Teen Health Now is a group of young people across the state of North Carolina working towards eliminating federally abstinence-only programs in NC, adopting a comprehensive sex education policy in the state's health curricula, and changing local policy to support comprehensive sex education in communities. We also work t o raise awareness for many other teen reproductive health issues. Part of our goal for this year is to train and mobilize other young people across the state.  We are doing this by hosting free trainings and events for young people! This spring Shelby Knox is coming to Chapel Hill, NC, to speak at a community forum about sex education.  We are also hosting a free, day long training on the topic of online organizing and advocacy at UNC Chapel Hill. This training is on Saturday, March 27 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.   Any youth can attend (you can RSVP to the Facebook event here).  This is an amazing opportunity to learn from national leaders in online activism, so please consider attending.  If you know any young people who may be interested, spread the word!  Check out the official event description:

Learn how to make your voice heard! 

 

We need your help! Teen Health Now, a project of Advocates for Youth and the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, is a youth activist network in North Carolina that works towards making comprehensive sexuality education available to all young people in North Carolina's middle and high schools.  Recently the Healthy Youth Act was signed into law, and now it is up to us young people to make our voices heard and ensure that the new sex education curriculum is implemented in all schools.  We need your help to make this happen.

 

Teen Health Now is hosting a 1-day training on Online Organizing and Advocacy this March! Using the Internet and online social media networks is a powerful and effective way to be an activist for change.  This training focuses on how to take your advocacy to the next level, and is centered around reproductive health and sexual health and rights.  

 

Take your activism to the next level and learn about advocacy related to reproductive health issues.  This daylong event will also include training on how to incorporate online organizing tactics such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. Also become knowledgeable about the Healthy Youth Act and the implications the new law poses for youth and sex education in North Carolina.  

 

Learn how to:

- Create Facebook groups and use them to generate interest about your reproductive health issue

- Tweet with purpose

- Blog effectively and reach a large number of people with your message

 

This is a FREE training.  We will also provide your breakfast, lunch, and a free t-shirt.

 

Don’t miss this chance to attend a FREE training by Advocates for Youth, a national leader in online organizing.

 

To register: Visit http://www.appcnc.org/training and follow the directions to create a user name and password on APPCNC’s website.  Once you’ve done that, click on “Youth Trainings” and register from there.  If you have problems registering, please contact Mary using the information below.

 

If you have questions about this training, please contact Mary Martin Vance, Teen Health Now Coordinator at mvance@appcnc.org or 919.226.1880.

 

This training is co-sponsered by VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood at UNC, Advocates For Youth, and the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina

 

Hey!  Last week I wrote about an amazing performance at my school by an activist and performer Marie Garlock.  She explores the politics of development, HIV and the body, and sex education through dance and theater.  It was an absolutely amazing performance, and I now have video!! This is an Amplify exclusive because I shot the video just for Amplify and edited together several of the highlights of the show.   Check out my post from last week and then watch:

The bill the House passed in November barred abortion funding in programs directly funded by the federal government. But it also banned it in private insurance plans that cover abortion if those plans are federally subsidized. (NPR).

Abortion is a politically charged issue that is at the forefront of the current debate over healthcare. Initially, Democrats didn’t want to change or mess with abortion policy at all; they wanted to maintain the status quos as set by the Hyde Amendment. In 1977 the Hyde amendment barred federal funding for abortion and at first Health Care Reform was not going to change this. But then Stupak and Pitts came along and the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was passed. The effect of this :

“Anyone receiving a subsidy for their premium from the government would not be allowed to choose a plan that includes abortion and that would apply to about 85 percent of people participating in the exchange," said Jessica Arons. She's Director of the Women's Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress.(NPR)

So basically, anti-choice legislators used Health Care Reform as an opportunity to stigmatize abortion and make it less accessible for women. This is upsetting, because the whole point of health care reform is to improve health care for all Americans. Abortion is health care. Limiting access to abortion in the process of expanding health care is not Ok, and it would be a major step backwards.

The House bill is more restrictive of abortions then the Senate bill, and currently Democratic leadership hopes to have the House vote on the Senate bill with the Senate abortion language included. Then the Senate would vote on a combined House and Senate bill, and this process of reconciliation only requires a simple majority vote. It could pass without a “supermajority” that Democrats lost recently in the Senate, and it could pass SOON. This is good news. It means that the American people could get meaningful HCR that doesn’t further restrict abortion coverage in the ways that the Stupak Pitts amendment would have done.

This also means that our Representatives have a choice: either vote for a bill that DOES NOT further restrict abortion coverage, or vote against Health Care Reform. I would just like to remind our legislators that abortion IS healthcare, and that they must pass Health Care Reform without restricting abortion coverage.

Emergency Contraception (EC), the hormone birth control method used to prevent pregnancy up to three days after unprotected sex, was mocked recently by The Onion.  This made me laugh so hard I had to share it on Amplify: (if the embed below doesn't work click this link)



The Onion makes this joke for a reason.  Currently, EC is not available to everyone.  Obtaining EC is much more difficult than going into Taco Bell and ordering a burrito.  The Onion makes this contrast to show that EC is just a way to prevent pregnancy, like condoms.  Far right-wing politicians and pro-life activists, however, have worked hard to ensure that Emergency Contraception is hard to get. Recently the FDA allowed EC to be given to those over age 18 without a prescription, which was a great step forward.   Anyone under the age of 17 needs a prescription, and many emergency rooms do not have EC on hand.  

