Focus on the Moustache

In the "Creepy, Disturbing, and Dangerous" news department, Max Blumenthal covers a recent Focus on the Family broadcast where we learn that James Dobson gets plenty of face-time with Bush's recess-appointed UN Ambassador. Aik...

During the debate on John R. Bolton's nomination as US ambassador to the UN, I was a little dismayed about the lack of attention devoted to his long and troubling history of collaboration with Christian right interest groups to, for instance, restrict condom distribution in developing nations. Now that Bolton has been installed in the UN by Bush, his so-called "reform" agenda will undoubtedly include a host of reactionary Christian right social policies.

A disturbing reflection of Bolton's plans was provided by James Dobson in today's Focus on the Family broadcast, in which he and FoF President Jim Daly described a private, hour-long meeting they and a group of FoF staffers recently held with Bolton in New York.
Here are key portions of Dobson and Daly's discussion of their meeting with Bolton:

JIM DALY: He's [Bolton's] a good man. I mean, everything we saw of him in that almost hour we met with him...he's just a solid pro-life gentleman and uh, certainly more meek than what the Democrats portrayed. He's a nice guy.
(....)

JAMES DOBSON: But we had an opportunity to talk to him about the possibilty of Focus on the Family working with the United Nations. That really did excite me.

DALY: Absolutely. I think what came across in the meeting is that he [Bolton] is pro-life and pro-family and he gave us an invitation to work with him in setting some policy there at the UN that would support the values we believe in.

DOBSON: Now we're finding out why the Democrats didn't want him...

DALY: It had nothing to do...

DOBSON: He's [Bolton's] pro-life, pro-family, pro-morality and sees things the way we do regarding condom distribution and abstinence and other things.

It has been US policy since Bush took office that any AIDS assistence efforts were to be tied closely to abstinence education, which then limits some of the more successful AIDS aid programs in African nations. It is little more than a conservative dictate of ideology- it is not a moral concept, though they're attempting to package it as such. It is a divisive wedge of sexual ideology.

It is, in fact, given an appropriate [not inappropriate, as this is] moral lens, immoral to not distrubute condoms with educational programs on adequate sexual health to AIDS stricken peoples, including our own. To not deal with the problem as a sexual health problem and as one of "Christian morality" is irresponsible.

It also distances the US from allies. This again shows how John Bolton's tenure at the UN has caused more international division from the US, less reform and accountability in the UN, and has exposed the intent by the US to reform the UN in the image of whatever the US' interests are, rather than the world's. In actuality, they wish to reform the UN into whatever image their group of power-entrenched [and very rich] conservative cronies can use for their aims.

Pretty perverse stuff coming from the social faction that stole the term "morality."