From date to hate

Last week, ACC's Student Life Diversity cluster brought in "Date Doctor" Hasani Pettiford to host a love and relationship series entitled "Date to Mate."  The series ranged from "a fun dating game to serious talks on how to survive a breakup." Pettiford is a professional public speaker and author of such books as "The 12 Habits of Wealthy People," "Pimpin' from the Pulpit to the Pews," and "Why We Hate Black Women." While the series was intended to help students with their dating issues, Pettiford's controversial background raises questions about Student Life's commitment to diversity, especially in regard to modern sexuality.

Pettiford has "spent eight years of [his] life traveling across the nation to university campuses teaching students the importance of godly relationships and sexual purity," according to his book "Pimpin' From The Pulpit to the Pews." His Web site also offers a variety of seminar topics, which he delivers at university campuses as well as church functions, with titles like "Pornography: Exposing Satan's Fivefold Ministry," "Black Thighs, Black Guys & Bedroom Lies," and "Homosexuality: To Be Or Not To Be?," the last one being a presentation designed "to help every homosexual with a desire to change, live a heterosexual life." While Pettiford might not have expressed his homosexual reformists views or hardline stance on abstinence, at the "Date to Mate" series, his presence on campus still raises issues. 

ACC is an incredibly diverse college and home to students of all ages, genders, and sexualities.  There are many gay students who attend ACC who see nothing wrong with their sexual orientation, and nor should they.  That is why it is so troubling that Student Life hired a speaker like Pettiford to coach ACC students on dating and sexuality, though he has written an essay about a supposed "organized gay agenda" titled "Homosexuality: The Corporate Takeover," and lumps consensual homosexual relations in with "incest, sexual addiction, and other areas of sexual brokenness."

In his book, "Pimpin' From the Pews to the Pulpit," Pettiford had this to say about homosexuality:

"Several abominations, or wicked things, are listed in Leviticus 18: 1) having sexual relations with close relatives, 2) committing adultery, 3) offering children as sacrifices, 4) having sexual relations with animals and 5) having homosexual relations.  It is quite interesting how these various sexual behaviors are all grouped together.  They all appear to be equal in their wickedness... Such practices lead to disease, deformity, and death. They disrupt family life and society and reveal a low regard for the value of oneself and of others."

The Accent is an adamant supporter of First Amendment rights, and believes that everyone should be free to say what they believe, even when we don't agree with them. However, ACC is a public institution, and Student Life has a duty to hire speakers, whom they pay with money from the student activities fee, whose backgrounds are not likely to alienate and offend large segments of the student body. Equating being gay to bestiality and child sacrifice, and stating that a person's sexual orientation leads to deformity and death, is offensive not only to ACC's openly GLBT students and faculty, but to everyone who supports people's choice to live their lives how they see fit.

Questionable positions on homosexuality aside, Pettiford does not have the qualifications needed to speak to ACC students about sexuality and relationship issues.  In the introduction to "Pimpin'," Pettiford writes, "Well, I have no degree from any seminary or theological school, no formal ministerial training or any group of letters that appear at the end of my name that would warrant me an expert on such a topic. The only qualification I have is my own personal testimony and the call from God to go out into the world and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ." 

Divine mandate may have worked for kings in the Middle Ages, but when it comes to teaching students about issues that could seriously affect their health, more professional accreditation is needed.

In his book "Black Guys, Black Thighs, and Bedroom Lies," Pettiford boldly states this erroneous information about STD prevention:

"The HIV virus itself is 450 times smaller than a sperm cell, about one-fifth the size of the holes in latex - the material from which the best condoms are made. So, these super small viruses can get through a hole in a condom much more easily than sperm can. The transmission of HIV can be compared to a ping-pong ball going through a basketball hoop. It's just that easy."

That statement is patently untrue. The Center For Disease Control and Prevention states, "Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS... Laboratory studies have demonstrated that latex condoms provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size of STD pathogens." Pettiford's ping-pong ball and basketball hoop analogy has no scientific backing or citation. It's just that untrue.

When hiring a speaker to lecture to sexually active college students, possessing current and correct information on HIV transmission should be essential.  Unfortunately, Pettiford's "facts" about HIV aren't the only things in his repertoire that are grossly outdated.  Homosexuality is not the only "sin" Pettiford has an issue with. In "Pimpin'," Pettiford states, "Fornication, adultery, homosexuality, loose and unclean conduct and masturbation are all examples of sexual vices." Pettiford believes that any premarital sexuality, including kissing, masturbation, and sexual fantasies, are inappropriate and wrong and declares that "a lustful mind is complete hatred towards God."

ACC educates students of all types and all ages, and many of them are sexually active.  Those students especially need informed, rational, and sane dating advice and have little to benefit from Pettiford's unique brand of abstinence only education.  How many ACC students would agree with the following prescription for their dating lives?