Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced House Resolution 3324, or the “Real Education for Healthy Youth Act” into both chambers of Congress on Wednesday. The bill would require student instruction on both abstinence and contraception. Information taught to youth and young adults will have to be “medically accurate and complete,” meaning the information provided to students will have been verified and supported by scientific research. This bill also prevents federally funded programs from withholding “life-saving” information about the efficacy of using condoms and other contraceptives correctly and consistently.

“Research has shown programs that combine information about abstinence and contraception effectively delay the onset of sexual intercourse, reduce the number of sexual partners, and increase contraceptive use among teens,” said Lee in a statement introducing the bill. “These programs also reduce unintended pregnancy and the transmission of STIs, including HIV.”

“Growing up isn’t easy and our kids find themselves in tough situations every day,” said Lautenberg.  “They need all the information to make smart choices and ‘abstinence-only’ programs don’t work.  It’s time to bring sex education up-to-date to reflect the real life situations facing young Americans.”

The “Real Education for Healthy Youth Act” is a follow-up to H.R. 1085, or the “Repealing Ineffective and Incomplete Abstinence-Only Program Funding Act of 2011,” which was introduced by Lee and Lautenberg earlier this year. That bill, which has 44 co-sponsors in the House and 10 in the Senate, would simply eliminate funding for abstinence-only education programs, while the “Real Education” bill goes into great detail about what sex-ed programs will have to address in order to receive federal money.

Specifically, the bill would prevent federal dollars from funding health-education programs that:

• “deliberately withhold life-saving information about HIV”;
• “are medically inaccurate or have been scientifically shown to be ineffective”;
• “promote gender stereotypes”;
• “are insensitive and unresponsive to the needs of sexually active youth or lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender youth”; or
• “are inconsistent with the ethical imperatives of medicine and public health.”

Grant proposals would be evaluated by the the Office of Adolescent Health and would be rewarded to groups proposing “comprehensive sex education,” defined as a program that includes age- and developmentally-appropriate information on a range of topics related to sexuality and human development, including: relationships, decision-making, communication, abstinence, contraception, disease, pregnancy-prevention, gender identity, sexual orientation, dating violence and bullying. All information must be inclusive of lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender and straight people. Sex-education under this bill would be extended to university-age people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be involved establishing a common set of performance measures to evaluate the effectiveness of grant projects funded through this legislation.

The bill makes note of the “rights of young people to information in order to make healthy and responsible decisions about their sexual health.”

In September, Lee introduced legislation aimed at addressing the ongoing criminalization of persons living with HIV infection. Monica Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), told The American Independent Lee and Lautenberg’s new bill attempts to address the stigma that many persons infected with HIV face in our society.

“It’s problematic when we put the burden on others and it’s dis-empowering … to HIV-infected or people infected with other sexually transmitted diseases,” said Rodriguez, a sexuality educator. “Good sexuality helps people to understand their responsibility to protect themselves.”

SIECUS is among several reproductive-rights and LGBT-advocacy groups that are supporting the “Real Education” bill, including Advocates for Youth, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Chocie America, the Guttmacher Institute, the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Rodriguez said the bill will likely see opposition from organizations that support and benefit from abstinence-only education funding, but certain provisions, she said, should not be negotiable.

“It is unethical not to provide young people with life saving information” Rodriguez said. “Sexual education needs to be based on science and data and reality as opposed to our fantasy about how we wish the world was. We have issues and this bill attempts to address some of them.”

UPDATE: Oct. 6 Amended with a correction.

A new congressional proposal to funnel federal grant money from sex-education programs that instruct in pregnancy and STI-preventive measures into abstinence-only curriculum evokes memories of a similar federally-mandated initiative that emerged during the Bush administration.

The Bush-era Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program received criticism for peddling medical inaccuracies (PDF) and faded upon the advent of the Obama administration. One beneficiary of grant funding was the Palmetto Family Council, whose abstinence-only education curriculum relied heavily on some of the same points criticized throughout the duration of the CBAE program.

In 2008, a government report (PDF) cited the ineffectiveness of CBAE abstinence-only sex-ed programs. At the end of 2009, the Obama administration reduced abstinence-only spending, boosted spending for prevention-oriented programs and totally wiped out the CBAE program, the most controversial of the bunch because funding largely went to anti-abortion-rights organizations and crisis pregnancy centers. Between 2005 and 2009, the federal government expended almost a half-billion dollars in non-matching CBAE grants, according to the federal 2010 budget (PDF).

