Rock Stars Are ‘The Last People’ Who Should Give Anti-AIDS Messages, Op-Ed Says

The "rock stars of the new millenium" plan to raise money for anti-AIDS efforts in Africa by producing a remake of Marvin Gaye's 1971 hit "What's Going On," but this effort "has extra hypocrisy written all over it," political commentator Debbie Schlussel writes in an op-ed appearing on the "fiercely independent" news Web site WorldNetDaily.com. Schlussel states that the three most famous participants in the project -- pop stars Britney Spears, Destiny's Child and Jennifer Lopez -- are "the last people on earth who should speak out on AIDS" because they are "the most prominent sex merchants in America." With her "way too low-rise, pelvis-baring pants," Spears "dresses like she might be going into the world's oldest profession," Schlussel writes. She adds that Destiny's Child's "ultra-minimalist dress code" and sexually provocative songs make the group "another paragon of AIDS hypocrisy." Jennifer Lopez, whose wardrobe "doesn't leave much to the imagination" and who recently "described her whole week in bed with her boyfriend" to a men's magazine, is "hardly the paragon of AIDS education," Schlussel says. Schlussel writes that "[i]t's the rock star life of casual sex, drugs and self-destruction that most easily leads to AIDS," noting that RATT guitarist Robbin Crosby and Styx bassist Chuck Panozzo are both HIV-positive. Rock stars, Schlussel concludes, "are exactly the people who should not be preaching to your kids about AIDS. Or anything else" (Schlussel, WorldNetDaily.com, 9/11).