With 95% of the 800,000 teenagers pregnancies a year in the United States being unintended, it is vital that we work to ensure everyone has access to Emergency Contraception.  You can read more about the controversy here and sign the petition here to make EC available to all women.  

Sex. It is a topic that is discussed on TV, in music, in Washington by our politicians, at dining room tables, and now....at the Winter Olympic games in Vancouver.

Luckily, the discussion in Vancouver isn't about morals or shame around sex, but about safe sex. 100,000 condoms were shipped to the Olympic Villages where the athletes live in Whistler and Vancouver. The Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research provided them. 100,000 condoms are a lot; this means there were at least 14 condoms for every athlete.

Apparently, many athletes have ditched their earlier theory of no sex before a game or competition. There was a shortage of condoms, and another 8,500 were airlifted to Vancouver! The executive director of he Canadian Foundation for AIDS research, who authorized the shipment, said:

"When we heard about the condom shortage in Vancouver, we felt it important to respond immediately. Safer sex is key to preventing the spread of the HIV virus."

Amen! It is awesome that in Canada a shortage of condoms is cause for alarm. Imagine if condoms were distributed at high school football games in the US...parents and conservative action groups would panic, the person distributing the condoms would probably get in trouble, and it would most likely not end well. Sure, distributing condoms to adults at the Olympics is different that distributing them to high school students. Even the Great American Condom Campaign, a project that distributes millions of condoms every year on college campuses, does not distribute condoms among high school students. How many teens became pregnant or caught an STD shortly after a high school football game? Probably a lot. Since we are not very open about condoms and safe sex in the United States, to many teens just don’t bother using them.

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Most of the information and stories I hear about sex education are negative.  Many schools in America teach abstinence-only, and too many young people leave high school with an incomplete knowledge of sexual health. Today, I am going to share a more positive story.

I go to Carolina Friends School, a private Quaker school that is very liberal and open about sex and sexual health. I took our required "Adolescent Health" class last year, and it was a positive experience for me.  Working as an activist for sex education has made me appreciate the program I have at my school; I am lucky to have a comprehensive sex-ed program.  The class is offered every semester both as a co-ed and a single sex class.  Teachers who usually teach other subjects teach the class, but they have to have a complete knowledge of sexual health to be allowed to teach Adolescent Health.

We talk about basic anatomy, sexual identity, how to protect against pregnancy and STD’s, and talk about what constitutes a good relationship.  We are told that abstinence is the best way to prevent pregnancy and STD’s because it is the only method that is 100% effective.  We are also told that if we are going to have sex, there are many ways to stay safe and then we learn about all forms of birth control.  We also read interesting news articles about relationship issues and gender issues, and discuss what it means to respect our partner.  The most important thing I took away from the class was the point about discussing birth control and condom use BEFORE an intimate experience.  It can be very hard to have a talk about using condoms right before sex is about to happen, it is better to establish ground rules before hand so when the time comes both partners are on the same page.

Our teachers are always completely open and honest, and if they do not know the answer to something they find out and discuss it next class.  We also always take a trip to the local Planned Parenthood, where health educators and doctors talk about sexual health and ways to stay safe.  Since Planned Parenthood staff work with these issues everyday, they are very helpful.  The PP people also talk about what services Planned Parenthood offers.

We are also encouraged to be an active member of our community at my school, and I was allowed to organized a trip to the state legislature with my health class.  We talked with elected officials and encouraged them to vote in favor of a comprehensive sex education law.  The law passed last year, so now all schools in NC will be teaching comprehensive sex education!

I feel that it is extremely difficult to talk honestly with a partner about sex.  It is much easier to enjoy the relationship, and to push the tough questions into the future and "deal with them later."  In truth, too many young people do not ever face the tough questions because people do not feel comfortable talking about it.  The sex "just happens" without proper thought going into protection.  An open, honest discussion with peers and teachers at school helps with this immensely. I have practiced talking with people about condom use, so now it is much easier to face the issues in my relationships and talk BEFORE the fact about using protection.  Condoms are also available at school, and we can go into a teacher’s office and take some at any time.  This ensures that all of the students at my school are safe.

So far, things are working well.  There have been almost no pregnancies ever at my high school.  This program works well for parents, too.  My parents are happy I am getting this information at school because they do not have to talk with me about it at home.  And while I do respect my parents, I would MUCH rather hear about how to stay safe from a Planned Parenthood staff person than my mom.  Lets face it…thinking about parents and sex at the same time is kind of awful.

Overall, I strongly encourage all schools to embrace an open, complete, accurate comprehensive sex education program. This comprehensive approach helps teens make healthy decisions and opens up conversations among youth about using protection.  I am lucky to go to a school that has this, but the sad truth is that many other people do not.

What does your school teach? Do you think you know all the facts about sexual health and are you comfortable talking with a partner about protection? If you did not learn about sexual health in school, where did you get your information?

I take a modern dance class at school, and it is very enjoyable. I find it a fun way to relax, get some exercise, and be creative during an otherwise stressful day filled with academic subjects. I never thought my dance class would be a way to explore social issues and health issues, but last week I discovered I was wrong!

