---

Bush, AIDS and evangelicals
...Bumiller describes the various human rights issues that are of particular concern to many American evangelical Christians -- war in the Sudan, AIDS in Africa, sexual trafficking -- and of the commitments they have received from President Bush's White House to work on these issues....

But many of the White House's initiatives on these "human rights issues abroad" suffer from the same someday, somewhere-over-the-rainbow, quality that characterizes President Bush's other domestic proposals. With great fanfare, he commits $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa, but there's little immediate funding -- only promises that years from now he'll pay off the balance. Just like the tax cuts, the deficit-reduction, prescription drug benefits, the Mars mission ... you name it. It's promises today, big spending someday. And Bush's evangelical supporters are beginning to get suspicious.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has altered President Bush's strategy toward religious conservatives. With support for an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment becoming a litmus test for support from the religious right, the president is having to take sides in a high-profile, hot-button debate. Once he does this, he doesn't need the below-the-radar support from those evangelicals who were concerned about things like AIDS in Africa or sexual trafficking. And funding such things is expensive, threatening his support from the small-but-vocal deficit-hawk wing of his own party.

Whether due to this change in strategy, or due to the fact that his initial promises were disingenuous, President Bush is not living up to his commitments on these human rights issues...