"The need to protect oneself is built on money coming into the country and giving condoms to school children. The message here is 'go try them.' But how do you stop yourself? You had better not wake up passion in young people. Condoms wake up your passions and you must face the consequences. We, in the church say we should abstain and keep yourself pure before marriage. You cannot die if you don't go for sex. We teach our people respect for the opposite sex. Why be in a hurry you can have as much sex as possible after you have married. Loving your wife is enough," said Orombi.

The archbishop said he came from a polygamous family, his father had two wives and his grandfather had 6 wives. "I promised myself when I grew I would only have one wife. It allows children to see a faithful and abstaining father. Parents should play a major role in the education of their children."

The archbishop said his government should control the influx of pornographic materials into the country and controls should be in place to prevent young people from seeing it.

"The church has a big and effective role to play in teaching right behavior. We do not have a big problem with stigma in Uganda. The church can never stand idly by and watch people die. We appeal to church leaders to get involved."

The archbishop blasted money being pumped into Uganda from the West for the sale of condoms. "It is doing us no good. If people think salvation lies in condoms we will continue to lose many more people. People are experimenting with condoms and it only increases infection rates. Uganda has not sweep AIDS under the cover, we are confronting it." He said the church had changed the administering of Holy Communion because of AIDS. "We no longer give the cup." The church now practices intincture.

Dr. Edward C. Green from the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies told symposium delegates that 25 million deaths had been recorded from AIDS with three million a year most in sub-Sahara Africa. "In 1980 there were one million orphans and one million deaths of parents. Today there are 13 million orphans with 10 to 20 million parental deaths. From 1990 to 2001, 25 percent of the population of pregnant women surveyed was HIV positive."

Green said it was the opposite in Uganda. "High infection rates have gone from 20 to 6 percent. It is a shining example of how high infection rates can go down when national leaders both political and church work together."

Green blasted what he called a morally neutral, technocratic approach to the issue of AIDS transmission by using condoms, arguing that morals should not be shunted aside for a technocratic and libertine vision. "A traditional moral strategy - abstinence and faithfulness in marriage - should not be discarded for a one-sided pursuit of libertinism."

"Sexual restraint is that which libertarians fight against. Sexual restraint is part of the critique over liberty. Homosexual revolution had its beginning in Stonewall and was a triumph of libertine human rights liberating people from heterosexual norms."

Green said Botswana had a 45 percent AIDS rate in the general population despite massive condom sales. "The promotion of a values free approach has not been positive and has not worked. The most recent findings in the medical journal LANCET agree that the most important behavioral change was not the use of condoms but being faithful to one other person."

He said major donors rejected AB (abstinence and faithfulness) and like only C - condoms. "It is up to faith based organizations to promote right behaviors and sexual restraint contained within marriage."

"Where do we stand in AIDS prevention in late 2005? We all know that abstinence and couples being mutually faithful would be great if they were applicable to everybody's lives, but they're not. Just because not everyone can change behavior in a certain way (prostitutes abstaining is a favorite example) then we effectively shut the door on the commonsense interventions that Uganda used and that brought down infection rates by 66 percent."

Green said most epidemics are sexually driven and multiple sex partners are what drives epidemics to higher levels. It's like talking about lung cancer without promoting cigarette smoking.

Green also blasted stereotypes of African sexual behavior that viewed Africans as polygamous (meaning promiscuous) by nature and could not change because of external factors like poverty, displacement, illiteracy, disability and gender disparities, when through the bold leadership of Uganda President Yoweri Museveni infection rates had dramatically dropped since 1986.

"The social marketing of condoms didn't take off until the mid 1990s. There was some condom promotion from the beginning, but this approach was not favored by the president. HIV prevalence among 15-19 year old declined even among volunteer blood donors," he said. Condoms cannot become the main means of stemming the tide of AIDS, the president told his people. "Condoms are only 80 to 85 percent safe. Regrettably donors will not fund abstinence and faithfulness programs. The president made his case on the BBC that if people don't change their behavior they will die."

Green said Uganda had empowered women, enforced rape laws and put empowerment laws into place, and admonished men to be faithful to their wives. "Uganda cut through the denial; either practice ABC or D for death. The state had taken on itself to work on men's behavior and women's fidelity."

Uganda had much fewer non-regular partnerships across all ages, he said. "Zero-grazing was at 2.8%, abstaining 2.5 percent and condom use was 0.9 lowest with lowest rate of infections in Africa. Faithfulness to one partner was 91.9 percent."

Green said that newspaper reports in Newsweek gave credit to Uganda's success for its widespread use of condoms. "They made no mention of abstention. It was not true what they reported. New York Times reporter William Kristoll was also been guilty of bad reporting on Uganda.

"More condoms have been associated with more AIDS. Condom users take higher risks with an exaggerated sense of safety. People who use condoms have more partners and have higher rates of infection," said Green.

The Harvard trained scientist said that the fight is not just against AIDS, it is also against AIDS experts.

Lawrence Temfwe, national coordinator for Micah Challenge, a global Christian campaign to deepen engagement with the poor and to halve absolute global poverty by 2015, based in Zambia, said he had lost a sister and brother to AIDS. "If you can't control yourself use a condom, how can you hope to control yourself in order to use a condom. My country has one million orphans in a population of 10 million people. 90,000 are infected with HIV/IADS with people surviving on less than $1 a day. These children suffer from discrimination. Furthermore community and family structures cannot help the orphans. The use of condoms only created promiscuity. There is an enormous failure rate in Zambia." Temfwe called for more global partnerships in the fight against AIDS. The life expectancy of most Africans today is 47 years, the symposium was told.

The symposium was put on by Geneva Global, a performance philanthropy based in Wayne, PA. Geneva Global Africa AIDS has made grants in 90 countries to organizations fighting poverty, illiteracy and AIDS. There website can be accessed at www.GenevaGlobal.com.

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