Marie Garlock wrote a dance/storytelling performance piece called {it is in you}: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania.  It was based on her experience living in Tanzania and working with HIV peer health educators, performing artists and health justice activists and experts. She did a residency at my high school last week, and she taught two class periods of my dance class. She also performed the piece in its entirety for the entire school. Working with Marie was an absolutely amazing experience. I learned about HIV/AIDS and other health issues in a way I had never done before: using performance and dance. Marie describes what she does on her website:

Garlock journeys forward with "{it is in you}: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania," exploring the politics of development, HIV and the body, and seeking to honor the insights of East African friends and educators, through storytelling and movement.

In our class, Marie asked us to stand in partners and react to questions using our bodies and creative movement. She asked for a guy, what the primary purpose of sex was. She then asked for a girl. Once we moved and took a certain shape, she explained how the answers, on average, differ between cultures. The answers vary a lot between men and women, no matter the culture. They also reveal a large problem. She told us that globally, the primary reason for a girl to have sex is for an exchange for a marriage proposal. For a guy, it is to know for sure that the girl belongs to him and will not cheat.

She then did a similar exercise about violence in relationships, and what a girl should do if she experiences violence from a boyfriend. The sad truth around the world is that many girls often do not have anyone to go to, and they end up HIV positive along with facing violence. Experiencing this through movement was so intriguing, and I left the class with a very different perspective on the issues of sexual health cross culturally. 

We face certain challenges here at home, and in Tanzania youth face challenges that are sometimes very similar. Male dominance in relationships is a problem both where I live in North Carolina and in Tanzania. This similarity is important because it unites us. Both in developed parts of the world such as the US and in developing places such as Tanzania, there is a pressure for men to "show strength" and "be masculine" without necessarily thinking about protection and safety. For women, there is pressure to "be in a committed relationship/marriage before sex" before all else. One of the most exciting goals of the {It Is In You} project is to link across cultures to understand our common human experience and common battle against AIDS. Many of the same kinds of issues confront young people where I live in NC and in Tanzania or East Africa. The reason for asking us questions and seeing how we react was to see what the differences are between young men's and young women's motivations for relationships. The exercise helped me see the connections between what we think at my high school, what our national culture thinks, and what our friends in Tanzania think.

I had learned about these sorts of issues before, but experiencing the emotions and scenarios that Tanzanians experience made it real for me. I felt that I could relate to a person in Tanzania with HIV and think of them as an individual, as opposed to a statistic. I think this is a problem that activists face in the United States. We want to help, but it can be hard to think about life from the perspective of someone living in a place so different.

Doing the dance performance work helped with this. When we were asked questions and answered them with movement, I was fascinated by the discoveries I was having. Internally, I simply felt how culture around sexuality could be degrading and harmful.  The idea that I could think about issues that I care about just by moving my body was very new and interesting.  I learned that thinking intellectually can only get us so far, and relating to others and figuring out how we really feel sometimes needs to be done through art and dance rather than just intellectualizing and trying to think through everything.

The piece was performed in Tanzania with peer health educators, and the work that Marie is doing in Tanzania is truly amazing! The performance also touched on US AID funding, PEPFAR and the right wing abstinence-only policy that was exported to Africa, and wisdom from the traditional cultures in Tanzania.

I recorded some video from Marie’s performance, and I will be uploading this to Amplify sometime next week. She lists other performance dates on her website, if you live in any of these places I encourage you to go to the performance.

Marie is also a co-founder of Triangle Dance Festival for AIDS, and the Teen Health Now youth advocacy group will have a booth at this event!  To keep up with Teen Health Now and come to our trainings and events, become a fan on Facebook!

The Olympics have officially started, and I am very excited. I am huge Winter Olympics fan!

Lindsey Vonn, American downhill skier, posed for the cover of Sports Illustrated recently. They titled the cover story "America's Best Woman Skier Ever." Lindsey Vonn is an amazing athlete, and if she is able to recover from her recent shin injury she may take home a lot of gold medals this year.  Vonn is also blond, young, and attractive. There is some controversy over the Sports Illustrated cover. Some say that because she is young and attractive she was put in a sexual pose, and that the intent behind putting her on the cover was to highlight her sex appeal not her athleticism. Check out the picture:

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Candidate for US Senate Harold Ford Jr. talked with Stephen Colbert last night about abortion and gay marriage.  Harold Ford is a Democrat, and a former congressman from Tennessee.  He recently moved to NY, and has come under heat for changing his position on some important issues.  Tennessee is much more conservative than New York, and for the most part you have to be a moderate democrat to win in the south.  Most congressmen in the south are anti-choice and anti-gay marriage.   In the past, Ford had said that he is opposed to gay marriage and opposed to abortion.  Now, he spins his abortion argument differently, and sounds pro-choice.  Ford recently said that he was now FOR gay marriage, and explained his change in stance on the Colbert Report:

I've been out of politics for the last four years, and I've thought long and hard about it.  I've had some different thoughts.  I've got a wife that believes in it (gay marriage), I've had friends and others who have helped educate me on this. It's a changed position.  

