MAP Advocate
AIDS Advocacy Update
Vol. 9 No. 7
March 20, 2003
Then let's do that. One way to talk to your friends is to email your MAP Advocate to two or three or four or five people who you think should know about what's going on at the State Capitol. Another, is to send in that letter to the editor.
Never done it before? Well, now is the time. Whatever paper you read - Fargo Forum, Pioneer Press, City Pages, The Eastsider, Brainerd Daily Dispatch - they need to hear from you. Click here for some pointers, to find an e-mail address for your local paper, or to read a great example of a submitted letter to the editor that was published.
Read proposed abstinence-only-until-marriage legislation.
Get clicking!
Let's be perfectly clear, it is the words and deeds of those like Rep. Arlon Lindner [R-Corcoron] that drives much of the HIV epidemic in Minnesota and this nation. Lindner is the chief architect for the drive to repeal human rights protections based on sexual orientation. Repeatedly, he has said is "what I'm trying to prevent is the Holocaust of our children from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases".
In a contentious House debate on March 10 he added, "If you want to sit around and wait until America becomes another African continent, you do that, but I'm going to do something." It is not that a person is gay that causes HIV, it is the fact there is a nasty, nasty virus out there combined with risky behaviors. And, again, let's be clear, many of these risky behaviors are manifestations of issues of self esteem and well-being that are a result of growing up in a society that says, "it's okay to hate and hurt people who are gay."
It is the hate--and the resulting stigma, discrimination and violence that drives this epidemic, and not the other way around as Mr. Lindner and his friends choose to believe.
But, what the backers of this bill are telling us and the media now are things like "we support human rights" and "that bill just goes way too far." They are saying, "we're just concerned about pushing the homosexual agenda and teaching homosexuality in the schools." Yup. The line of attack on GLBT rights is shifting to the schools and the target is to impose abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum mandates on all schools.
Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton) wants it to look like a "reasonable compromise." After all, all it does is change the state law requiring school districts to provide HIV/STD education by suggesting that in addition to providing comprehensive, technically accurate information, schools districts "must provide curriculum on and instruction in abstinence until marriage premised on risk avoidance."
Never mind the fact that after over 20 years of federal funding for such efforts, there is no credible, research-based evidence to show this approach to sexual health education works. In a time when our public dollars are precious and few, they are asking us to replace what works with an ideology-based curriculum that does not. SF747 introduced by Sen. Wergin (R-Princeton) does the same thing.
The bill has bi-partisan support and was introduced with 30 co-authors. The companion bill will be introduced in the Senate by Sen. Mee Moua (DFL-St Paul) on March 13. The Sex Ed for Life Coalition, co-convened by MAP and MOAPPP (Minnesota Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention and Parenting), is backing the Davnie/Moua bill.
A copy of the bill and more is available by clicking here.
The request for $350,000 over the next two years (HF715)
was introduced in the House by Rep. Mindy Greiling (DFL-Roseville) and
will be introduced in the Senate on March 13 by Sen. Steve Kelley (DFL-Hopkins).
The regional training sites are located in Brainerd, Grand Rapids, Park
Rapids, Winona and Hopkins. They offer training and assistance to surrounding
school districts and have become integral partners in providing HIV/STD
general awareness and prevention services throughout the state.
A copy of the bill and more is available by clicking here.
Started at the end of 2001, the bill will continue funding through the Department of Economic Security (DES) at the level of $75,000 for two more years. DES contracted with Minnesota AIDS Project to provide the service.
MAP also secured assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and will be launching the new Wise @ Work service in April. The service aims to reduce workplace discrimination and disruptions in productive, and to reach families with general information about HIV prevention and care.
Contact Doug Flateau, MAP workplace services representative for more information at wiseatwork@mnaidsproject.org, 612-341-2060 or 800-248-2437.
A copy of the bill and more is available by clicking here.
The brochure is one of over three-dozen produced by ETR Associates - one of the nation's most respected providers of health promotion materials, and distributed by request to MAP's clients and through the MAP AIDSLine. The brochure in question is called "5 Smart Steps to Condoms." It is distributed to sexually active adults and specifically addresses strategies for incorporating condom use into sexual patterns. It doesn't address everything about HIV, STDs, abstinence, safer sex or condom use that is part of the Family Council's basis for complaint. We have other brochures to do that. This brochure addresses one thing and only for certain people-those who are sexually active adults.
All materials distributed through services funded by the Minnesota Department of Health, and the MAP AIDSLine is one of those services, must be submitted to the state to be reviewed for accuracy and appropriateness for the intended audience. This brochure went through that process.
Cutting to the chase, the Family Council's attack is yet another example of misrepresenting the facts in an effort to replace what works - scientific and research-based public health, with ideology-based public health that has never been proven to work.
HF352 and SF570 would essentially require frightened teens who might want screening for HIV or STDs or have questions about pregnancy or substance abuse to show up with a permission slip from their parents before they can receive health care services. The bill prohibits schools from providing any such services - i.e., no condoms available through school-based health services - and repeals the state's minors' consent law.
It also prohibits minors who are mothers from consenting to health services for themselves or their child without asking their parents - unless they are married. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), confidential health services for adolescents have become increasingly important as the severity and prevalence of adolescent health problems have increased over the past two decades.
The good news is, according to AMA's Council on Scientific Affairs, most adolescents (55 percent) discuss their use of reproductive health services with their parents, and a greater number of adolescents involve their parents in the event of an unplanned pregnancy. The bad news: AMA reported 25 percent of teens would not seek medical care if it meant their parents finding out they are sexually active.
Click here to learn more and to read these bills.
If you have a comment or wish to unsubscribe to the MAP Advocate e-mail list service, please contact MAP Public Policy by phone or e-mail.
MAP Public Policy
Minnesota AIDS Project
1400 Park Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55404
612-341-2060
800-373-2437
communityaffairs@mnaidsproject.org
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