Yet, such a world is such a remote possibility and so irrelevant to the Newsweek reporters that it does not receive a word of mention in the article.

The only attention these reporters give to traditional values is to the claim that they make women submissive and therefore, supposedly, more prone to predatory male behavior. And, according to these reporters, traditional values intimidate men from admitting their homosexual behavior to the women with whom they have sex.

One significant source of the transmission of HIV to black women traces back to the appallingly high percentage of black men who have done time in prison. Prisons are a breeding ground for homosexual behavior and HIV transmission. These men then return home and engage in heterosexual sex.

Yet, the Newsweek reporters never raise the relevance of prison outreach programs such as Chuck Colson's nor do they broach the sensitive area of screening of prisoners for HIV before they are released.

The AIDS epidemic is symptomatic of a society spinning out of control. There is only one answer, and that is to re-establish our mooring rooted in personal responsibility and the traditional sense of right and wrong behavior. What can be the future for a society in which love and personal responsibility are displaced by sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility? What type of society will we be living in when we get to the point where few American adults will have grown up in a traditional family?

Despite what the liberal elite in the media would have us believe, self-esteem programs among black women do not provide the answer to this social crisis. It is these same liberal elite that brought us the welfare state that accelerated the breakdown of the black family.

Our efforts must focus on restoration of values and families in white and black communities. It's not an easy task. But if we lose sight that this is the only solution, we truly will be lost.

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Star Parker is president of CURE, Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, www.urbancure.org, and author of the recently published book, "Uncle Sam's Plantation."