The September edition of the Teacher carried a cartoon critical of the Catholic bishops’ stance on condom use in the prevention of HIV/Aids.
The HIV/Aids pandemic is an important and controversial subject that needs widespread public debate. On behalf of the National Union of Educators (NUE), however, I wish to express my strong disapproval of the inappropriate tone adopted by your cartoonist.
As important role models in our newly established democracy, educators are enjoined to encourage open-mindedness and tolerance of others’ views. By contrast, the cartoon in question demonstrates blunt intolerance of alternative opinions on a subject of national importance.
Educators are being called upon by our government to be standard-bearers in upholding values in our society. In that context, the near-blasphemous tone adopted by your cartoonist was offensive and entirely inappropriate.
The NUE notes with regret that a publication such as yours, with an important role to play in our educational transformation, should have descended to this level of insensitive sensationalism.
– Stuart Foulds
Vice-chairman,
National Union of Educators, Gauteng
As a postscript to the tasteless condom cartoon, perhaps Bishop Kevin Dowling should remember that Jesus taught His disciples to preach, essentially: “Repent and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins”, and that Jesus himself told those He healed and forgave to “go and sin no more”. God’s standards and principles of right and wrong are not because He’s a cosmic killjoy, but are there for our protection.
Perhaps the bishop falls into the same category as the little boy who said: “Our Father who art in heaven. Hallo, what’s your name?”
Perhaps the bishop, like the people Jesus referred to in Matthew: Chapter 7, doesn’t actually know the God he claims to serve because he has not experienced the transforming power of the Good News of Jesus Christ, and so is unable to bear witness to it and see it changing the lives of others.
Christian organisations teaching abstinence life skills to teens have found that receptiveness to their message cuts across racial and cultural groups, so to state that abstinence is unacceptable to certain cultures is erroneous as far as children and young teens are concerned, because they do not have the rigid attitudes to which adults are prone.
– EC Poulter (Mrs)
Sherwood,
Durban
I write on behalf of the Methodist Church of South Africa to express our distaste and dismay concerning your cartoon, which trivialises the matter of HIV/Aids and offensively misuses a prayer which the Christian community holds dear and is sacred.
– Rev Ross Olivier
General Secretary
the Teacher acknowledges the disquiet caused by the cartoon and regrets that it caused a religious row instead of stimulating debate on the HIV/Aids issue. This correspondence is now closed.
the Teacher wishes all readers good health and a peaceful holiday.
– The editor
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, December 2001.