By Bill Fancher
Many pro-family organizations are voicing concerns regarding the man the Bush Administration has chosen to head America’s Global AIDS Program. The White House has named Randall Tobias, former chief executive of Eli Lilly & Company, as coordinator of the program to slow the spread of AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean over the next five years.
The Family Research Council’s Tom McClusky says the selection of Tobias does not appear to be a very sensitive response by the White House to the efforts of the pro-family lobby. McClusky feels Tobias is a big question mark.
“He’s not known to most of the family groups,” McClusky says. “Even though a lot of the family groups and conservative groups worked hard to get this legislation passed and to get amendments that the president wanted, we weren’t consulted about who would lead up the fund.”
The U.S. AIDS Fund totals 15 billion tax dollars, and pro-family groups want the program to be successful by stressing abstinence and marital fidelity in nations where the virus has reached epidemic levels. Pro-family leaders feel strongly this is not a forum for “more of the same safe-sex condom myth.”
McClusky says that what needs to be promoted is the successful plan used to fight the AIDS epidemic in Uganda, a protocol known as the A-B-Little C Plan, which, he explains, “emphasizes abstinence, encourages partners to be faithful to one another, and as a very last resort suggests distributing condoms.”
McClusky says most African nations have been using the plan, but in reverse order, emphasizing the use of condoms — which studies have shown are not successful in preventing AIDS.
See Related Story in The Washington Times
(This article courtesy of Agape Press).