Great for Harold Ford!  Perhaps not all politicians are stubborn and close-minded, I think it is respectable that he was able to change his mind like this.  Some say that he changed his stance just to get elected, and while I am sure there is some truth there, he still is doing an admirable thing by admitting he was wrong before and not supporting marriage equality.

The interview from the Colbert Report was very interesting, and I have included the video below.

Here in the United States, youth face many challenges with regards to sexual health and reproductive rights.  I have been involved in the fight for accurate sex education where I live, because I have seen the damaging affects of abstinence-only sex education and wanted to help change this ineffective program.  The challenges that youth face in the United States are NOTHING compared to the challenges that youth face in the developing world.  

In Bangladesh, a 16-year-old girl was raped, became pregnant, and was sentenced to a cruel and harsh punishment. The Young Turks covered this story:

(The first three minutes are the facts of what happened, the remaining time covers the reaction and opinion to the story.  If you don't want to watch the whole thing, just check out the beginning.)



This story is heartbreaking. I cannot imagine how hard this is for the girl, she did NOTHING wrong and she is treated like a criminal. Imagine if this happened to you. It is so terrible and so upsetting that I do not know how to express it in words. For me, this puts my "first world problems" in perspective.  We youth face challenges everyday here in America, but compared to this story, we have it relatively easy.

Rights are universal, cultures are different. This type of religious fundamentalism needs to stop. Like the man said in the above video, people who commit evils like this and justify their actions with God are bad people that need to be stopped. I do not believe that the United States should go to other countries and attempt push western style modern democracy on them, and I have a lot of respect for Islam and traditional cultures all over the world. However, the Untied States has immense power in the international community. Who we trade with, who we give aide to, and what international programs we fund have a huge impact in countries like Bangladesh. While we should NOT try to get every village to look like a town in the USA, we have a responsibility to protect the rights of people like this girl who was raped. Complications of pregnancy (including unsafe abortions) are the number 1 cause of death among young women in the developing world. Female genital mutilation happens at an alarmingly high rate. This practice is evil, disgusting, and wrong, and needs to be stopped.  

You can take action and sign the petition to US congress to increase family planning assistance in developing nations.  

Rights are universal, but cultures are different. Activism in countries where the culture is radically different is very complicated and difficult, but we have a responsibility to end such practices as victim blaming, unsafe abortions, and FGM in developing countries. To read more, check out Amplify's page about sexual reproductive health and rights in South Asia (which includes Bangladesh), as well as this great article on culture and sexuality called "Youth and State of Culture" on the Advocates For Youth website.
 

A year or two ago, the thought of going into NC public schools and training teachers how to teach comprehensive sex education would have seemed crazy.  Schools were required to adhere to a strict abstinence-only policy, unless they went through a long, complicated, messy public hearing process

Last June, youth activists in North Carolina helped pass a law that mandates schools to teach "all FDA-approved methods of contraception."  The law also requires schools to teach about STD's and sexual assault, and requires that schools provide opportunities for students and parents to have a dialogue about sexual health.  This is a GREAT opportunity for all schools in North Carolina to step up their sex education, and start teaching students the skills and information we need to stay safe.  

The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina (APPCNC) is hosting trainings in public schools all around the state aimed at helping teachers and administrators implement a new curriculum or comprehensive sex education.  I was able to help out at one of these trainings, and I was so impressed!  About 30 teachers and administrators showed up, and  all were committed to helping teens learn about sexuality and sexual health.  We went over in detail what schools need to teach in the next school year in sex education, programs that are proven to work, funds that are available, and shared strategies for creating a safe space to talk about sex and sexual health.  

In the past, teachers were not allowed to talk honestly about sexual health.  One teacher said that she constantly heard rumors froms students about ways to stay "safe", such as washing or exercising after unprotected sex.  She could only talk about abstinence in the classroom, and could not encourage students who were sexually active to use protection.  Now, this is all changing, and it is really great news for NC's young people.  

I talked about why youth deserve accurate information and why youth should be involved in creating curriculum for sex education.  Young people both want and need this information in order to be safe. It is really important that we get accurate information from informed adults, because if we don’t, we will only get misinformation from the media, the internet, and our peers.  Unlike history or math, which are relatively uncontrovertail topics, sex education involes our values, our social lives, and our personal health. These can be difficult topics to talk about, but there it is so important that we do.   

I was so happy to see 30 adults come together to learn about these issues, it is clear that they are committed to young peoples sexual reproductive health.  All schools in North Carolina have an unprecedented opportunity to overhaul sex education.  First, they are now required to by law to include more information.  Second, groups like the APPCNC are providing FREE trainings to schools and teachers so that everyone can learn how to better teach sex ed.  Third, the federal government is now funding comprehensive sex education under the new budget, and a lot of that money goes directly to local school boards.  

Youth and adults have worked side by side to help solve the problems of teen pregnancy and soaring STD rates, and we are making great progress.  I am confident that all NC public schools will put in place better, comprehensive sex ed programs and that we will see a decrease in teen pregnancy as teens learn valuable information about sexual health.

 Last Tuesday, Republican Scott Brown was elected to the Senate seat left vacant by the tragic death of Senator Ted Kennedy.  Leah627 wrote a great post about the Massachusetts (Massastupids?) meltdown, and how Scott was able to win the election.  

