Polly, The Progressive Parrot

Britain's progresso MSM is agog with a new and completely brilliant argument against Pope Benedict XVI. It was first mooted by notorious prog Polly Toynbee in The Guardian: that somehow Pope John Paul II was responsible, like Hitler, Lenin and Pol Pol were, for the deaths of millions of people. He preached against condoms, and Africans are dying of AIDS.

Now all the MSM are spinning the same arguments around the new Pope Benedict.

Hang on a minute. Some of us actually live in Africa. The first thing that occurs is, has there been any study done that shows Catholic Africans suffer AIDS at a higher rate than other Christian Africans? One is aware of countless HIV studies in Africa that show higher incidence amongst uncircumcised males, truck drivers, bar girls, tribes that have permissive sex codes and the like - so it's just speculation about Catholics. It's pretty certain that HIV rates among Christians in Africa are not related to the religious sect they follow, or we would know about.

Let's take the argument a bit further. Here are all these millions of Africans blindly and obediently following the Pope's preaching against condoms. Yet, he also preached for absintence, monogamy, sexual fidelity, virginity and restraint. So everyone in Africa listened about the condoms only, but took no notice whatsoever of his other teachings?

The reasons for non-condom use in Africa are complex, culturally varied and beyond the common ideas of sex held by modern Europeans. The Pope is probably the least influential reason for non-condom use.There are many churches in Africa that do not have anything against birth control and even encourage it. Their birthrates are the same as the Catholic one. In fact, those who live in Africa know that if the Pope preached African Catholics should wear condoms 24/7 and only have sex wearing two, in case one tore, Catholic African birth rates, especially amonst the poor, would not decline at all.

The reasons for high birth rates are not to do with lack of contraception but because it makes more sense to the poor to have many children, let alone that African society admires and cherishes lots of children. Progs and the left simply can't get their minds around this fact. The answer to high birth rates is high prosperity, not the state of Durex sales. The same might be said of HIV statistics.

So what the MSM is really saying is: the past and present Popes should have preached that Africans have promiscous sex, but wearing condoms. Then Africans would have listened overwhelmingly, HIV rates would be exceptionally low and the Popes would not be like Hitler or Pol Pot. How clever.