Hampton Roads' Youth in Crisis: Contracting HIV

In the November issue of VEER Magazine I wrote about World AIDS Day (December 1, 2011) and the fact that HIV/AIDS is not just a gay issue despite the efforts of Christianists to dupe their sheep like followers and the larger public to the contrary. Over the weekend a friend via political circles, John Chittick, executive director of the Norfolk-based nonprofit TeenAIDS-PeerCorps, wrote an op-ed in the Virginian Pilot that further underscores. He also correctly looks at the pathetic state of sex-education in Virginia's public schools which is aimed more at keeping the Bible beaters happy than educating and protecting our youth. Here are some highlights from the column:

"I didn't know nothin' about AIDS. He was my first real boyfriend and was going into the Navy. I was thinking only about love.... Now my life's over, and I'm only 17!"

"Carly" - who agreed to tell her story only if I didn't reveal her real name - is a junior at a high school in Hampton Roads. Blond hair falls across her face, wet with tears of regret and the realization that a horrible mistake has occurred. She whispers, "It's not fair." Like many teens, it is hard for her to accept the consequences of her actions.

Carly had no idea that Hampton Roads is now the epicenter of HIV/AIDS in Virginia, and Norfolk is No. 1. "I wish someone had told me about this stuff." Yet her ignorance was not really her fault.

Yes, she made the decision to have unprotected sex with her boyfriend. But her school has not provided any meaningful AIDS education for years since the story fell off the public's radar.

When the head of her school was offered the free services of this AIDS expert, his answer was disheartening: "You have to understand that it's not really a problem for us like it might be at other schools because our students are not into things like that... and we can't make the time with our focus on SOLs and sports."

Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day, the 30th anniversary of the public's first awareness of a mysterious disease in Africa and a few American cities. In the U.S., gay men were among the early victims, but in Africa HIV/AIDS was spread through heterosexual contact.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 25 percent of all new cases of HIV in the U.S. occur among teens. Unfortunately, AIDS has become passe, a sleeper issue - but not for vulnerable teens.

We are facing a global pandemic of heterosexually transmitted youth HIV. And the clock is ticking here in Hampton Roads. The key to curbing the spread of teen AIDS is empowering young volunteers to reach out to their friends so the message grows exponentially. It doesn't cost taxpayers anything. And teens make the most convincing messengers. If only Carly had heard that message.

Damaged lives - all because the Virginia General Assembly would rather kiss the asses of sanctimonious haters like Victoria Cobb and her cohorts at The Family Foundation than protect Virginia's youth. These Christianists need to find some other way to fell superior and fulfilled by their bitter, empty lives.