In his victory speech, Scott Brown said that his two daughters are available.  It was pretty bad.  Check out this video:  

Feministing has a post up about this, but I wanted to go into it in a little more detail.  Sure, Scott Brown was just making a joke about his daughter (clearly an attractive woman) being single, but it was very not cool with me.  He clearly embarrassed his daughter, and acted like a total jerk by saying something inappropriate.  He also made it clear that he views the sexuality of women as things to be given up to another man, which goes against a vision of healthy sexuality where people are free to do with their bodies what they want.

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On last nights show, Colbert covered the invention of a sex robot that has touch sensors and the ability to download different personalities.  (Note, the above video above is short and hilarious, please watch it.  IF you cannot get the embedded video to work, you can watch the clip here).  Because, as Colbert said,

When you're talking about a sex robot, the first question most guys as is 'how is her personality?' 

Touche, Stephen...I am LMAO, if I dare use a acronym such as that in a blog post.  

Here are my thoughts on sex robots: It takes the human joy of sexuality out of sexual intercourse, and it is not a healthy form of sexual expression.  Having sex with a simulation of a woman is not an ok substitute for having sex with someone you respect.  In my mind, sex robots like these are designed to make men treat women as bodies, and not as people with emotions, thoughts, and spirits.  By removing the actual woman from the whole experience, sex dolls are the realization of a society that too often ignores the person part of a woman, and only focuses on the sexual parts.  Furthermore, it reinforces heteronormativity the only type of sex that happens is one man and one woman. This stigmatises and marginalizes some forms of gender and sexuality.

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I wrote earlier this week about the homophobic legislation being considered in Uganda, the one the gives a death sentence to LGBTQ people.  I have some more news about how United States politicians are affecting this legislation, through a group called “The Family”, which runs The C-Street house in Washington DC. On ‘Fresh Air’ on NPR, Terry Gross did an interview with Jeff Sharlet, who is the author of the bestseller The Family, “about the secretive fundamentalist group that promotes its anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-free market ideas with the help of several Congressman and Senators who are connected to the group, including John Ensign, Bart Stupak, Joe Pitts, James Inhofe, Tom Coburn, Charles Grassley and Zach Wamp. The Family is active in America and around the world.”

The Family has been heavily involved the Uganda anti-homosexuality bill.  They lend political and economic aide to proponents of the bill, and the person who introduced the anti-homosexuality law is a member of The Family in Uganda.  

According the Jeff Sharlet’s book and his appearances on the Daily Show, Rachael Maddow, and Fresh Air, The Family believes in a different teaching of jesus Christ.  Rather than help for the masses, the poor, and the meek, The Family believes that Jesus’ message was meant for an elite group of people.  I recommend listening to the Fresh Air interview with Sharlet, as it was fascinating. 

Some of these ‘select few’ people live in the C Street house in DC and have become very powerful in American politics.  The C-street house is a tax-exempt church in DC that provides below market priced housing for congressmen. Governor Mark Sanford and Senator Ensign are members of this group, as well as Representatives Bart Stupak and Joe Pitts.  The Family prides itself on being bipartisan, Bart Stupak and Bill Nelson are among its Democrat members.  Having extramarital affairs is excused, because chosen leaders do not have to follow the rules.  The Family also believes that Hitler, Stalin and Mao understood the New Testament the best, and the Family studies these leaders carefully.  The Family teaches that Jesus’ message was not about peace, mercy, and justice; it was about power.  More power for powerful people, not peace and love for the masses.  The idea is that the powerful have the right to pass blessings onto the poor, kindof like  trickle down theory for love, peace and justice. 

The Family does not sound like a fundamentalist Christian group, but a different interpretation of Jesus teachings altogether. They apply this to politics.  They believe in biblical capitalism, which opposes all regulation of markets because it interferes with the “invisible hand” idea, which they literally believe to be God. According to Jeff Sharlet, the Family has been involved in international affairs for the last 50 years.   The Family identifies leaders of countries where they think God chose the leader, and they try to get that person to focus on very traditional, conservative values.  United States Senator Inhofe has traveled to Africa more than 20 times on missionary trips, using tax payer dollars, to promote the political philosophy of Jesus as taught by the Family.  

This group is pretty scary.  They oppose gay rights, women’s rights, abortion, programs to help the poor, and comprehensive sex education.  They identify leaders and sometimes dictators of foreign countries and they lend political and economic aide in promoting these policies.  The Family also believes in what is called “male headship,” and women in The Family act like a maid service for the males in the group.  They believe women should live their lives submissively and in service to men.

Sharlet promoted his book In a recent interview with NPR's Terry Gross, and he broke the news that The Family has significant influence in the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. Terry Gross asked him about the Uganda anti-homosexuality bill:

The legislator that introduced the bill, a guy named David Bahati, is a member of The Family," he said. "He appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda.

When asked how he found all this out, Sharlet said,   

You follow [the] money.  You look at their archives. You do interviews where you can. It's not so invisible anymore. So that's how working with some research colleagues we discovered that David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family's work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni's kind of right-hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family's National Prayer Breakfast. And here's a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda's executive office and has been very vocal about what he's doing, in a rather extreme and hateful way. But these guys are not so much under the influence of The Family. They are, in Uganda, The Family.”

