC), originally made his comments in March 2009 in response to Pope Benedict’s comments about the effectiveness of condoms in fighting AIDS in Africa. “The Pope’s statement that condoms don’t help control the spread of HIV, but rather condoms increase infection rates, is hurting people in the name of Jesus,” Knox had said in a HRC statement. “On a continent where millions of people are infected with HIV, it is morally reprehensible to spread such blatant falsehoods.”
CNSNews spoke with Knox at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. Asked if he stood by his comments, he said “I do.”
Asked about Harvard AIDS prevention researcher Dr. Edward Green’s claim that the Pope was correct, Knox said Dr. Green was “simply incorrect.”
“All the other evidence of science shows otherwise.”
In March 2009, Dr. Green told CNA that researchers cannot find an association between more condom use and lower HIV rates. He has also written that programs to increase fidelity in relationships and to reduce the number of sex partners are effective.
Previously, Knox has described Pope Benedict XVI and certain Catholic bishops as “discredited leaders” because of their opposition to same-sex “marriage.”
Though acknowledging the Knights of Columbus’ “good works,” he also called the Catholic fraternal order’s members “foot soldiers of a discredited army of oppression” because of the organization’s support for the successful California ballot measure Proposition 8. That 2008 measure restored the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
My school’s religious order has many institutions serving the people in Marxist-ruled Zimbabwe and many other countries hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic. It is a truly catastrophic situation. Those who aren’t orphaned are often being raised by older grandparents. The money our schools are raising in this country is helping many of these orphans live at our schools in Africa.
I can offer an anecdote of my own in regard to the practical counter-disease effectiveness of condoms in real street life. Many years ago, I got the chance to visit and stay at Covenant House in New York City for awhile. (Covenant House is a shelter for runaway kids. A lot of runaways in New York, many very young, are picked up by pimps and forced into white slavery: forced prostitution.) I got to talk to the workers there about the real statistics they got straight from the street. Can you guess what the failure rate is for condoms in real street use? It’s one in five. Can you guess the average number of tricks these kids have to turn a day? You guessed it: five!
It’s basically Russian roulette. The STD’s all these kids get is no abstract papal religious propaganda; it’s horribly real. Who would you rather trust in this African AIDS crisis: all the Catholic religious orders in Africa who are actually serving the orphans and shattered families, or someone denied ordination for not adhering to his own denomination’s rules?
It seems many of those surrounding Obama betray antipathy to authentic religion. If they are ‘religious’ at all, it is the Marxist model of Reverends Wright and Fleger, HEAVY emphasis on Marxist not ‘religious’. All this makes me wonder about Obama’s year-long search for a church to attend.
Could it be that any ‘church’ he would really want to attend would not look good in a PR sense? I almost hate to speculate like that, but in view of the ever-increasing evidence from so many of his appointees, like this Harry Knox, what else are we to think?
Beware of far-left ideological zealots offering ‘spiritual’ advice, or ANY advice for that matter. Their grasp on reality is so skewed that, every time they try to “help”, a lot of people are actually going to get very hurt!