A new Web site operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.4parents.gov, has drawn fire from gay advocates and others for pushing a right-wing agenda and ignoring issues that GLBT youth often face.
4parents ‘is a guide to help you and your teen discuss important, yet difficult, issues about healthy choices, sex, and relationships,’ according to its home page. It began on March 25.
The Web site was created with the assistance of the National Physicians Center for Family Resources (NPC). The Alabama-based group was paid for its services and has received contracts to run abstinence-only programs. It is anti-choice, with strong ties to Focus on the Family and other social conservative groups.
The site is little more than an online brochure or pamphlet and lacks a search function for easy use. This being a G-rated government Web site, it sticks to clinical terminology not the more common slang that teens typically use to describe sexual acts.
In a March 29 letter to HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) expressed concern that ‘the material on your Web site perpetuates some dangerous misperceptions that could prove harmful to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth and their families.’
It pointed out that the section on sexual orientation can only be accessed through a section on abstinence. ‘Given that abstinence is commonly understood to mean abstinence until marriage and given that LGBT individuals (unless they live in Massachusetts) are denied the ability to legally marry, this is a counter-intuitive place for this discussion.’
HRC was ‘disappointed’ that the Web site ‘focuses mainly on condom failure rates and their ability to be misused … there is absolutely no clear information on how to use condoms properly.’
It asked HHS to address these issues ‘so that it can truly serve its purpose to help parents play vital roles in maintaining our children’s health.’ And it offered to help in making those changes.
Joel Ginsburg, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, called it ‘a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ vision of America’ from the 1950s that doesn’t reflect the world as it is today. ‘It reflects a larger strategy to try to make homosexuality just go away.’
He fears that the Bush administration has ‘decided to let their religious buddies rewrite public health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.’
The presumption seems to be that homosexuality is just another lifestyle choice and ‘people will just walk away once they realize how unhealthy it is.’ Ginsburg says the message to gay kids is, ‘Don’t have sex. EVER. Or maybe, just don’t exist.’
Julie Davids, executive director of CHAMP (Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project), criticized the content ‘for saying that condoms don’t work, while overlooking the flaws of abstinence-promotion programs.’ It also ‘encourages young people to shun people living with HIV.’
CHAMP is urging people to contact Leavitt to tell him to ‘take down the site until you have honest information to support all kinds of healthy families including families living with HIV.’
The Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) has organized 144 national, state and local organizations in a sign-on letter to the Secretary. The letter criticized the site for dictating ‘values and ground rules to parents,’ relying upon ‘fear and shame,’ and distorting the needs of American teens.
It urged Leavitt to take down the Web site until it can be corrected. And it suggested creating a task force of a wide range of experts to review the materials that should be included on the site.