Sex education group faces new review
Supporters say audit is punishment
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON--The Bush administration will conduct the third review within one year of the comprehensive sex education organization Advocates for Youth, prompting the group and a congressman to charge that it is being punished because of its opposition to abstinence-only AIDS prevention programs.
The latest review, to be conducted today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will look into charges of "possible misuse of grant funds for lobbying efforts," the agency said.
The CDC said the review was in response to complaints from Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa., an advocate for abstinence-only programs. Pitts and 23 other congressmen have questioned whether Advocates for Youth and other sex education organizations are improperly using federal funds to lobby in Congress.
According to Advocates for Youth spokesman Bill Barker, the group has received grants from the CDC for 15 years without any requests for reviews or audits, yet now has received three requests in the past year, two from the CDC and one from the General Accounting Office.
"Advocates is concerned that it appears that the selective and political use of these audits is to intimidate organizations such as ours that support comprehensive sex education," Barker said. "They want to impose a kind of censorship."
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