AIDS Action Committee’s Blog

Ellen Goodman hits the nail squarely and eloquently on the head today in her editorial in the Boston Globe today. As we’ve been discussing, Randall Tobias’ recent resignation in the wake of the discovery that he was a regular client of the now infamous “D.C. Madam” is only the latest blow to the Bush administration’s failed abstinence-only policies.  Goodman connects the issues beautifully –

“Well, Tobias was not just your everyday CEO-turned bureaucrat.  This is one time that “private life” and “public record” are as tightly wedded as a pizza and its toppings.  As the first global AIDS czar, Tobias oversaw American public policy for foreign private lives.  He was in charge of doling out sexual morality with the money.” 

Why the pizza reference?  Tobias has publicly likened calling the escort company to “calling out for pizza.”  So now the man who has personally been responsible for exporting not only the failed abstinence-only, anti-condom rules with American funds for countries struggling to contain exploding HIV crises but also the anti-prostitution and trafficking rulings tied to the funds (for a good summary, see OSI’s report)  is a self-described consumer of those services?  The very services he has condemned and forced developing, impoverished countries with sky-high HIV epidemics partly driven through sex work to renounce in order to receive US funds?  Like ordering PIZZA? 

Bravo, Ellen Goodman!

Last week was a bad week for the Bush administration’s abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.  Abstinence-only proponents were still reeling from the ab-only doesn’t work Mathematica bomb when it was announced that the ACLU, SIECUS and Advocates for Youth had sent a nine-page letter to the Secretary of HHS, Mike Leavitt, demanding the medical inaccuracies in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs (ala the Waxman report) be corrected within 30 days or HHS will face legal action.

Friday was even worse:   more than 65 organizations signed on to letters to the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education calling for the end of abstinence only until marriage grants for community based programs and for the government to begin allocating dollars for comprehensive sex education.   Friday also saw the resignation of Randall L.Tobias, the former ab-only guru for the Bush administration, after it was widely reported that he had hired an “escort.”  The Randall development underscores not only a good dose of hypocrisy but more importantly that the standards of behavior that the Bush administration has laid out as expected and acceptable is unrealistic for even the most ardent adult supporters.

Yesterday I wrote about how abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) programming is religious indoctrination masquerading as sex ed. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t stop there. These curricula dangerously isolate and stigmatize GLBT kids-a group already prone to higher rates of depression and suicide. The guidelines of AOUM programs explicitly state that “expected standard of sexual activity” is a mutually monogamous relationship between a man and a woman. Moreover, many AOUM programs either show a clear bias against homosexuality or omit the topic altogether. One program, CLUE 2000 equates homosexuality with incest or pedophilia.

That’s right kids, the fact that you have a crush on someone of the same gender means you are one step away from sleeping with your siblings or molesting babies. Just in case you missed all the memos – you’re already not living up to the expected (read: acceptable) standards of society. Awesome!

It doesn’t end there. Throughout the AOUM curriculum, marriage must be defined as a legal union between one man and one woman. It doesn’t matter if you live in Gay Marriage Babylon Massachusetts. Our state’s laws don’t matter and those marriages don’t exist in AOUM class.

Just so we’re on the same page, what does this mean? These programs teach children-our children-that

1. gay people are criminals in the making.
2. gay people don’t ever get to have sex because they can never really be married.
3. same sex relationships should be non-existent or invisible.
4. same sex relationships are permanently outside of marriage and are therefore permanently outside being acceptable.
5. gay people will never be as happy or successful as straight people.

GLBT kids already face tremendous challenges and difficulties in adolescence and school. AOUM reinforce the most damaging messages about homosexuality all the while questioning the efficacy of scientifically proven safe-sex practices. Those facts alone should have all people - the GLBT community of course - demanding that AOUM programming be history in Massachusetts.

Yesterday, the Globe ran a story about Governor Patrick rightly rejecting abstinence-only-until- marriage federal funding in his budget. Predictably, ab-only proponents immediately cried that the Governor wants to give up federal grants that are merely used to teach students about abstinence. They want people to believe that the Governor doesn’t believe in abstinence and wants kids to go around “doing it” as much as possible.

This is standard fare for proponents of ab-only. They want people to believe that without abstinence-only-until-marriage programming, abstinence isn’t valued and won’t even get a quick mention in typical sex education classes. They are (gasp!) wrong. Quite the contrary, comprehensive sex education curricula are abstinence-based, emphasizing that delaying sexual activity is a great choice for young people and not having sex is the only sure fire way to avoid pregnancy or disease.

Comprehensive sex education doesn’t stop there; it also provides information about contraception and safer sex. The goal of comprehensive sex education is to avoid unplanned pregnancies and the transmission of disease. It recognizes the fact that most young people become sexually active before leaving high school and many need information. Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs may not discuss contraception or condoms except to emphasize their failure rates.

So, what is the goal of abstinence-only-until-marriage programming? The federal guidelines governing this funding require, among many things, that students be taught that the “expected standard of sexual activity” is abstaining from sex outside of a “mutually faithful monogamous relationship within the context of marriage.” (More on these guidelines and gay kids tomorrow)

Moreover sexual activity is defined “as any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including but not limited to sexual intercourse.” No sexual stimulation between two persons? Let’s be honest, if you’re over-the-moon gaga for someone at fifteen, sexual stimulation doesn’t take much – it could be holding hands or a hug. The above definition isn’t abstinence – it is chastity, a religious virtue more appropriately taught in a private religious institution, and an entirely inappropriate goal in a public school class.