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Misleading Website

By TChris, Section Other Politics
Posted on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 05:31:15 AM EST
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by TChris

More than 100 organizations have asked the Dept. of Health and Human Services to take down a new website that dispenses helpful advice like this:

"If you believe your adolescent may be gay, or is experiencing difficulties with gender identity or sexual orientation issues, consider seeing a family therapist who shares your values to clarify and work through these issues."

In addition to describing sexual orientation as a "lifestyle," the website promotes abstinence while downplaying the effectiveness of condoms. The organizations are asking the Department to provide accurate information, including the need to use effective contraception if (or rather, when) kids decide to have sex.

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    Misleading Website | 39 comments (39 topical)
    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 07:03:17 AM EST
    This is yet another piece of the new "Political Correctness": real science and real public health must bow to the most important issue for the Bush2 Administration, namely not offending social conservatives. Never mind that people will die, and that more will be screwed up by anti-gay propoganda and a strikingly unChristian biblicist hatefulness. Let me say that as someone with an HIV+ partner, Condoms Save Lives.

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 07:14:33 AM EST
    What?

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 07:22:30 AM EST
    They should rename it the Department of Faith-Based Health and Fact-Free Pseudo Sciences.

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#4)
    by Lora on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 08:23:47 AM EST
    Not only is the website misleading, so is the linked news article! The sub heading is: "Government Web Site Telling Parents to Promote Teen Abstinence Draws Protest" This sets the tone for readers to think that the protesting groups are against promoting teen abstinence. NOT TRUE! The article itself reports that the groups state that "emphasizing abstinence is fine," in direct contradiction to its heading. The groups want misinformation removed, and the reality presented fairly that teens who do have sex and are educated accurately about contraception will be safer that those who are not educated. (To think that teens won't have sex is sheer fantasy.) This is a far cry from being against abstinence, as HHS spokesman Bill Pierce suggests in the article. The fact that he doesn't actually come out and SAY that the groups are against abstinence is a fine point that many if not most readers of the article will not pick up. The spin is such that those opposing certain aspects of the website appear to be against the whole website, against abstinence, and morally deficient.

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 08:37:09 AM EST
    I am not saying that I agree with the motivation of the statements on that website, but seeing a therapist of some kind may not be a bad idea for gay kids and their parents. First, many parents need to learn to accept that there is nothing wrong with their kid. Second, many gay children can use therapy to learn that (A) they are not the only ones who experience what they are feeling/going through, and (B) that they, too, are normal. Third, many gay children go through ridicule, repress their feelings to "pretend to be straight" etc. so that they can "go along to get along", etc. I don't have stats, but I suspect that some number of suicides and attempted suicides among children have in some part to do with homosexuality, and either difficulty adjusting, accepting, or getting along with in society. The sad reality is that when it comes to gay kids, its society that really needs the help (and often not the kids, but for the idiots that are in our society), but since that's not going to happen fast enough, the next best thing is for these kids to understand that they are ok and that there is nothing wrong with them. Now we know that the motivation by the website is totally different, but... Sadly, in the year 2005, there are still a LOT of issues that need to be worked through in families with gay children. Its not the child's fault, but that doesn't mean that the issues do not exist. Russ Legal Memo-Random

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#6)
    by unbill on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 08:40:32 AM EST
    Check this campaign out from the organization NARAL Pro-Choice America.

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 08:41:45 AM EST
    Abstinence is for when you've been married 30 years and forgot what all the fuss was about.

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 08:49:54 AM EST
    Am I the only one that is terrified with the though of our government shutting down web sites? Can you spell censorship?

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#9)
    by unbill on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 08:57:05 AM EST
    Soldier, it is a government website.

    Re: Misleading Website (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Apr 01, 2005 at 10:21:15 AM EST
    I don't see that the fact it is a government website, has anything to do with it. What if the CDC put up a website that described the precautions a woman should take the first few days after she has had an abortion? If the Bush administration tried to shut down that site, you'd hear all sorts of cries of "censorship." And relying on “facts” doesn’t work, either. Fact