Powell's Fleeting Words

It's not every day that someone like Colin Powell?a member of a conservative Republican president's Cabinet?stands up to the Pope. And let's not forget: it's the very same Cabinet that includes the evangelical John Ashcroft, who covers up statues of naked people in public. "I certainly respect the views of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church," Powell said in his MTV appearance the week before last. But, he said, "in my own judgment condoms are a way to prevent infection, and therefore I not only support their use, I encourage their use among people who are sexually active and need to protect themselves."

Only a few days later the Pope was reported to have performed an exorcism on some crazed, writhing Italian woman just last September. Exorcism is to Catholics what polygamy is to Mormons?an embarrassing throwback that we like to believe doesn't happen anymore. Between the devil-purging ritual and the mild defiance coming from an American Republican official, the Pope seemed even further out in his own orbit than usual last week. And Powell seemed like a saint. Anyone who uses a rare speaking opportunity to realistically educate millions of teens worldwide about sex rather than spout moralistic dogma?and while knowing there would be a backlash within his own party?is to be applauded.

But that is all that it was: a rare opportunity and an isolated event?and not indicative in even the remotest way of the Bush administration's direction on AIDS. That fact seemed to get lost in the ensuing debate over the following week, as some religious conservatives loyal to Bush became outraged. Liberals and Democrats were trotted onto the talk shows not to point to the glaring inconsistency between Powell's words and Bush's AIDS and contraception policies, but rather to defend Powell against conservative attacks. (How it is that liberals wound up carrying water for Bush & Co., I don't know, but it was pretty brilliant of the administration.)

"Sec. Powell's remarks are reckless and irresponsible," thundered Family Research Council President Ken Connor. "Young people need to know the truth that the only sure way to protect themselves from the spread of life-threatening, sexually transmitted diseases is to save sex for marriage."

Bush didn't respond to the denunciations by taking his subordinate to task?as Bill Clinton did in the extreme when he axed Joycelyn Elders as surgeon general for saying that masturbation was okay. Instead, in what almost seemed calculated, the White House calmly supported Powell and smoothly played both sides, stating that the President's policy is abstinence but that Powell was talking only about young people who are "sexually active." This of course was doublespeak, as the crux of the "abstinence-only" programs is that unmarried folks should never, ever be sexually active?ever. A week later FRC was pointing this out on its website, and chastising other conservative groups and politicians such as Congressman Henry Hyde (who often vilified Clinton, but tepidly defended Powell) for excusing the White House's doublespeak or staying silent entirely: "Had President Clinton been in office when a Cabinet member made pro-condom remarks, social conservatives would be calling the administration to the carpet for their inaccuracies."

If only for once, FRC has a point. But beyond the issue of loyalty, one reason that many conservatives may be less vocal is that the devil is in the details?and he's so carefully camouflaged that perhaps only a papal exorcism can force him out. The Bush strategy has often been to speak compassionately to court Republican moderates and wavering Democrats while quietly ceding to the ideologues when it comes to actually hammering out policy. The folks at FRC, however, tend to be the purists among the religious-right crowd, demanding public as well as private validation. When Bush appointed openly gay Scott Evertz as AIDS "czar" last year, FRC wailed loudly while other groups offered only muted criticism. After eight years on the outside hounding a Democratic president, most of the conservative groups realize they've got to play a more subtle game now, quietly getting assurances from the administration on the issues most dear to them while biting their tongues a bit as Bush publicly makes often empty gestures to moderates.

The AIDS czar post, for example, created during the Clinton administration, has never risen much above being a figurehead position, and already Evertz has been criticized for not having any real leverage. Meanwhile, below the media's radar, Bush last month made 24 appointments to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Unlike the AIDS czar, the council acts fairly independently, releasing reports that could be potentially embarrassing to the administration. Bush appointed far-right former Oklahoma congressman Tom Coburn?a fierce abstinence-only devotee who railed against condoms while in Congress?as the council's cochair, along with Louis Sullivan, who was Health and Human Services secretary under Bush the elder. Sullivan often bowed to religious extremists when it came to AIDS. There is "a heavy influence of religious representation [on the council] and people whose policy is clearly an abstinence-only approach," noted Maureen O'Leary of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, a gay doctors' group.

Several openly gay men were also appointed to the council, but three of them are loyal political operatives: Bush friend and Big Tobacco p.r. huckster Charles Francis, and two prominent Log Cabin Republicans. Clinton's AIDS advisory council, which included more medical professionals, cast a no-confidence vote in him in 1998, in a blistering critique of his policies?and Clinton had done a lot more on AIDS than Bush is calling for at the moment. It's hard to believe that this council would ever be similarly critical of Bush.

While he's proposed that military spending skyrocket, Bush's proposed spending domestically on AIDS hasn't gone up as the epidemic surges in the African-American and Latino communities. His pledge of $250 million to the international AIDS fund has practically been laughed at, with some activists noting that even House Republicans have been more generous in the past. In terms of prevention, the proposed 2003 budget calls for $135 million for abstinence-only programs, up $33 million from the 2002 budget, and of course nothing for condom education programs. Seventy-three million dollars of the total, according to a report by Tom Musbach on Gay.com, is proposed for the Community-Based Abstinence Education Program, which backs community groups that agree not to give participating adolescents "any other education regarding sexual conduct in the same setting."

Powell's remarks created quite a media spectacle and gave the impression that the Bush administration is open to different approaches, which surely comforted moderates. But when it comes to the actual Bush AIDS policy, the right-wing agenda is firmly ensconced.

Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at [www.signorile.com](http://www.signorile.com).