Official Caught Using Escort Service Demanded Anti-Prostitution ‘Loyalty Oaths’

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/28/tobias-prostitution/




Official Caught Using Escort Service Demanded Anti-Prostitution ‘Loyalty Oaths’

Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution “loyalty oath.”

Aid groups bitterly opposed the policy, charging that it “was so broad — and applied even to their private funds — that it would obstruct their outreach to sex workers who are at high risk of transmitting the AIDS virus.” But President Bush wouldn’t budge. He signed a 2003 National Security President Directive saying prostitution “and related activities” were “inherently harmful and dehumanizing.”

Several groups and countries had their funding cut due to the policy. Brazil lost $40 million for “one of its most successful anti-AIDS strategies, persuading sex workers to use condoms or other measures to stop spreading the disease.”

During an “Ask the White House” online chat in 2004, Tobias defended the policy, saying the U.S. was “partnering with communities” to begin “fighting sex trafficking and prostitution, while still serving victims of these activities.” Tobias added that he was overseeing several “highly successful” relationship programs “aimed at men and boys to help them develop healthy relationships with women.”

[acmavm]

1. Anybody else think he looks like Bill O'Reilly?

edit to add: he's a big a friggin' lying hypocrite as Bill too. I guess the resemblance is more than skin deep.

[burythehatchet]

2. EVERTHING A REPUBLICAN UTTERS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE

OF REALITY.

[cloudbase]

3. But it was just a massage!

No happy ending for this one!

[MUAD_DIB]

4. It just never, ever, ever ends with the stooge parade of criminals...

[Vinca]

5. I wonder how many more loyal "Bushies" are on the list. nt

[deadmessengers]

6. He's just another whore

I don't think anyone is surprised that he's a customer.

[Old and In the Way]

7. A whore indeed....

he's a high priced one and his tricks don't involve sex, but he's strictly pay-for-play just like the rest of this corrupt administration.

[ljm2002]

8. Y'know, we really are seeing the death of irony...

...you just can't keep your irony-meter at full throttle these days, it'll wear out from too much use.

[Eurobabe]

9. I can't wait to see who else Palfrey gives up n/t