Two days before a Senate committee is scheduled to hold hearings on anti-gay surgeon general nominee Dr. James Holsinger, former surgeon general Dr. Richard Carmona, who was Bush’s first surgeon general appointee, told a House committee that he was directed to keep quiet by the Bush administration on key health issues:
Said Carmona: “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried. The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party.”
Think Progress adds: “Carmona revealed that when he tried to explain the science of stem cell research to the American public, he was ‘blocked at every turn, told a decision had already been made, stand down, don’t talk about it.’ Additionally, political appointees were specifically assigned to ‘vet his speeches’ and ‘spin [his] words in such a way that would be preferable to a political or ideologically pre-conceived notion that had nothing to do with science.’ He was also barred from speaking freely to reporters.”
Given these statements, is it any surprise that Bush has put up for nomination a man who concluded that gay sex is “intuitively” unnatural and wrote in a paper, “In fact, the logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur…”
If you’ll remember, Holsinger also voted to oust a lesbian pastor from the clergy of the Methodist church and founded a congregation that advocated the “curing” of gays and lesbians.
