AIDS Measure Would Limit Discussion : Congress: O.C. lawmakers’ amendment seeks to curtail topics covered in training sessions for federal workers.

An amendment offered by two Orange County congressmen and approved as part of a House appropriations bill last week would alter the way the government provides AIDS/HIV prevention training to federal workers.

The amendment, sponsored by Reps. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and attached to a transportation appropriations bill, would deny funding for AIDS/HIV training beyond discussion of the workplace rights of an HIV-positive worker or the disease’s medical ramifications.

The amendment was prompted in part by testimony from federal workers who complained during a recent hearing that they were embarrassed and insulted by some of the training sessions.

Packard said last week that taxpayer money should not be spent on discussing the use of condoms, the correct way to engage in anal sex or how to disinfect a hypodermic needle, which he said was the case in some of the Clinton Administration’s AIDS at Work training programs.

Packard, a former school board member, said his objections to the federal training evoke a similar debate over AIDS education that raged in some California schools when the course became required four years ago.

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“We don’t need to get into techniques and sex education,” he said. “This training has just gotten so far away from reality. All the things are so bizarre. The training went far beyond what I thought was appropriate.”

On the House floor last week, Dornan said the government should “not be teaching that bisexuality is normal to every other lifestyle. You do not do that stuff on taxpayer money in the workplace.”

Arguing against the Packard-Dornan amendment, a cadre of mostly Democrats said the move would ultimately deny workers lifesaving information.

It “tells federal employees that there is a killer out there but that the federal government is not going to let them learn how to stop it,” said Rep. Peter G. Torkildsen (R-Mass.).

Troy Petenbrink, a spokesman for the National Assn. of People With AIDS, said a program designed to educate people on the complexities of AIDS needs to be frank.

“It’s about keeping people from getting sick. It takes an open discussion about sex, homosexual sex and drug use,” he said.

During a hearing last month, members of NAPWA and other groups concerned with AIDS education protested the effort to change federal AIDS/HIV training.

The protest followed an incident at the White House the day before when guards used rubber gloves while ushering a group of gay and lesbian politicians through security. The event underscores the need to train federal workers on AIDS, Petenbrink said.

However, some federal employees told a panel on civil service why they objected to the training.

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“Throughout the lecture, I kept wondering, ‘What does this have to do with the workplace?’ ” testified Lyn Mickley, a cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health.

Dornan stated at the hearing his opposition to what he called efforts to promote homosexuality hidden in the Administration’s AIDS at Work program.

Packard said he also believes there is a movement afoot in the nation to promote the gay lifestyle and more broadly to cause a deterioration of values in America and shift society toward more permissive attitudes.

“That’s a personal judgment on my part,” he said.

Packard vowed to take up the issue again when a conference committee meets to hammer out final legislation.