What is going on?

So I leave the country for a month and the whole world turns upside down? Let's hope that I won't be getting any letters from Bush, asking for his money back. Eeek!

News: White House changes tune on AIDS groups working overseas
Steve Sternberg
10 June 2005
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In a major policy shift, the Bush administration on Thursday notified U.S.-based AIDS organizations that get taxpayer funding for work overseas that they must pledge that they oppose prostitution and sex trafficking.

This is the first time U.S. AIDS groups have been required to accept such a condition in exchange for federal funds.

"What applied to foreign organizations will apply to U.S. organizations, too," says Kent Hill, head of Global Health at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Hill says administration officials are doing what Congress required when it passed the five-year, $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean two years ago.

Critics say what they call the anti-prostitution "loyalty oath" may violate their free-speech rights and hinder their work with prostitutes, a crucial risk group.

"It's ideological blackmail. It's like a loyalty oath," says Paul Zeitz of the Global AIDS Alliance."No one endorses prostitution and sex-trafficking. We cannot stop AIDS if we lose the trust of people most at risk of HIV infection and undermine effective, lifesaving programs," he said.

In February, 13 charitable organizations, including Save the Children, CARE and International Rescue Committee, relayed the same criticism to Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias. The groups said, "Contributing to the stigmatizing of populations that are at risk, infected or affected by HIV/AIDS greatly undermines the success of AIDS prevention, testing and care efforts."

The law authorizing PEPFAR formally required federally funded groups to promise that they won't use those funds to promote prostitution, the legalization of prostitution or sex trafficking. The law also required foreign groups that get U.S. funds to declare opposition to prostitution, pledging allegiance to U.S. policy.

The law was amended last year to exempt multinational groups that get funding from the USA, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, as well as United Nations agencies that channel money from the USA and other donors to grass-roots AIDS organizations.

The federal government channels about $550 million in global AIDS funds through USAID and $488 million through PEPFAR. In 2006, the balance will shift: $361 million will go through USAID programs and about $1.8 billion through the president's plan.

One legal expert says the pledge violates the organizations' and their employees' constitutional right to free speech. "It's a first amendment problem," says Ira Lupu, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "You're asking (the organizations) in exchange for federal grants to limit their activities under the grant: to sell off their rights to engage in politically committed expression in support of other activities."

Source: USA TodayOnline at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-09-us-aids_x.htm