Just One Of Many Ways Conservatives Are
Making Sexual Educators Jobs
Challenging
Minnesota
AIDS Project (MAP) submitted a brochure for approval to the Minnesota
Department of Health aimed at preventing the spread of HIV. The
pamphlet featured four photographs of a man demonstrating how
to don a condom.
MAP intended
to distribute the provocative literature at gay bars and other
locales as part of its "safer sex kit." But shortly after the
brochure was delivered to the health department, MAP received
a strange request.
The state
agency asked the organization to provide a "model release," basically
a signed waiver from the man whose penis was featured rather graphically
in the brochure.
One problem:
the organization had no idea whose penis was featured on the literature.
The image had been pulled from a website. Since there was no way
to obtain a release form, the AIDS organization was forced to
hire a model and recreate the images to use on the pamphlet.
"What should've
been a no-brainer became a three-month process," recalls Bob Tracy,
MAP's director of development. "That is the way bureaucracies
are able to shut you down without coming right out and saying,
You can't do this." MAP and other AIDS organizations fear that
they will soon run into more such hurdles in attempting to do
effective prevention work, especially among gay men.
In June,
the Centers for Disease Control issued new proposed guidelines
for prevention materials that have raised serious concerns among
AIDS service organizations. If implemented, all federally funded
prevention materials, including web content, would have to be
green-lighted by a local or state health agency.
The purpose
of the new requirement is supposedly to ensure that the materials
are scientifically accurate and not obscene. In the past, nonprofit
groups have had the option of creating their own panel to review
literature. Many AIDS officials fear that the change will lead
to censorship, bureaucratic meddling, and, ultimately, less effective
efforts to prevent the spread of HIV.
This is not
the only troubling provision in the proposed regulations. In addition,
all federally funded prevention materials would be required to
include information warning people that condoms are not 100 percent
fail-safe. AIDS organizations fear that this will have the practical
impact of discouraging people from using condoms.
"Condoms
are an effective way to stop transmission of HIV," says Tracy.
"To say otherwise is inaccurate." A 60-day public comment period
on the proposed changes ended in August. The CDC is expected to
announce the final regulations by mid-December. The changes are
part of a larger, nationwide trend of attacks on organizations
that run prevention efforts aimed at gay men.
The most
notorious recent example is that of the STOP AIDS Project, a San
Francisco nonprofit group that has long been a pioneer in developing
effective, often provocative, safe-sex programs. Starting
in 2001, the organization was beset by a string of federal audits
questioning its financial integrity and programmatic effectiveness.
More tellingly,
the group was criticized for supposedly promoting sexual activity.
Even though the feds found no significant shortcomings, in July
STOP AIDS Project was denied federal prevention funding. Jason
Riggs, communications director for STOP AIDS Project, believes
that the elimination of funding was simply a backhanded way to
punish the organization even though the government couldn't find
any wrongdoing by the group. "You can't prove it, but it feels
like it," he says.
The government
harassment of STOP AIDS Project has had a ripple effect across
the country, causing AIDS organizations to think twice before
utilizing sexually explicit prevention materials. Tracy fears
that the end result will be a gutting of effective safe-sex programs
for gay men. "If we keep going down this road I can guarantee
that in the next four years HIV intervention is going to be about
reversion therapy," he says, referring to programs that attempt
to convert gay people to heterosexuality. "We're going to be funding
those programs as HIV prevention."