This is shocking.  The Family, who seems to control dozens of American congressmen, also has incredible power in Africa.  More from the interview:

"The Family identified [Museveni] back in 1986 as a key man for Africa. They wanted to steer him away from neutrality or leftist sympathies and bring him into conservative American alliances, and they were able to do so. They've since promoted Uganda as this bright spot - as I say, as this bright spot for African democracy, despite the fact that under their tutelage, Museveni has slowly shifted away from any even veneer of democracy: imprisoning journalists, tampering with elections, supporting - strongly supporting this Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009.”

This, of course, is the bill that would KILL any HIV positive gay person for having sex, and imprison people for life for having any homosexual sex.

The Family scares me, and we all need to be aware of what they are doing.  As a young person, I am shocked that a semi-secret organization like this has existed (since the 1930’s) and has not been stopped. Taxpayer funded missionary trips to Africa to promote the political philosophy of Jesus Christ is wrong, no matter what your religious beliefs are.  Promoting a bill that would kill some gay people is disgusting and horrific, even if you hold the belief that gays should not be allowed to marry.  The Family is not a crazy conspiracy theory, everything I wrote about has been fact checked  by many major news outlet and experts who study The Family.  Evangelical influence in Uganda got attention from the New York Times on Monday, and Advocates for Youth has also written about this on their website

If your congressmen is a member of the family, please do everything you can where you live to help stop reelection. We young people need to ask ourselves, “Do we want to live in a world where a group like this wields such immense power over domestic and international affairs?” The answer to this is NO. What the Family is doing is wrong, and it needs to be stopped.   

 I am shocked by the recent happenings in Uganda.  The African country  Uganda is considering a bill that would impose the death penalty on HIV positive men who have committed what is called "aggravated homosexuality," which basically means having gay sex if you are HIV positive.  Lemme make this clear: you will be PUT TO DEATH for having sex with someone of the same gender if you test positive for HIV, if this bill becomes law.  The punishment for having gay sex in Uganda if you are not HIV positive IS LIFE IMPRISONMENT.

Also, according to this Times Online article, The bill proposes a three-year prison sentence for anyone who is aware of evidence of homosexuality and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. And it would impose a sentence of up to seven years for anyone who defends the rights of gays and lesbians.

This, my friends, is the most homophobic piece of legislation I have ever heard of in my life.  It is scary.  It makes me angry. If this bill passes, it would be the largest step back for gay rights in a long time.  From this excellent NYT article this morning, 

Anti-gay sentiments are one thing, and hardly unique to Uganda. But what seems different here is the level of official, government-sponsored anti-gay hate speech.

"I detest gays in my heart", said Kassiano E. Wadri, a member of Parliament and the chief whip of the opposition. “When I see a gay, I think that person needs psychotherapy. You need to break him."

In the same NYT article, which goes over some personal stories of Ugandan's who have to deal with this on a daily basis, they report this about a trans-man's experience:

A policeman jabbed a finger in his eye, he said, someone threw a beer in his face at a bar, and a security guard at a minimarket pistol-whipped him simply for trying to buy groceries.

I glad that the United States opposes this bill, and I am grateful that I have the freedom to speak out against this bill with out fear of being arrested.  We all have this freedom in America, and I think it is our duty to use it.  You can write a letter to Obama urging him to help stop Uganda's dangerously homophobic new bill, but thankfully the White House has issued this statement:

The President strongly opposes efforts, such as the draft law pending in Uganda, that would criminalize homosexuality and move against the tide of history,” (via The Advocate) 

You can talk to your friends about this and alert them to the dangers of this new bill. You can donate money (even a very small amount) to groups that have been active in opposing this bill.  As activists, we have the freedom to speak out, and let us make sure this legislation does not pass.  

The Health Care debate is getting pretty messed up. Want proof?

Majority Leader Reid is using the health-care bill to restore funding for abstinence-only sex education programs that liberals (such as Mr. Reid himself) have spent the past three years trying to zero out.  (via WJS)

 What! Senator Ried, WHY!   This is bad news. 

 Senator Harry Ried fought ab-only education for years during the Bush administration, and introduced the Prevention First Act to redirect money from ab-only programs to comprehensive sex ed. 

My question is why is ab-only back in the health care bill!?

The answer is that Harry Ried wants the bill to pass, no matter what, even if it sacrifices the public option and restores abstinence-only sex education.  He put back ab-only because he wants to get Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln and North Dakota's Kent Conrad to vote for the trillion dollar Health Care Reform overhaul.  In a political move, Harry Ried traded $50 million dollars in abstinence-only funding for the hope of Senator Lincoln and Conrad voting for HCR overhaul. This is not the way I want my government to work.

Ab-only is (almost always) a republicans issue, and Marcela Howell of Advocates For Youth said:

If Republicans aren't going to vote for this bill, I can't see why it should include their provision (WJS)
 

I agree completely. I hope that our elected officials get their act together and pass meaningful HCR that DOES NOT sacrifice comprehensive sex education, but it seems like that will not happen.  Please, Call Speaker Pelosi's and Majority Leader Rieds office today to ask for abstinence-only funding to be removed from the health care bill.  The capitol switchboard number is  (202) 224-3121.  Call.  We all need to make our voices heard. 

Once again Colbert has proven to be the man.  Check out this clip from Thursday's show about William Phillips choosing not to say the Pledge of Allegiance because gays cannot marry.

