How to Discredit Your Cause

The vandalism of four Roman Catholic Churches, ostensibly the work of those angry with the official position of the church on prevention of AIDS, is deplorable. So was the assault earlier on Los Angeles County property by so-called AIDS activists who judged the county’s response to the epidemic inadequate.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic, in its cruel spread of AIDS, is violence enough. The solution will not be facilitated by compounding the cruelty.

Those who vandalized the churches by smearing their exteriors with red paint left behind posters attacking the recent declaration of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on the HIV epidemic. The bishops have been resolute in their expressions of compassion for the victims of the disease. But they have chosen to oppose the use of condoms, which most public health experts regards crucial to reducing the spread of the virus in a society where sexual promiscuity is widespread. We disagree with the bishops’ prescription for the public as a whole. We must respect, however, their right to insist to their own members that sex be limited to a man and woman bound in marriage.

There are adequate and appropriate forums for free expression of disparate points of view in the United States on this and other controversial issues. There have been dignified and peaceful demonstrations in the past protesting the position of the Roman Catholic Church on AIDS prevention. The resort to violence against church property impoverishes freedom and discredits its perpetrators. It risks diverting the community from its efforts to contain the disease at the moment when the only tools of containment are educating sexually active persons on the means of prevention.