South Carolina’s Focus on the Family affiliate the Palmetto Family Council (PFC) received $1.2 million in CBAE support in 2008-09 for their abstinence-education project, which went to great lengths in linking sex outside of marriage to depression, according to grant documents recently obtained by The American Independent through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

‘Sex is fire’

Hitting all points of the Bush administration’s eight-point A-H definition of abstinence-only sex education, PFC’s BTrue Youth Leadership Project was designed to dissuade teenagers from having premarital sex by teaching sexual activity within the context of a monogamous marriage is the expected American standard and sex outside of marriage will likely lead to harmful psychological and physical effects.

PFC contracted Charleston, S.C.-based Heritage Community Services to develop the curriculum, which uses a risk-elimination rather than a risk-prevention model, employing the analogy that “sex is fire.” Essentially, the message is that sex, like fire, is safe within the right place but unsafe outside a protected place. In this analogy, the safe, protected place is marriage.

Illustrating this philosophy is a student video on the still-functioning BTrue social-media network (WhyBeTrue.com), in which a boy is shown armed with a helmet and layers of protective gear before he plunges into oncoming traffic; another scene shows the same boy wearing only regular clothes but walking on the shoulder of the highway, out of harm’s way.

To carry out the BTrue program, Palmetto solicited help from church organizations statewide for access to students and meeting spaces. Alex Morales signed a letter saying that his Lino, S.C.-based organization Same Page Ministries would provide access to between 50 and 100 students. Ultimately, Morales provided access to one student, his son, Danny, who serves as the face of the lecture series.

The first lesson of the curriculum begins with Danny explaining the project’s connection to religion:

The message of abstinence of sex until marriage is not a religious message per say. A decision to wait is a decision made every day, by teens of all faiths, and by those who profess no religious faith or belief in God at all. But BTrue is also consistent with the principles of the Christian faith and other religious beliefs. In the BTrue Tube videos, we do not reference the Bible or the teachings of Christ, but we believe that the BTrue cause is a Christian cause.

Organizations such as Washington, D.C.-based Advocates for Youth*, which works for adolescent reproductive and sexual health, and the Sexuality Information Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) have condemned the CBAE program and its biggest curriculum writer, Heritage Community Services, because they claim the program is ineffective at preventing teen pregnancy and STIs, and because it often wields a faith-based component. When asked for comment on Palmetto’s project, Advocates for Life’s Emily Bridges chose to comment on CBAE projects generally.

“We find a ‘one size fits all’ approach to morality to be really problematic,” Bridges said. “Waiting until marriage is a moral goal for many young people, but not ALL young people. Delaying sex until a time when the young person is prepared for safer sex and in a committed relationship is not only a goal that fits within many people’s ideology/moral beliefs, but is also a way the young person can protect themselves from pregnancy, HIV, and STIs. And to do that, they need education about all their options, not just one option.”

Sex outside of marriage = depression

The curriculum, along federal guidelines, focused on the harmful psychological effects of sexual activity outside of marriage.

In PFC’s grant application, curriculum plans were outlined to discuss the “sex related regret & emotional pain” and the “connection between teen sex and depression.” It was encouraged to discuss the importance of beginning the wedding day “regret-free.” The curriculum design also mentioned plans to address “risky behaviors that come with teen sexual activity: alcohol, drugs and violence” and that “marriage decreases such stresses.”

A December 2004 report (PDF) commissioned for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on the efficacy of sex-ed programs such as Palmetto’s outlines specific problems with CBAE, among them medical inaccuracy, such as baseless claims that sex outside of marriage leads to depression and/or mental illness.

Waxman’s report, which evaluated 13 sex-ed curricula, demonstrated that 11 of them included distorted information about the effectiveness of contraceptives and the risks of abortion. The report also found these curricula often blurred religion and science and stereotyped males and females.

In October 2006, the Government Accountability Office released a report (PDF) on the federal government’s efforts to assess the accuracy and effectiveness of federally-funded programs. The report found the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Administration of Children and Families, which awards CBAE grants, did not review its grantees’ education materials for scientific accuracy. Following this revelation, grantees — including PFC — were forced to sign forms declaring their curricula were “medically accurate.”

In May 2008, both PFC President Oran P. Smith and Heritage Community Services CEO Anne Badgley signed a statement declaring: “I hereby attest and certify that all medical materials proposed in this application and funded during the project period of this grant are medically accurate.”

Stan Weed, director of the Institute for Research & Evaluation (IRE), was identified in grant documents as the “3rd party independent evaluator” tasked to review PFC’s project and curriculum. As TAI reported previously, IRE had a relationship with Heritage; specifically Weed developed the “predictors of adolescent sexual initiation,” which is taught to Heritage educators during their training. In the end Weed did not work on the project; Paul Birch, now a senior research associate at Evans Evaluation, whose name is not mentioned in the grant application, was the evaluator.

