Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money

[barbaraann]

By RITA BEAMISH 1 hour, 35 minutes ago
Associated Press

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.
...
The New Partners Initiative reserves $200 million through the 2008 budget year for community and church groups with little or no background in government grants. Some may have health operations in Africa but no experience in HIV work. Others may be homegrown groups in Africa that have not previously sought U.S. support.
...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060129/ap_on_he_me/aids_prevention


They are buying votes with OUR tax dollars. :-(

[JeffR]

1. And not for the first time!

:grr:

[bigjohn16]

2. Damn he just walked straight through the wall between church and state.

Why do we even have a Constitution?

[dethl]

30. Bush has to wipe is a$$ with something apparently ....

:grr:

[xchrom]

3. part of the repuke payoff.

you cannot say bushco doesn't take care of those who have supported them.

they are nurturing the ''virtuous citizenry'' -- just as leo strauss would have advised.

[journalist3072]

4. This has been known for a while now..

For example, Idiot Son likes to say that his Administration has really increased funding for AIDS in Africa.

What he wont' tell you, though, is that they have tied a lot of that money to abstinence only programs.

I just have one question: What are married folks supposed to do?

Are they only looking at AIDS in the context of teenagers?

[SoCalDem]

6. and in Africa, people who have fled to larger towns, in hopes of

a better life, have found no work and loss of access to free food formerly found in forests and grown by themselves..now have had to have the husbands take to the roads, driving trucks. these men are notoriously unfaithful (but then their society is different too)..They bring HIV back to their wives and to their future children..

[Liberal Veteran]

5. The part that pisses me off the most....

Is that there are people right here in the United States who are on waiting lists to get HIV medications.

[Charlie Brown]

7. churches on welfare

The Republican re-distribution of wealth.

[journalist3072]

8. And that really bothers me because

I think the Republicans will use it as an excuse to start slashing funds from government-funded programs like WIC, Social Security, etc...

They will start saying 'Well the church is taking care of this, so we can back off federal funding...'

What's more, I don't understand why the church is going along with this. Don't they understand that once the government starts giving you funding for your church, they will think they can tell you how to run your church.

[Charlie Brown]

13. I never understood why religions would consign themselves to the gov't.

You take something very special away from a religion and its adherents when you make it subordinate to the gov't.

[applegrove]

9. And they will kill millions of Africans if they don't promote condum use.

But hey! on the surface at least it will feel good to help the poor people of Africa.

[Justitia]

10. $$$ to groups who would like to see gays eliminated from the face of the

earth! Gee, what fucking msg is he sending there?

Franklin "Screaming Nutbag" Graham???

:mad:

I'm certain these nazi groups will make sure that AIDS patients will never see one dime of aid.

Seriously, is he sending the federal education budget to the Flat-Earth society too?

[VegasWolf]

11. Aha!! The religious "motivation" behind the support for Brain becomes

clear.

:puke:

[HockeyMom]

12. Catholic Church is against condoms PERIOD

For Aids victims, for unmarrieds, even for faithful married couples. It goes back to the whole birth control issue. "GOD decides how many children you will have, not YOU." That is the Catholic, and other Fundie, religious point of view.

Yes, I KNOW majority of even Catholics just plain ignore this (yours truly included), but they now have the Bush Administration pushing this religious agenda: Abstinence Only until Marriage and Faithfulness in Marriage. See, what do you need condoms, or ANY birth control, for? :sarcasm:

[HuffleClaw]

14. "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."

sheer madness. why not hand out part of the defence budget to anti-war groups? and i thought faith-based funding specifically prohibited monies to those who would spend in on things like "sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ." ?

[OKNancy]

15. kick

[leftchick]

16. Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060129/ap_on_he_me/aids_prevention

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.

Secular organizations in Africa are raising concerns that new money to groups without AIDS experience may dilute the impact of Bush's historic three-year-old program.

[xchrom]

17. keeping the ''virtuous citizen'' in line

with the bushco agenda.

[HockeyMom]

18. Theocracy at work with your Tax Dollars

Not to mention, science according to the BIBLE, again.

[Bellamia]

26. Theocracy & MY Tax Dollars..........

Don't like that concept at ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[IndianaGreen]

19. Flushing money down the toilet

These religious groups are more interested in peddling their stupid religious poison than they are in dealing with AIDs.

[juliana24]

21. Dealing with AIDS means ignoring it for theses thumpers.

[and-justice-for-all]

25. THANK YOU!!!

Indianagreen, you are absolutely correct!!!!!!

and I am in Indiana as well....

[Horse with no Name]

20. Why is this not a surprise?

Line the pockets of the rich...they say a prayer and tell you to abstain...millions of dollars in their pockets.
Prayer doesn't cost a damned thing.
Doesn't this technically meet the definition of lobbying?
The President is giving the churches millions of dollars so that churches will campaign from the pulpit.
There aren't effective results from this.
This kind of blatant palm greasing needs to stop.

[EC]

22. Good thing Clinton is working on this

or the epidemic would be much worse...

[and-justice-for-all]

24. yeah...OK

It was nice of Clinton to get those Pharmas to cut the percription cost in half for those other countries, but what about HERE and NOW!!! Bullshit!!

[EC]

28. What the hell do you think the Clinton Foundation is about?

He is collecting money and delivering meds all over Africa and South America...Didn't you read Esquire's Most Influential Man of Year edition this month? That is HERE AND NOW....DO YOUR RESEARCH, I CAN'T STRESS THAT ENOUGH, know what you are talking about before inserting foot...

Here's the link: http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/home.nsf/nws/na7C7CC5CE3BFD844E852570CB005CA3B0

[and-justice-for-all]

23. This is exactly what NOT to do...

Thanks for the prime example BushNazi bastards.....

You DONT NOT GIVE MORE FUCKING MONEY TO CONSERVATIVE GROUPS YOU DUMBASS!!!! There are researchers who want to CURE this damn diease and Dubya gives more of MY/OUR MONEY to religious cults!!! BILLY FUCKING GRAHAM CULT none-the-less!

This is a clear violation of the seperation of the church and the state!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I HATE THIS GOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Placebo]

27. This is SICK!

These religious groups, regardless of their motives, have not been proven as an effective vehicle for HIV prevention!

I agree with the poster above, this is just FLUSHING OUR MONEY DOWN THE TOILET.

When I think about my tax dollars going towards Pat Robertson or God knows who...:grr:

[UDenver20]

29. I really, really, hate this administration.... n/t

[OneBlueSky]

31. this is just so fucked up . . . giving funds to groups that believe . . .

that AIDS is a moral failing rather than a disease . . .

just when I thought I couldn't possibly hate this administration more than I already do . . . and the fact that a third of the American populace still believes them and supports them, and others continue to "give them the benefit of the doubt," just defies all logic and common sense . . . a lot of people really ARE just plain fucking stupid! . . .

[Zhade]

32. It's almost as bad as those Catholic priests who lie about AIDS...

...passing through condoms.

Reprehensible.

[chicofaraby]

33. This is clearly a payoff.

This is right out of the Lee Atwater/Ollie North playbook. You payoff the TV Preachers with cold hard taxpayer cash. By using tax money that was earmarked for AIDs you deprive the actual medical research community of the cash used to fight AIDs. That makes the people who have AIDs suffer and die. That makes right wingers happy.

They think this is a "neat" idea.