Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 23, 1994 TAG: 9403260020
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cal Thomas
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dr. Joycelyn Elders is obsessed with sex. She talks about it constantly. Because so many of our social ills - including broken homes, sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies and abortion - are directly related to sexual misbehavior, she should. The problem is, she doesn't prescribe the right medicine.
Instead, she reminds me of Nelson Mandela who, upon his release from prison, began preaching socialism to a world that no longer believed in it. Dr. Elders' ideas, like Mandela's, are from another era. We now have a mountain of evidence that ``free love'' isn't free - it comes with a high price tag.
The surgeon general's latest adventure into Wonderland came in an interview with the homosexual publication The Advocate. She again demonstrated her appalling contempt for young people, whom she consistently maligns as unable to control their sexual urges. In her view, it is incumbent upon the federal government to provide devices, medication and abortions to alleviate the consequences of wrong decisions about sexual behavior.
In the interview, Dr. Elders endorses the adoption of children by homosexuals. She again blasts the Boy Scouts as ``unfair'' for their refusal to allow practicing homosexuals in their ranks. And she says school-based health clinics should address the needs of homosexual students as well as heterosexual.
If you think that is absurd, try Dr. Elders' theological ideas. She says, ``I think the religious right at times thinks that the only reason for sex is procreation. Well, I feel that God meant sex for more than procreation. Sex is about pleasure as well as about responsibility.''
No one has accused Dr. Elders of being a noted theologian, and while she is correct that sex is a gift from God for pleasure as well as procreation, if she had read and accepted what most Baptists like herself believe to be God's word, she might be better informed on the subject.
Like an automobile or a gun, sex is a powerful force that can be used for good or for evil. It has benefits and drawbacks, depending on the choices made. Since Dr. Elders, like her boss, the president, frequently likes to invoke the name of God, doesn't it make sense that God would establish boundaries for sexual expression so as to protect those he loves from harm?
Just two examples: ``Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside his body, but the immoral man sins against his own body'' (1 Corinthians 6:18). And ``For this is the will of God ... that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel ... '' (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4).
As for homosexual practice, the same Scriptures, in both the Old and New Testaments, prohibit it. Wouldn't Dr. Elders agree that the physical benefits are greater for those who abstain from sodomy than for those who don't?
Dr. Elders takes one approach on sex: Kids are going to do it, no matter what, so we should give them condoms, AIDS education starting in kindergarten, treatment for venereal diseases and government-funded abortions. But she has a completely different one on smoking: Let's do whatever it takes to prevent kids from smoking, let's keep them nicotine virgins.
Maybe the solution is to tell kids to put condoms on their cigarettes so they can have safe smokes.
Dr. Elders is becoming a bigger burden to the Clinton administration than any of those who have resigned as a result of the Whitewater affair. Her frequently outrageous remarks play to a constituency that continues to cling to the belief that one can be sexually indiscriminate and somehow avoid the consequences. Her statements - from legalizing drugs to the latest outrages in The Advocate - are precisely the wrong prescriptions for a nation that has overdosed on the mores of the '60s. She ought to be fired.
Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB