By James Wagoner, President

Lost in the shuffle of analysis of the new health care reform legislation, is the fact that Democrats included over $250 million for failed Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. The funds had been inserted in the health care reform legislation by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) during Senate Finance Committee consideration of the bill.

Never mind that these programs place the health and lives of young people at risk by denying them medically accurate information about condoms and birth control. Never mind that an exhaustive eight-year evaluation by Mathematica published in April, 2007 showed that these programs have “no impact on teen behavior”.

Never mind that 22 states had rejected Title V funding in the past because they did not want to spend precious matching funds on programs that don’t work. Never mind that Speaker Pelosi condemned these programs at the Netroots conference in 2008. Bottom line is they are back, and Democrats seem none to eager to own up to who threw young people under the bus!

by James Wagoner, President

On March 23, President Obama made history by signing health care reform into law.

While there are many things in the legislation that will benefit young people — including $75 million for evidence-based sex education programs — the bill also re-authorizes the failed abstinence-only-until-marriage initiative referred to as Title V.

There is simply no reason that funding for these ineffective programs should have been included in health care reform. Three things remain shockingly clear:

• These programs still do not work. An eight-year evaluation funded by Congress demonstrated that these programs have "no impact on teen behavior."
• Abstinence-only programs put the health and lives of young people at risk by censoring critical health information about contraception and condoms and violate the rights of all young people to honest, accurate, and complete information.
• Taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill for $250 million in wasted spending over five years, making a mockery of conservative Democrats' claims that they want to cut spending or reduce the deficit.

This was not a calculated compromise to get extra votes. There was no public pretense that these programs would improve the health of America's youth. Congressional leaders had any number of opportunities to simply remove abstinence-only funding from the final bill.

Make no mistake: Democrats decided to keep this $250 million ideological earmark in the bill.

by Nikki Serapio, Manager, New Media Initiatives

One year ago, Ugandan parliamentarian David Bahati introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a measure that seeks to impose the death penalty on LGBT HIV-positive citizens found to be having sex, as well as life sentences for LGBT Ugandans found to be (by a lay witness or the police) having sex.

First, the good news — the bill has stalled. Warren Throckmorton, a popular blogger and college professor who has followed the the Anti-Homosexuality Bill since its introduction, published an update today on the current status of the measure within the Uganda Parliament.

"...it remains under consideration by the [Ugandan Parliament's] Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee. According to Charles Tuhaise, a researcher in the Parliamentary Research service, no public hearings have been scheduled. A second reading cannot be scheduled until hearings have been conducted and a committee report has been prepared. Time is running out; the Ugandan elections are coming and the current Parliament ends inn May, 2011. Hon. David Bahati, the mover of the bill, has not responded to my questions about where he takes the bill from here."

In part, the bill was stalled after outcry and pressure from the Obama administration, the U.S. Congress, and a number of human rights organizations (including Advocates for Youth).

by Nikki Serapio, Manager of New Media Strategies

Recently my colleague Sarah Audelo and I had the chance to attend RootsCampDC, which brought together over 700 community and online organizers. (Kudos to the New Organizing Institute for spearheading a great event.) We were excited to meet and listen to so many inspiring activists...no doubt, it's not often that you can talk about social networks and old-school advocacy with both a Chavez-era labor organizer and a young tech startup CEO (at the same time)!

Here's what I took away from my RootsCamp conversations.

1) Let's work to bridge "online" and "offline." It's tempting to think of websites and social networks as constituting one separate and isolated sphere. If I tweet about Utah's horrible new miscarriage law, for example, we might expect this to lead to...well...more tweeting. Ultimately, though, our duty is to use online tools in order to promote real-life organizing.

More after the jump!