Abstinence Groups Get 25% Of Bush HIV/AIDS Funds

Science and reality are once again trumped by a Bush Administration that asserts:

If you did not buy into our concepts of morality and faith, you will die.  We say this realizing that not only will you die, but that we endanger the entire human race from the scourge of AIDS.  We say this knowing that there are more effective ways of combatting the spread of AIDS than our narrow religious-driven programming.

The Associated Press reports:

Abstinence Groups Get 25% Of Bush HIV/AIDS Funds

President Bush's $15 billion effort to fight AIDS has handed out nearly one-quarter of its grants to religious groups, and officials are aggressively pursuing new church partners that often emphasize disease prevention through abstinence and fidelity over condom use.

Award recipients include a Christian relief organization famous for its televised appeals to feed hungry children, a well-known Catholic charity and a group run by the son of evangelist Billy Graham, according to the State Department.

The outreach to nontraditional AIDS players comes in the midst of a debate over how best to prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The debate has activated groups on both ends of the political spectrum and created a vast competition for money.

Conservative Christian allies of the president are pressing the U.S. foreign aid agency to give fewer dollars to groups that distribute condoms or work with prostitutes. The Bush administration provided more than 560 million condoms abroad last year, compared with some 350 million in 2001.

...Religious organizations last year accounted for more than 23 percent of all groups that got HIV/AIDS grants, according to the State Department. Some 80 percent of all secular and religious grant recipients were based in the countries where the aid is targeted.

Among those winning grants were:

-Samaritan's Purse, which is run by (Billy) Graham's son, Franklin. It says its mission is "meeting critical needs of victims of war, poverty, famine, disease and natural disaster while sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ."

-World Vision. The 56-year-old Christian organization is known for its TV appeals - some with celebrities such as game show host Alex Trebek - that asked people to support a Third World child.

-Catholic Relief Services. It was awarded $6.2 million to teach abstinence and fidelity in three countries; $335 million in a consortium providing anti-retroviral treatment; and $9 million to help orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDs. The group offers "complete and correct information about condoms" but will not promote, purchase or distribute them, said Carl Stecker, senior program director for HIV/AIDS.

-HOPE. The global relief organization founded by the International Churches of Christ recently brought comedian Chris Rock to South Africa for an AIDS prevention event. AIDS grants support HOPE in several countries.

-World Relief, founded by the National Association of Evangelicals. It won $9.7 million for abstinence work in four countries.

For prevention, Bush embraces the "ABC" strategy: abstinence before marriage, being faithful to one partner, and condoms targeted for high-risk activity. The Republican-led Congress mandated that one-third of prevention money be reserved for abstinence and fidelity.

Condom promotion to anyone must include abstinence and fidelity messages, U.S. guidelines say, but those preaching abstinence do not have to provide condom education.

..."This drive for abstinence is putting a lot of pressure on girls to get married earlier," said Dr. Abeja Apunyo, the Uganda representative for Pathfinder International, a reproductive health nonprofit group based in Massachusetts.

"For years now we have been trying to tell our daughters that they should finish their education and train in a profession before they get married. Otherwise they have few options if they find themselves separated from their husbands for some reason," Apunyo said.

An AIDS-program pastor in Uganda explained his abstinence teaching to unmarried young people.

Secular activists say it is not realistic to expect all teenagers to abstain from sex and that teenagers also should be taught how to protect themselves.

U.S.-backed programs have spread abstinence and faithfulness education to more than 13 million people in Uganda, according to the State Department. Officials promote the nation as an "ABC" model, with its HIV infection rate down by more than half in a decade.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said that on a tour of Uganda in January he saw pro-abstinence rallies and skits praising Bush, and U.S.-supported groups conducting house-to-house testing, care and counseling.

"The good news about the faith-based groups is not only the passion they bring to the work but it is the moral authority and the extended numbers of volunteers they can mobilize to get the word out," Smith said.

But Smith believes the administration is wrongly supporting some nonprofit groups. He and several other congressional conservatives wrote to Bush and the U.S. Agency for International Development, contending that several large grant recipients were pro-prostitution, pro-abortion or not committed enough to Bush's abstinence priorities.

The letters followed a briefing last year by Focus on the Family, run by Christian commentator and Bush ally James Dobson. The group's sexual health analyst, Linda Klepacki, said even some religious groups emphasize condoms over abstinence.

"We have to be careful that the president's original intent is being followed where A and B are the emphasized areas of the ABC methodology," she said.

Comments

[Craig]

Last time I checked, there's only one way to guarantee you won't get get AIDS - not having sex. Since there seems to be an outcry from the left that science is being ignored, there are those of you who are guilty of it too. Yes, condom usage reduces the chance of infection, but it is not 100% effective. Not having intercourse is...

[Paul]

Since having sex with an infected person, condom useage almost guarantees not getting AIDS, while non condom useage almost guarantees getting AIDS, what would you tell your son or daughter?

A. "Don't have sex."
B. "Don't have sex, but if you do, use a condom."
C. "Don't have sex, but if you do, don't use a condom because your having sex is morally wrong, by my standards."
My answer is "B"; it sounds like yours is "C".

By the way, there are plenty of people with AIDS who did not have sex.

[Craig]

No, I'd go with B. I don't agree with the religious aspect that is usually associated with absintence programs, but I think the fact that it is dismissed out of hand is wrong as well.