Abstinence and marriage

Abstinence and marriage are promoted at seemingly equal rates throughout Palmetto’s curriculum. At the end of the second lesson, there are three videos where participating adult staffers discuss what abstinence means to them. One woman, talking about how she rediscovered abstinence after she first started having sex, emphasized how much fun marriage is.

In another the video, a student says marriage between a man and woman is beautiful, which is in direct compliance with CBAE requirements that mandate a one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.

The only way to prevent STIs and unwanted pregnancy, Palmetto’s programs materials suggested, is through marriage. But as Bridges pointed out, that does not leave a lot of room for people who do not necessarily intend to get married, or for gay men and lesbians, for whom marriage in many states is illegal.

“Any program that asks young people to wait until marriage to have sex is inappropriate for gay and lesbian young people, who can’t get married in most states and at the federal level,” Bridges said in an email. “They are being at best ignored and made to feel invisible. They’re being given a choice to either stop being gay; never have sex in their life; or become shameful, emotionally harmed, etc. … They need sex education that helps them protect themselves, not lectures about abstinence until a marriage they can’t legally enter into.”

An excerpt from PFC’s grant proposal, describing how it will promote “healthy marriage,” reads:

A-H legislation is about healthy marriages. PYN [Palmetto Youth Network] will equip youth and adults with skills/knowledge to [1] abstain from sex until marriage, [2] develop healthy relationships and marriages and [3] remain faithful when married. Since 1994, Palmetto Family Council has worked to strengthen SC’s families. Its mission is to promote a positive marriage/family culture by utilizing media and existing community, business and faith networks to promote an understanding of marriage’s central role to the fabric of society and to provide the skills/knowledge needed to form and sustain healthy marriages. … [Heritage Keepers Abstinence Education] teaches students the differences between lust, infatuation and love and the differences in cohabitation and marriage. Why Marriage Matters: 26 Conclusions from the Social Sciences is basic to all curricula.

The “Why Marriage Matters” report (PDF) Palmetto referred to as being “basic to all curricula” in the project was produced by the Institute for American Values, and infused with research and editorial assistance by Maggie Gallagher, who recently stepped down as president of the nation’s leading group working against marriage for gay men and lesbians, the National Organization for Marriage. In 2007, PFC was involved in a campaign to amend South Carolina’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The amendment passed in 2007; it was listed as Palmetto Family’s “top priority” the year before.

*Correction: TAI previously mis-identified the organization Advocates for Youth as Advocates for Life. We regret the error.

The government distributed funds to organizations protesting gay marriage and homosexuality. (Flickr/Dan the Webmaster)

An obscure branch of the federal government responsible for distributing millions of tax dollars to religious organizations is drawing criticism for poor oversight over how federal grant money is spent and an overall lack of transparency. Good-government advocates warn that without rigorous transparency, the likelihood for corruption, ethics violations and unconstitutional spending of tax dollars is high.

[Congress1] The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is a sub-agency of the Department of Human Services. The programs administered by the ACF that religious organizations most often use — Healthy Marriage, Abstinence Only and The Compassion Capital Fund — cost more than $255 million in 2008, according to the most recent annual report on file.

To critics of these programs, this amounts to a dangerous recipe for potential abuse, thanks to the political activities of many of the groups receiving funding.

In South Carolina, the Palmetto Family Council, a local affiliate of the Family Research Council (FRC), was awarded $1.2 million through Healthy Marriage and Abstinence Only grants from 2004 to 2009. According to its blog, the “top priority” for the group in 2006 was South Carolina’s anti-gay marriage amendment. Earlier this month, Palmetto’s president, Oran Smith, condemned public funding of a gay and lesbian group’s annual statewide festival, citing concerns about using “public funds for a festival that is political or indecent or both.”

The Indiana Family Institute, another local FRC affiliate, received $50,000 in direct federal funding and is listed as a third party contractor for the Abstinence Singles/Lake County Marriage Coalition. The Abstinence Singles grant award is $941,000 per year through 2011. Also known as Hoosier Family, the Indiana Family Institute is advocating for an anti-gay marriage amendment in 2010.

The Iowa Family Policy Center (IFPC) received more than $3 million in federal funds to pay for a marriage-mentoring program. The program, called Marriage Matters, was found not to be a third-party contractor but rather a trademark of the outspoken anti-gay group. IFPC has garnered headlines for its opposition to same-sex marriage, including public allegations that homosexuality poses a greater public health risk than second-hand smoke.