Both hilarious and insightful, this made me feel some hope about the future of youth activism when those like Will take our place.  Will, you are NOT a gay-wad, and you should feel very proud of what you did.

Great satire from my man Stephen Colbert on DC gay marraige and the church, and he asks the question "How is the governor of Rhode Island supposed to rest in peace knowing that a couple of plots over two dudes are being gay dead?"  -Enjoy 
-D

You can’t talk about sex without talking about condoms,” says Marcia Brown, director of Worth Waiting 4, an abstinence education program in Rocky Mount, which is a ministry of the local Pregnancy Care Center. She teaches the AUM (Abstinence until marriage) program in all middle and high schools in Rocky Mount-Nash County. “While I do talk about contraception in the context of failure rates, I never encourage the use of contraceptives,” says Brown, “and I never show them how to use contraceptives.”³⁵

We would NOT be willing to discuss emergency contraception as a choice,” Honeycutt emphasizes, “as there is medical evidence substantiating that this method acts as an abortifacient.”³⁸

This is not true.  EC does not cause an abortion; this is a lie to scare teenagers.  Making healthy decisions about sexual health is impossible when we do not have accurate information.  Finally, they talk about who should teach sex ed to teens:

The real question raised by the enactment of the HYA is not whether AUM education is dead in North Carolina, but who is best suited to teach reproductive health education going forward. Will it continue to be taught by well-trained AUM educators, who are able to factually present the contraceptive information without promoting teen sexual activity? Or will it be taught by condom distributors and abortion providers, who believe that adolescent sexual activity is acceptable and who stand to gain the most from the negative consequences associated with it?

 I want to share this great article from Alex at UNC Asheville's The Blue Banner

"Sex education in North Carolina just legally changed for the better, but the economy might force that change to wait. The problem is that teenagers won’t wait, and the result is an economical and social disadvantage for women statewide.

Teenagers in the United States have sex. Realizing this, legislators in North Carolina recently passed a bill changing statewide sex education standards. Now sex education won’t just be about abstinence.

There are questions about where to cut money in the state budget, though, and these new changes are one of the bits of spending that might get cut. Despite the cuts, the new law requires that sex education “teaches about the effectiveness and safety of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods in preventing pregnancy,” according to the General Assembly.

It cost the state $324 million in 2006, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, to pay for the 14,701 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 who got pregnant.

Compare that cost to North Carolina’s sex education efforts. This year the federal government supplied $1.13 million of our abstinence-only spending efforts, according to a letter sent in March to state superintendents from the Department of Public Instruction.

That’s under the now-expired “Title V” federal abstinence-only funding scheme, which President Obama let lapse. We didn’t quite match it. We never have.

For a more local perspective, Buncombe County has records 60 unintended teenage pregnancies for every 1,000 girls in that age range. Last year, the estimate was 419 teenage pregnancies, 130 of which were repeats, which are two pregnancies before ages 19.

That’s 130 girls in Buncombe County last year who got pregnant twice before even getting within a year of the legal drinking age. It’s an estimate, but it’s still shocking. It simply should not happen.

Two unintended pregnancies in the span of four years indicates that perhaps these young women are uneducated in proper birth control methods.

This can and should be fixed.

On a per-pregnancy basis, based on the above numbers, every teen pregnancy costs the state just a little more than $22,000. It would take more than 100 pregnancies worth of money to pay for the state sex education budgeting.

If Buncombe County had 319 teenage pregnancies in a year instead of 419, we could pay for the state’s entire outlay. If Buncombe County stopped not the first, but only the second unwanted pregnancy for teenagers in this county alone, it would recoup more money than is spent on sex education statewide.

Nationally, teen pregnancy costs more than $7 billion each year. A rough estimate puts annual teenage pregnancies at 750,000. Nationally, North Carolina is around average, just a little bit better maybe, in raw teen-pregnancy rates.

Not only is this not something we should try to be average in, it’s not something for which any state should settle.

The only problem is, when compared to other industrialized nations, the United States is a leader in teenage motherhood.

Approximately 50 in every 1,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are teenage mothers. In the Netherlands, four teenagers out of every 1,000 are mothers.

In other words, more than 12 times as many teenage girls get pregnant in the United States than in the Netherlands.

Their sex education is better and more comprehensive. The connection is clear.

Teenage motherhood is self-perpetuating, too. Only one-third of teenage mothers get a high school diploma or an equivalent degree. Daughters of teenage mothers are also 22 percent more likely to be teenage mothers.

When a daughter of a teenage mother becomes a teenage mother, what are the chances she’s becoming pregnant for the second time?

Abstinence-only sex education advocates might say teaching teenagers how to use a condom would be like giving them a free pass to go out and have sex.

The fatal flaw in this argument is that these teenagers don’t need a pass to have sex. It’s obvious that they don’t because if they did, there wouldn’t be any teen pregnancies.

Abstinence-only sex education does not work. It’s a costly enterprise that tries to ignore America’s youth is having sex. Ignoring the obvious won’t make it go away. Ignoring the consequences won’t make them go away. Trying to prevent sex from happening will only make teenagers have more sex. After all, it’s easy for two people to rebel with just their bodies.

It’s just a good idea to try to put a barrier between them.

