Chester County Democratic Committee

letter in the Kennett Paper, 1/27/10

I am concerned that Joe Pitts has taken a large amount of space two weeks in a row in the Kennett Paper, and he presents himself as a moderate both times. I hardly have space to list all my disagreements with Mr. Pitts and his destructive votes.

He states that he is in favor of birth control and that his opponents are lying, but he voted to prohibit in HR 2159 to prohibit planning assistance to ANY foreign organization. He voted against HR 3685 which prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation; against HR 1388 which establishes national community service organizations and provides funding for community service organizations and projects; against HR 2642 to expand veterans’ education and unemployment benefits; against HR 1388 to expand a National Volunteer Program; against three different stem cell research bills between 2005 and 2007; against HR 3548 extending unemployment benefits; and against HR 3963 in 2007 to reauthorize and expand the Children’s Health and Insurance Program (CHIP).

All of these bills passed, whether there were Republican or Democratic majorities in the House, many of them passing overwhelmingly. All of his recent votes and explanations of each bill can be found at www.votesmart.org.

Perhaps worst of all, Mr. Pitts has long hidden from the voters his years of membership in the Fellowship, or the Family, which is a secret Christian group which provides, among other things, low cost rent to members of Congress in the infamous house on C street in Washington.

The Fellowship has had long, direct ties with brutal dictator Suharto of Indonesia, cult ruler Barre of Somalia, and the dictatorship of the generals in Brazil. Some members of the Fellowship have ties with Ugandan leaders who are sponsoring legislation to punish homosexuality by death. Pitts was the author of a 2003 amendment to an HIV/AIDS funding bill, directed mostly to Africa, that required that 1/3 of the funding be used only for abstinence-only birth control programs. Author Jeff Sharlet did years of research on the Fellowship and said Pitts used his connections in countries like Uganda to work against condom distribution.

Uganda’s rate of HIV infection had gone down dramatically from the 1980s and ’90s, but HIV/AIDS has increased greatly in the past several years, which Sharlet thinks could be connected to the abstinence-only program instead of sex education that includes access to condoms, thanks to people like Pitts. “Joe Pitts, more than any other single person, has contributed to increasing the AIDS rate in Uganda. That’s a strong statement, but what he did led to a reversal in what had been a real success story in fighting HIV,” said Sharlet.

Mr. Pitts has been declared a member of the Fellowship in Wikipedia for years without his objecting, but now he apparently denies being a member. He has never answered my direct question to him, by email, to confirm or deny his membership. Sharlet states that Pitts has been a member since he was in the Pennsylvania legislature.

All of these positions, and more, reveal Joe Pitts to be the true reactionary that he is, not the moderate that he paints himself to be when election time comes near. This area deserves a representative, Lois Herr, who more accurately reflects the moderate, compassionate, sensible views of Kennett Square and the entire congressional district.

Tom Hammer
Kennett Square Borough