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s acceptance of federal funds, coupled with its religious political agenda, prompted the ACLU of Iowa to announce it would investigate whether the funding violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Potential abuses of ACF funding can be difficult to monitor, because the ACF relies on self-reporting by grant recipients to track their own spending. It relies on citizen complaints of wrongdoing to launch an investigation into misuse of funds. And all the while, proactive follow-up by ACF is rare.

President George W. Bush announced the creation of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives after he took office in January 2001. Separation of church and state advocates were outraged when President Barack Obama elected to continue the program under the name Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The day after taking office, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of executive agencies calling for new vigor in fulfilling the public’s need for transparency and openness in government. But for all the authority allotted the ACF, there remains considerable mystery surrounding how grant money is awarded and spent.

Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of New York, said, “I have started using the opening line ‘the promise of transparency is illusory’ in all my Freedom of Information Act requests because it is.”

Amiri has filed more than a half-dozen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the HHS in the last few years. In a recent case, Amiri waited 8 months for a partial FOIA response from the ACF and is still waiting, two years later, for a complete report.

According to the Freedom of Information Act, governmental agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 30 days.

“We can’t sit and wait [for a FOIA] while money is continuing to be spent unconstitutionally, so we sue,” Amiri said. “We [ACLU] have the ability to sue for the information we need, but what about the average citizen? They aren’t going to be able to sue in order to get what is already supposed to be public.”

The Iowa Independent had a similar experience during its investigation of Iowa Family Policy Center. After filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the ACF regarding IFPC, The Iowa Independent waited four months for a partial response and was forced to file a second request – called a reconsideration — for information that was omitted. The ACF has only three full-time Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) specialists on staff, which creates staggering wait times for fulfillment of information requests.

ACF spokesman Kenneth Wolfe never responded to dozens of e-mails and phone calls requesting comment regarding award payment schedules and specifics on the role of the ACF in policing faith-based awards. Wolfe was also asked if a so-called clawback provision exists as a way for the government to recoup money spent inappropriately by faith-based and other grant recipients, another question that was ignored.

These requests for information were included in a certified letter mailed to former Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Carmen Nazario, and then hand delivered to Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families David Hansell after Nazario stepped down in July. Again, the agency failed to respond.

The Assistant Secretary for Children and Families is a politically appointed position.

Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), shares Amiri’s concerns about lack of transparency. CREW was responsible for gaining the release of more than five million “lost” Bush era e-mails, and recently filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting John Yoo’s torture memos.

Weismann said she wishes she could be more optimistic about the Obama mandate for transparency, but the policy isn’t being put into practice.

“Phone calls, faxes and e-mails to executive agencies go unanswered, redactions continue to happen,” she said. “We end up suing the government over and over again for the same type of public information, and the American people end up spending money on unnecessary litigation.”

Wolfe’s refusal to respond to requests for information from The Iowa Independent is not an isolated incident, observers say, as his office has typically been a roadblock to information on taxpayer money to religious organizations instead of an advocate for transparency.

In addition to his former role as a Republican Congressional staffer, Wolfe has been outspoken in his social conservative positions. In response to a lawsuit over abortion assistance given to a minor by Catholic Charities in 2008, he made an official statement in his role as ACF spokesman, “Our agency is one that supports human life, and we take that responsibility seriously.” Catholic Charities organizations throughout the United States receive millions in federal funding.

No matter what the roadblock inside the ACF, limited access to public information regarding federal grant money and lack of transparency remain the norm. Addressing what can be done about continued government opacity, CREW’s Wiesman said, “People need to speak out and continue to speak out about the continued lack of transparency because the administration isn’t getting the point.”

From Bloomberg:

The pledges, made orally or in writing, are viewed by advocates as buttressing federally funded education programs that say avoiding pre-marital sex rather than using protection will curb pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. President George W. Bush’s administration more than doubled the budget for abstinence-only education programs since 1999 to $204 million this fiscal year. More than a dozen states have rejected federal money rather than limit what is taught.

“The results suggest that the virginity pledge does not change sexual behavior,” wrote author Janet Rosenbaum, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Clinicians should provide birth control information to all adolescents, especially abstinence-only sex education participants.”

A 2007 congressional study (PDF) found that abstinence-only programs have “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence,” and students who participate in them become sexually active at the same age and have as many partners as students who participate in more comprehensive sex-ed programs. With Democrats set to control the presidency and both houses of Congress, these studies should spell the end for abstinence-only education.

Ironically, that could be good news for conservatives who are honest about their desire to decrease the number of abortions and curb the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.

3. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

[Sarah Palin]: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

Last year, a comprehensive federal study debunked the effectiveness of abstinence-only education programs. One can only wonder how many girls would find themselves in Bristol’s situation if Alaska, or the United States, enacted the policies favored by her mother.