47th St. Festival

That was this past weekend. Saturday and Sunday, from early until late. They block off this half-mile stretch of 47th St., which is a pretty busy street, mind you, and have booths and food and music and dancing and pony rides and shops and drinks and crafts and all sorts of fun summery festival-like things. HOPE Program goes every year and distributes information about HIV prevention and free condoms to the public.

Last year, this drunk priest from another church found that we had given condoms to a 15 year old boy he worked with (after the boy had asked for them), and he took them from the boy, and came to our booth in a rage, and yelled, and threw the condoms at us. There was a few weeks of uncertainty because he complained to the bishop, and Fr. Bruce stood up for us, and the bishop came over and in a very surreal meeting, basically indicated that he was going to look the other way so that we could continue to serve the public. Because maybe abstinence is the best way to protect yourself, but safe sex is still better than unsafe sex, and anyone who says that condoms do not help protect against pregnancy and STDs is at the very least misinformed, and at most a hypocritical idiot.

I attended a workshop on abstinence education a couple of months ago at a Catholic Jr. High School out in the suburbs and it was one of the most disturbing and angering evenings I've had this year. Everyone laughed at the statistic that... what was it? 89-ish% of married women said they'd had sex before they were married, and 93-ish% married men had. Everyone laughed. Look how many people had had pre-marital sex! Haha! The number for the men is so high! Haha!

But not our kids.

We must teach them about abstinence only, but we're going to claim that it's comprehensive even though the only thing we're teaching about condoms is that they don't work, and we're not teaching the realities of sexuality, but just saying that it's a sin and that our kids will find themselves wasting away in depression and sluthood and don't even bother with protecting yourself if you have sex because all is already lost. Oh, and by the way, homosexuals are destroying our way of life. Oh, and then this one guy starts talking about the "liberal anti-abstinence agenda"! No kidding. He said that.

So like, I'm ranting, and I realize that, but really. It's fine, I suppose, if god is going to send people to hell for having pre-marital sex, but you know, while they're still on earth... isn't it better if they're not pregnant and hit with an incurable STD at 14? Is it really just me? And do other people who work with and/or have teenagers REALLY NOT SEE that they are sexually active despite whatever teachings they are given regarding the morality of said sexual activity?

Anyway.

Saturday morning, as HOPE is setting up for the festival, the organizer comes and says that due to complaints last year, we cannot give out condoms during the festival. Keep in mind the following too facts:

1) They waitied until the morning the festival started to tell us this, even though we've been preparing for months.

2) We typically reach about 900 people at this festival.

So no condoms. This is not a religious festival. But still, a drunk priest complains and we get tied up in red tape. Urgh!

So Saturday, we reached about 500 people, and gave them information, but no condoms. People came and asked us for condoms, but no.

Sunday, we decided to forget about the festival, and instead we walked around the neighborhood everywhere except 47th Street, and gave out condoms. We're filing an official complaint. And we've apparently gotten all manner of influential community leaders pissed off on our behalf. So that's neat. People mobilizing to protect organizations that protect people's health.

Saturday night I told Michael about what happened. My lovely and wonderful activist husband said, "Why didn't you hand them out anyway? I mean, what were they going to do? Kick you out? You left anyway, so they basically already did that." Then he said, "Man, I wish I had been there, in another shirt" (he was wearing a HOPE shirt at the time) "I could have just walked around yelling out, 'Hey! Free condoms! I'm a private citizen here on my own behalf giving out free condoms!'"

I told Lulu that the next day. Lulu, who typically follows the rules. But she agreed and said, "Ah! I wish he had been there!"

I don't really have a moral or ending to this story, because I imagine it will extend on, way into the future. And it's not a story that began with us. This is just a little slice in the telling. But I do, seriously, wish that the Church would revise its official stance on condoms.

Hmm... I wonder what I can do about that.