New Moral Order?(foreign assistance tied to morality)

The United States has given the world McDonald's and Levi's, pop culture and genetically modified foods. It exports democracy and free markets and has marshaled a worldwide drive against terror. But America's work is apparently not done. President George W. Bush wants to enlist the world's support for another cause: the globalization of American family values.

Or at least Bush family values. And perhaps that's only natural. After all, this president came to office with a social agenda forged in the crucible of the Christian right--an agenda now embraced by much of mainstream America. As a man, Bush was born again, at 39. As a candidate, he spoke out against abortion--and for his faith. As a president, he made clear from the beginning that he would be a moral leader, not just to Americans but also the world. One of his very first acts, in fact, was to sign an order that withheld funding from overseas agencies that even discussed abortion with their clients.

The next item on the agenda: virginity. As he has with abortion, Bush seems prepared to use U.S. clout and money in international organizations to export just-say-no abstinence to sex outside marraige. The Bush administration and its allies in Congress have signaled their intentions very plainly. Consider:

Earlier this year, at a U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Children, Washington sought to make abstinence--not, say, contraception or sexually transmitted diseases--the centerpiece of sex education worldwide. The Bush administration lost that particular battle, but it set the tone for other fights to come.

In October, 10 members of the U.S. Congress wrote the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development challenging a $65 million grant to the Population Council. They said it was an "outrage" to fund the council, an organization that does work in more than 50 countries, because it is a "promoter" and "provider of abortion."

Lawmakers also recently reminded the agency that abstinence remains "the administration's stated priority" in the global battle against HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

To much of the world, it's puzzling (if not alarming) that the United States should even think of exporting a religiously inspired agenda. "This push for family values represents a very narrow conception on the part of Christian evangelical right-wing types of what family values are, and they don't have a monopoly on moral and ethical ways of ...