The appointment of Claude Allen as Bush's new chief domestic policy advisor is another triumph for the Republican theocrats. A reactionary black kapo, Allen is one of the darlings of the "family values" ultra-conservative religious right led by James Dobson and his Focus on the Family.
Recruited by Karl Rove as his watchdog on then-HHS secretary Tommy Thompson (who had a much-exaggerated reputation as a "moderate"), Allen--a visceral political homophobe-- was a former top aide Sen. Jesse Helms, and in 1984 accused Helms' Democratic challenger, then-Gov. James Hunt, of having links to "queers," "radical feminists," socialists, and unions (Hunt was, in fact, a bible-quoting right-wing Dem).
As Health and Human Services Commissioner for very conservative Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, Allen bent public health priorities to the religious right's agenda and led a state-sponsored anti-safe sex crusade that he had cooked up with the abstinence-only Institute for Youth Development, whose mission is to teach children to fear rather than understand sex, and says that condoms don't work to prevent AIDS. [...]Allen led an HHS witch-hunt that investigated all of the AIDS service organizations (like Gay Men's Health Crisis) whose members staged a demonstration that disrupted Tommy Thompson's speech to the international AIDS conference in Barcelona, and purged several ASO's (like San Francisco's Stop Aids Project) whose politics and science-based sex ed Allen didn't like. Allen has regularly been on POZ magazine's list of the AIDS community's top enemies[...]
Direland postRecruited by Karl Rove as his watchdog on then-HHS secretary Tommy Thompson (who had a much-exaggerated reputation as a "moderate"), Allen--a visceral political homophobe-- was a former top aide Sen. Jesse Helms, and in 1984 accused Helms' Democratic challenger, then-Gov. James Hunt, of having links to "queers," "radical feminists," socialists, and unions (Hunt was, in fact, a bible-quoting right-wing Dem).
As Health and Human Services Commissioner for very conservative Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, Allen bent public health priorities to the religious right's agenda and led a state-sponsored anti-safe sex crusade that he had cooked up with the abstinence-only Institute for Youth Development, whose mission is to teach children to fear rather than understand sex, and says that condoms don't work to prevent AIDS. [...]Allen led an HHS witch-hunt that investigated all of the AIDS service organizations (like Gay Men's Health Crisis) whose members staged a demonstration that disrupted Tommy Thompson's speech to the international AIDS conference in Barcelona, and purged several ASO's (like San Francisco's Stop Aids Project) whose politics and science-based sex ed Allen didn't like. Allen has regularly been on POZ magazine's list of the AIDS community's top enemies[...]
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Also in his Virginia years, Allen was notorious for his opposition to abortion--which he took to extreme lengths.[...] Allen worked to defeat legislation that provided health insurance for children of the working poor, largely because the program covered abortion services for rape and incest victims under the age of eighteen.
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