And the Band Plays On...

And the Band Played On is a 1993 film adaptation of the novel (with the same title) dramatizing the early years of the discovery and investigations into the A.I.D.S .virus in this country. Watching the film is tremendously disturbing for the sheer fact that we already know the outcome. Americans and the Regean administration first viewed the disease as a gay one. Many had the peculiar notion that it could not infect people outside that population, and some thought it was God's form of retribution for "indecent" lifestyles. But so long as it was viewed a gay problem, most (including Regean) did not care. You watch the film and you know the utter stupidity of the reasoning, the logic replaced with bias, and you know the dire consequences. No one cared about A.I.D.S. until it was too late to prevent it from becoming an epidemic. The public and private sector did not mobilized to act to develop a testing method, to test blood stores, to proactively teach prevention and safety to all segments of the society, and so children and junkies and gays and straights and mothers and fathers and everyone under the sun contracted the disease (in terms of populations the virus has penetrated).

I remember the early 90s. These were very formative years for me in terms of a consciousness about the disease. America was truly becoming aware of the crisis as megastars like Magic Johnson and Arthur Ashe went public that they too were infected with A.I.D.S. or H.I.V. (which causes A.I.D.S.) If these Herculean, straight men could contract the virus, who couldn't? In fact, I was at a forum on A.I.D.S. the night Ashe passed away. He was supposed to attend as one of the panelists to talk about his internal struggle to go public, but did not come because he had been feeling sick. He sent a recording for us instead, and after it finished showing, they announced a hero had died.

But given what we know now, those leaders who were already adults in the 80s when a do-nothing strategy was first thought to be good public and social policy and those of us who were shaped by the public awareness of the disease in the 90s, how can we stand for the Bush administration's instance on abstinence-only education. The administration seems to think that because teen-pregnancy is relatively under control and because H.I.V. infection rates no longer seem out of control in most of America (read: white America) that we do not need to be teaching children about the proper and effective use of contraceptives in the event they decide of their own volition to engage in sexual activity.

Lani Guinier posits in The Miner's Canary that disenfranchised and marginal communities act as an early detection system for ills that have yet to reach the larger society. Had the marginal gay community been viewed in this way, perhaps the country would have mobilized early enough to keep A.I.D.S. infection rates low enough to avoid an epidemic. Today, we can look at the black community, perhaps the perennial marginal community and miner's canary, as an indicator for what's to come. A.I.D.S. infection rates are extremely high among black and in certain subsegments, black gays and black southern females for instance, infection rates are rivaling some African nations.

The Bush administration should be lauded for the focus it put on the pandemic in Africa during the first term, increasing funding to historic levels (though still not nearly enough), but through promoting abstinence-only education in schools we are ignoring a re-burgeoning problem in our own country. Abstinence is an important component in the discourse on the prevention of STDs as is monogamy. However, to deny teens the education on contraceptives in the event they choose to have sex is criminal. It would amount to proposing that kids not be taught about safe fire-arm use because some don't want kids using them. If a teenager decides to go hunting, who would encourage that we deny that kid the appropriate education on how to be safe with a rifle, even though the only 100% fool proof way not to be injured by that rifle is to not own or use it?

Kids will or will not have sex. Teaching them about contraceptives does not mean that we do not teach them about the risks of sex (which include not only physical but social and psychological ones as well). conservatives seem to be scared that teaching teens that condoms are almost 99% effective when used properly will infuse them with confidence about having sex. While this viewpoint is entirely simplistic it is also true. However, the argument is that just because some kids will be likelier to have sex we should deny all teenagers education and facts about their safety (and the safety of us all as STDs are not an individual's but community's problem) is weak. In addition, if we play out the argument something else becomes telling. There are kids who will have sex because they learn about a way to do it safely, and a priori they will be engaging in safe-sex. On the other hand, the kids most likely to engage in the risky behavior of unprotected sex are those who take the abstinence pledges. They take them with the genuine intent on following through, but one night when their hormones get the better of them (as they often do with teens) some decide to have sex perhaps in the heat of passion but are sadly not carrying contraception. Indeed, even if they had condoms with them, they would most likely not know the proper way of using them. And do they decide then not to engage in sex absent protection? No. They go ahead anyway but simply have unsafe, unprotected sex.

As And the Band Played On illustrates, when it comes to A.I.D.S., one community's crisis will not be avoided through a Disneyland mentality that suggests we live in a fantasy world where everything is peachy and nothing can go wrong. A denial of the fact that a problem in black America will be a problem in larger America is a type of wishful-thinking no one can afford. Our children need honest education. Yes, abstinence is the only fool-proof way of not contracting the H.I.V. virus through sex, but to stop there is dishonest. Teens must also understand and know that if they are sexually active then monogamy is important, but that condoms are necessary as well. They must also understand that while contraception does not negate risk, it is a very effective mitigator of it when used properly. So they must also no how to use condoms properly.

In addition, teens must be instructed on how to have the courage and fortitude to insist upon safe-sex and that they should not engage in it otherwise. But no: to educate beyond abstinence is to endorse teen-sex, conservatives suggest. Please. If we are concerned about moral fiber, parents are the place to start and then the pews. School play a part as well, but they are there to teach much more. Schools are and should be about education, not expurgating what we dislike. What good is chemistry if we do not arm our children with all the facts about sex and STDs? What will you tell the kid who makes the heat of passion decision to have sex, but does not have a condom or has one but uses it incorrectly and thereby contract H.I.V.? "It's your fault even though I denied you education on safe-sex" ? It is criminal to the health of our children and to the health of the larger community, society, and eventually world to teach abstinence only.