An eyewitness account of a government-sponsored anti-conservative, anti-Christian conference.
I was among a handful of conservatives who dared sign up for the 2006 National STD Prevention Conference held earlier this month that was presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was blindingly clear that the majority of attendees wished Christian conservatives would go away and let them tell our young people how to have sex at any age, at any time, with anyone.
I am a strong supporter of public health -- enough that I slugged my way through a Masters degree in the subject. But the conference in Jacksonville, Fla., brought several throbbing questions to my mind:
• What's happened to primary prevention at the CDC? Have you dropped this concept from public health?
• Why was this conference dominated by anti-conservative, anti-religious rhetoric?
• And please tell me who paid for this conference that ran the current administration into the ground?
Oh yeah, I have the answer to that one: TAXPAYERS. (Some of whom are actually conservative, religious folks.)
In the opening minutes, this "scientific" gathering began the attack upon those of us who believe in conservative values and God. Dr. Sander Gilman of Emory University started us down the liberal highway with his opening plenary session. He said results from the abstinence-based True Love Waits campaign have been "catastrophic" (lie). He went on to smear the very idea of abstinence education and marriage. He mockingly stated that conservatives think there are only two ways to prevent STDs -- abstinence and the marriage bed. And then he sarcastically sneered, "Because humans never lie." He continued saying that the celibacy movement is a false intervention (lie) and that abstinence is the most controversial issue in our field today. As the lies continued, he told the audience of nearly 1,400 public-health professionals that the religious right is opposed to HPV vaccine because it thinks it will increase teen sexual activity. No truth to that either. For one, Focus on the Family overwhelmingly supports this potentially life-saving vaccine.
The question, "Why did the CDC abandon primary-prevention strategies?" (preventing high-risk behaviors in the first place) still remains. This is an integral part of public-health strategy, not only in sexuality, but illegal drug use, alcohol use and smoking prevention -- to name a few. I can only guess from the content of this conference hosted by the CDC -- our huge government public-health machine -- that they are now saying that everyone, at every age is expected to be sexually active. Prevention of sexual activity for even elementary school children has apparently been abandoned. The mantra of sexual activity as a Human Right echoed from numerous speakers -- sex at any age, with any gender, with persons of any age -- makes one wonder if anyone at CDC has looked at age-of-consent laws lately? And if the CDC has abandoned the notion that children ought not to be sexually active, why does it post statements on its Web site such as:
"The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain from sexual intercourse…"
In the context of this -- apparently controversial -- issue, an angry question was raised by an attendee as Dr. John Douglas of the CDC announced the session regarding abstinence education had its name and panel members changed. This change was insisted upon by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., when he discovered the liberal overload of not only the message but the speakers. The attendee demanded to know why abstinence education -- "proven" to be ineffective -- would even be addressed at a scientific conference?
The disdain continued into the session itself. Dr. Bruce Trigg of the New Mexico Department of Public Health said marriage should not be a government-induced state. And, he added to cheers, marriage is homophobic.
Dr. John Santelli of Columbia University said marriage is a riskier state to have sex within, because the majority of women around the globe get HIV from their married partner. (More cheers) And, speaking of marriage and parents, Dr. Santelli stated flatly, "You know a whole lot more than parents."
Really? That has to be the biggest lie of all.
During the question-and-answer time, Dr. Patricia Sulak, who had presented the scientific basis for abstinence education, searched to find a medical connection with the audience. When she attempted to connect by saying, "I think we can all agree, even from a purely medical standpoint, that high schoolers ought not to be having sex," she was shouted down with a boisterous and unified "No!" This was just a further demonstration of the political and social push for our children to be sexually active.
It's clear that tolerance and inclusion extends only so far in the world of public health. There is no tolerance of conservatives, especially if they are religious. We were clearly an un-tolerated minority that was mocked, booed and smeared. How about our human rights? We're all U.S. taxpayers. We paid for this conference. How dare you use our dollars to sound the alarm to stop our values from being promoted in the public square!
Maybe it's time to stop all government money from flowing into the coffers of the CDC until it includes more diversity of opinions in its ethical think tank.
The utopian culture that was promoted by this conference can surely be summed up through the vision of the last plenary speaker. Dr. King Holmes of the University of Washington told us his vision is that one day a gigantic condom would cover the Washington Monument. God help us all.
An anti-Bush demonstration this week at a conference sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows how federal funds are abused for political purposes, a House Republican said yesterday.
The House Government Reform Committee has voted to recommend a $7 million reduction in funding for events like the National STD Prevention Conference in Philadelphia this week, calling them "luxuries" and saying past conferences have been "noted for ... political, rather than public health content."
About 200 demonstrators chanted "Bush get wise, condoms save lives" outside the conference venue Wednesday, protesting the administration's plan to increase funding for education programs that encourage sexual abstinence among young people.
"It is unfortunate that scientific exchanges are being overshadowed by political stunts," Rep. Mark Souder, Indiana Republican, said yesterday. "These activists are, of course, free to voice their opinions, but taxpayers should not be subsidizing the venues for their partisan events."
The protest was organized by the Philadelphia and New York City chapters of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), the American Medical Student Association, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Philadelphia Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, Health Initiatives for Youth, Housing Works, the National Network of Abortion Funds, the New York City AIDS Housing Network, Project TEACH and YouthBase.
Housing Works is a New York-based group that received more than $1.9 million in funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1999 and 2000. House Republican aides said yesterday that they were investigating whether any of the other protest sponsors receive federal grants.
A CDC spokeswoman said yesterday that the agency was not the sole sponsor of the conference and that the protests were not part of the event.
"We were one of the co-sponsors. There were several other co-sponsors in addition to CDC," said spokeswoman Bernadette Burton, naming the American STD Association, the National Coalition of STD Directors and the American Social Health Association.
"The protest ... took place outside of the venue and it occurred after the session had ended," she said, adding that the conference provided a forum for scientists to share "new information about advances in STD prevention."
During the protest, activists also criticized Mr. Souder's request that the Food and Drug Administration require that condom-package labels inform consumers that condoms don't prevent HPV (human papillomavirus), a sexually transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer.
Mr. Souder is chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources, which held a hearing yesterday on the issue, involving a 2000 federal law that requires condom labels to be "medically accurate."
The FDA "has developed a regulatory plan to provide condom users with a consistent labeling message and the protection they should expect from condom use," FDA official Dr. Daniel G. Schultz said at the hearing.
Last month, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, issued a budget report that criticized federal funding for conferences such as the Philadelphia event. The Department of Health and Human Services spent $40 million to fund conferences in 2002, including $3.6 million for an AIDS conference in Barcelona, where protesters shouted down HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, the report said.
• Cheryl Wetzstein contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
