Joe Carter (of both Evangelical Outpost FRC Blog) writes about the potentially dubious actions of Congress in their de-funding of the Baby AIDS program. The democrat party line is that the de-funding was simply the result of earmark reform. However,

I guessed right then. AC suggested that the CDC was actively supporting the promiscuity-promoting conferences, when it was actually only supplying the funding and that via an intermediate organisation. The CDC even sent a letter of strong objection, when prompted by a senator.

Abstinance Clearinghouse, and the FRC, should be quarreling with the STOP AIDS group – not the CDC.

U.S. Warns San Francisco AIDS Group on Funding

On Friday, the Bush administration ordered San Francisco’s STOP AIDS Project to immediately halt several explicit programs that “appear to encourage or promote sexual activity” or risk losing as much as $500,000 a year in federal grants. The order, delivered in a letter from CDC, was prompted by inquiries from Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.). A similar letter warned the San Francisco Department of Public Health to apply stricter oversight to groups like STOP AIDS Project.
[…]
Traditionally, CDC sends prevention money to state and local health departments, which direct it to organizations. CDC is generally loath to dictate specific health polices or to place strict requirements on state health departments. That is why the two-page letter “shocked” STOP AIDS spokesperson Shana Krochmal. “All of our programs are based on the CDC’s own model for doing community-level HIV interventions,” she said.

Mitchell Katz, director of the city health department, defended the workshops and disputed the notion that graphic language encourages sexual activity. If CDC cuts the funds to groups like STOP AIDS, the city will find ways to keep the programs running, Katz said.

After a two-day site review last year, CDC investigators concluded that the “design and delivery of STOP AIDS prevention activities was based on current accepted behavioral science theories in the area of health promotion,” Gerberding wrote in February. She also praised the group for securing the required local review. But in Friday’s letter, Gerberding said the local review process is insufficient, and she intends to change it.

Something is odd in that program list. The CDC shouldn’t be funding them, true… and I cant see *why* the CDC would fund them, or *how* they could in the current political climate without incuring immediate attention from above. I do not trust this “Abstinance clearinghouse” site, and suspect they may have been either exagerating, or attributing programs to the CDC when there is really only a very tenuous connection.

Thay should be ashamed of what they’ve done. Where is their conscience?