And who’s standing in the wings waiting to take over? Radical Islam. This fight is going on at this very moment in Nigeria and in other countries across Africa. We are in what Samuel Huntington calls a "clash of civilizations." We cannot afford to lose Africa.

Please call and ask your senators to oppose any amendments that would strip the conscience clause and the abstinence-first clause from this bill. Ask them to support the president’s initiative and pass the bill as it has come over from the House.

You can call us here at BreakPoint (1-877-3-CALLBP) or check http://www.breakpoint.org/ for daily status reports on the bill’s progress.

For humanitarian reasons—as a great nation with a Christian heritage of caring for "the least of these"—and for compelling strategic reasons, we must pass the president’s bill. As faithful believers, we can do no less than work for this bill.

Take action:

Urge your two senators to pass an AIDS bill identical to the House version that puts abstinence first and provides a conscience clause for faith-based organizations. The Capitol switchboard is 1-202-224-3121.

For further reading and information:

John Donnelly, "HIV rate may be declining in Africa," Boston Globe, May 11, 2003.

Read BreakPoint’s fact sheet "A Responsible Approach to a Global AIDS Policy" for talking points to use when calling your senators or writing letters-to-the-editor of newspapers.

Read more about President Bush’s HIV/AIDS Initiatives.

BreakPoint Commentary No. 030430, "Africa’s AIDS Crisis: The Response of a Compassionate Conservative."

BreakPoint Commentary No. 020102, "The Honey That Kills: Combating AIDS with the Gospel."

William J. Bennett and Charles W. Colson, "Africa’s AIDS Crisis," Washington Times, April 29, 2003.

Juliet Eilperin and Amy Goldstein, "House Passes $15 Billion AIDS Bill," Washington Post, May 2, 2003, A01.

The aWAKE Project: Uniting against the African AIDS Crisis (W Publishing, 2002) is a collection of stories and essays geared toward educating and mobilizing Americans to help with the AIDS crisis in Africa.

Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Touchstone, 1998).