I refer to the news article on comments by the current UNAIDS Country Coordinator for Guyana, Dr. Ruben del Prado (KN 5 22 08) and would appreciate the opportunity to rebut.
I am mindful of the seriousness of these allegations, and will copy this response to CAREC, WHO, PAHO, the CDC, the local Ministry of Health, the CARICOM Secretariat, the Caribbean Council of Churches, and the UN itself. This should, by itself, engineer a generous debate on the latitude Dr Prado took with inferring that his comments reflected official UN policy, since by no stretch of the imagination can it be assumed that the UN or its agencies deliberately advocates and/or supports policies that contradict the available scientific, legal and medical evidence. This would be foolish, even in the pursuit of “human rights”, and we await his strenuous defence of statements to this effect.
First, Dr.Prado is irresponsible in implying that the Yogyakarta Principles in any way reflects the letter and spirit of the UN Charter relative to medically dangerous and socially destructive activities of a sexual nature when the supporting evidence is overwhelming, and must now shoulder an equal irresponsibility in inferring UNAIDS’ bias through his not outlining a countervailing policy of “technical and financial support” to opponents of Sasod who have documented opposing arguments and evidence. A failure to correct this would infer that UNAIDS has chosen sides while the jury is still out, or, worse, that Prado has acted in complete and deliberate disregard of the evidence.
We cite the voluminous and well-articulated law reviews of Regent University’s “Homosexuality, Truth Be Told” law review series (http://www.regent.edu/news/lawreview/articles/14_2editorsnote.doc ) and further show that these strike at the heart of entire sections of the “Yogyagkarta Principles”, and urge the prompt communication of the availability and amount of matching funding available to promote the findings of same law review series.
".... So we are left with the unpopular job of setting the record straight. The legal community has a right to know, among other things, that a link exists between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children, that the American Psychiatric Association was hijacked by homosexual activists, that homosexuality is being marketed to children, that studies claiming that homosexual parenting does not harm children are questionable, that homosexuality is not immutable, and that homosexual advocates are calling for the legalization of pedophilia....”
Secondly, Dr. Prado is facetious and disingenuous in implying that the comments of PAHO’s Dr. Mirta Roses suggest the altogether ridiculous position that any opposition to Same-Sex Attraction Disorders represents “hatred against people with different sexual orientations”. In fact it shows the opposite (commendable professionalism) since no less a person than the very liberal Hon. Mr. Justice Michael Kirby AC, CMG, President of the New South Wales Court Of Appeal, Sydney, Australia, during an address to the First South African Conference on Aids and the Law, 25th June 1992) seems to have been misled when he said: "But the paradox is: if we are serious about the containment of the aids epidemic, we must enter their individual minds and get them to change their behaviour which seems central to them to the definition of their being". The issue, we should remind UNAIDS, care-givers and health workers, should remain “behaviour modification” rather than “accommodation”.
Thirdly, therefore, Prado exhibits an unprecedented degree of recklessness in advocating that “For UNAIDS, it is both a call of duty and an honour to support SASOD’s call for decriminalisation of homosexuality in Guyana”. We can and will ask the UN Secretary-General, as well as his local counterpart at CARICOM, to distance themselves and their organizations from this statement. We have shown that such a step will fly in the face of common sense, and seems to be the product of unusual strains of denial and delusion best described by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover’s book “Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth” (Baker Books, 2002).
We had also shown in the online summary “Supporting ‘Gay Rights’ Laws would court legal disasters” (http://rogerwilli.blogspot.com/2009/06/supporting-gay-rights-laws-would-court.html )
As a matter of principle, then, I call on Dr. Prado to indicate firmly that the views expressed in that article were indicative of his personal opinions only, and in no way reflect official UN Policy, or that of UNAIDS.
Yours faithfully