 I always love hearing what Michele Obama has to say, she is so intelligent, charming, and well spoken.  

This morning the White House put out this video with Michele Obama talking about the importance of Health Care Reform, especially for women:



Enjoy!
-Dan

Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a pathetic excuse about why Obama hasn't followed through on his promise to end Don't Ask Don't Tell-

The president and I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now, and uh lets push that one [reffering to dont ask dont tell] down the road a little bit.

Jon Stewart, one of my heroes, had a very simple message for Obama about this on The Daily Show this week:

All that stuff you've been putting on your plate? It's F***ing chow time, brother.

Amen to that.  While I support the president in many things that he does, he needs to get some things done.  Huge victories like health care for every american and adequate climate change legislation might be a long way off, but I had expected Obama to deliver on at least Don't Ask Don't tell by now.  Its not complicated-homophobic laws that prevent openly gay americans from serving in the military is wrong, and impractical. This bit from Jon Stewart is really awesome, and I agree totally.  Its chow time, Obama.  Knock some of those things off your plate, and end Don't Ask Don't Tell.  Please watch this:



Perhaps the National Equality march will help bring this to attention?  I hope so.

Since earlier this year, the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina (APPCNC) began providing an awesome service for teenagers called the BrdsNBz Text Message Warm Line. BrdsNBz is a free service that allows teens in North Carolina to text a question about sex, sexual health, and relationships – receiving a response within 24 hours. APPCNC's overall goal for the BrdsNBz is summarized below:

Through the BrdsNBz Text Message Warmline, APPCNC will provide North Carolina teens with a personalized, nonjudgmental, medically accurate answer to those hard-to ask questions about sex, love, health and dating.

On the facebook page, they market the service to us teenagers:

Teens: Text your question to 36263 today. Be sure to put "nc" in front of your question - like, "nc How do I put on a condom?" We will provide you with a confidential, accurate, personalized answer within 24 hours. Sex, love, dating problems, sexuality, STDs, pregnancy, anatomy - we've heard it all! The only thing we can't tell you is "how-to..." Answers are free, but your phone's text message rates might apply.

Awesome! Kudos to APPCNC for this amazing service. You can access their facebook page here and their website here. APPCNC and the BrdsNBz were even featured by the New York Times - a great story that is very interesting. Check it out here.  

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 Trojan Evolve is, as far as I can tell, a marketing concept by Trojan to sell more condoms.They want to make using condoms seem very cool and hip, which in general is great.  Their main message (played at the end of most videos they make) is "Evolve.  Use a Condom Every Time."  They advertise for Amplify (on the bottom left of their website), which is awesome!  

They sponsor Warped Tour, Spring Break '09, and other events that look very young and hip.  I don't know much about what these are, but check out these pictures from their Spring Break 09 event:









I'm not sure how I feel about these photos.  Trojans efforts seem to only focus on heterosexual sex and sexual health, and they seem to reinforce many traditional gender roles in some of their material (check out the above photos of the girls on the bar).  Part of me thinks that   anytime anyone tells people to use condoms it is a good thing.  Another part of me thinks that Trojan needs to be more inclusive, and that they should not hypersexualize the roles of women in the way that they do.  What do you think?  Is making condoms seem cool a good thing automatically, even if they don't do it in the most culturally competent ways?  

There is another important question I find myself asking: Is Trojan Evolve just a shameless marketing ploy, or is is a substantive and legitimate attempt to increase condom use and protect people's sexual health?   I guess, because they are a condom company, it can be both.  


On trojanvideos.com they have funny videos also aimed at making condoms seem cool.  This was my favorite:





Also, they have one called "How to make condoms suck less"





Again, I have mixed feelings about these videos.  They are sex-positive, and make using condoms seem cool, but they sometimes seem like they are shamelessly promoting a product, and using sex to sell.  What do you think?

-Dan

I read an article today in the Daily Tar Heel (The University of North Carolina’s college newspaper) titled Virgins not alone at UNC.  The article talked about hook-up culture on college campuses, and how it is often exaggerated and overblown. 

The survey, started in fall of 2008 and concluded in February 2009, also found that approximately 38 percent of students at UNC have never had sex.

 So, 38 percent of UNC students are virgins.  I have no problem with that fact, but it sounded pretty high to me.  It turns out that the study only had an 11.5% response rate, which makes me wonder what type of people actually contributed to that data. I bet the 11.5% of people who respond to the survey are not the ones who are hooking up.  Regardless of the methodology of the survey, I am not opposed to people remaining virgins until they are married, or until they are out of college. I DO have a problem with is some of the reasons stated in the article for why people decide not to have sex:

“I’m not embarrassed by my decision to be a virgin,” Eskridge said. “When you have sex with someone, you’re giving a big part of yourself to them.”

Giving away a big part of yourself to your partner?  I don’t think that ones worth or value  is dependant on if you have or have not had sex, and you having sex doesn't mean that you give anything up. Hooking up and having sex in college does not damage anyone, as long as it is done safely and responsibly.  Jessica Valenti talks a lot about this in her book The Purity Myth, which I encourage everyone to read if you have not done so already.  She argues that there is nothing wrong, immoral, evil, or dirty about having pre-marital sex, as long as protection is used and there is active consent from both people.

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