AARP: It's Not Who You Think It Is (Part 1)

by Steve Kipp

AARP Expands Social Mission

Note: AARP formerly was known as the American Association of Retired Persons; now it just uses the acronym.

AARP's Money and Influence

According to the Associated Press, "Americans age 50 and above control $7 trillion (70 percent of all U.S. wealth), bring in $2 trillion in annual income and account for 50 percent of all discretionary spending." AP further notes that "About 54 million boomers will be between 50 and 64 by 2010, according to the AARP, bringing the total of 50-plus Americans [now in the 76 to 78 million range] to 90 million." ¹

• “Fifty years ago senior citizens were not a force in electoral politics. Now the AARP is widely said to be the most powerful organization in Washington. Medicare, Social Security, retirement, Alzheimer's, snowbird economies, the population boom…increasing longevity is entangled in every one.”²
• AARP's staff totals 1,800.³
• AARP's consolidated 2003 revenues of $770 million were up 20 percent from the previous year. ⁴
• Each year, approximately 2,000 companies compete for the five to 10 available new AARP partnerships.⁵

Novelli Brings Changes

AARP's relatively new CEO, William Novelli, has stated, "The demographic revolution of boomers coming into their older years meant that AARP could play an important role in the changes that would inevitably follow."⁶ He told The Journal of Financial Planning, "It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the demographic revolution going on and how that’s good for AARP and our work."⁷

• Novelli's initial purpose for coming to AARP was the opportunity to "lead…social change"⁸ – an area for which he’s known as a trailblazing pioneer. "A personal goal of mine for as long as I can remember was to make some important contributions to helping solve major social problems."⁹
• Under Novelli's leadership in the early 90s, CARE, an international relief agency, developed unique condom-distribution programs and other "population control" programs—a term well-used by relief agencies throughout the early 1990s.¹⁰
• Carrying those ideas to AARP, Novelli claimed, "…Marketing is a terrific discipline to apply to social change…We need to use more tools. For example, you don’t see much about advocacy in marketing and you need to advocate if you’re going to have an impact on public policy…At AARP, we do a lot of legal advocacy and policy change."¹¹

AARP Expands Social Mission: 2001-2005 and Beyond

AARP is well known for its policy priorities of economic security, livable communities, and health care and supportive services.¹² It is less known for its embracement of homosexual activist causes, as noted in 2001:

1. The director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s aging initiative noted in the Summer of 2001 that “AARP's profile of GLBT elders is pretty much nonexistent…AARP has made some baby steps that have been impressive. We’re pleased.” ¹³
2. By 2004, AARP was openly referring to multiple homosexual activist organizations. Randy Hecht wrote a "Web Exclusive" article for AARP in 2004 titled, "No Straight Answers."¹⁴ The article promoted gay sensitivity training sessions that essentially serve as "re-education" sessions. A sidebar offered the five referred links still available on AARP’s Web site:¹⁵
   • National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
   • Human Rights Campaign (AARP also links to some of HRC’s publications) and directly links both to the “marriage section” of Human Rights Campaign as well as its elections and members of Congress section.
   • PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)
   • SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment)
   • LGAIN (Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network)

What led up to 2004 can only be described as “leaps”—not simply “baby steps.”

1. Novelli, in his pre-CEO role as Associate Executive for Public Affairs, outlined collaborative projects AARP was engaged in with two gay and lesbian senior organizations (Senior Action in a Gay Environment—SAGE--and the Pride Senior Network).¹⁶
2. AARP hosted a gay pride event and invited a senior homosexual organization to establish an exhibit (June 2001).¹⁷
3. AARP’s Andrus Foundation provided a matching-funds grant to a homosexual senior organization, SAGE, in 2002.¹⁸

Not content to simply implement internal changes, AARP’s external “messaging” underwent re-imaging.

1. AARP featured gay pride month on its 2001 and 2002 online calendars.¹⁹
2. It invited homosexual "anti-homophobia" groups to its national annual meeting in Chicago in 2003. (One of the avowed goals of SAGE seminars is “to help overcome the institutionalized homophobia that may exist within an organization.”) ²⁰
3. It featured a Prime Time radio segment on gay history (July 2002).²¹
4. It began profiling gay couples in its My Generation magazine (by 2002). ²²
5. It featured Prime Time radio segments on "two daddies" (April 2004).²³

AARP The Magazine Agenda

While the mainstream media cites "no official AARP policies" on issues like physician-assisted suicide and same-sex marriage,²⁴ the Novelli-led agenda of its publications since 2003 reveals a flip-side to the association. AARP The Magazine’s inaugural issue included the following:

1. An article honoring 50 "top innovators."²⁵ The list included the following:
• Radical feminist Eleanor Smeal, who helped redefine the "pre-born" with her abortion stance
• Former Episcopalian bishop John Spong, who helped redefine the church and Christian theology
• Billionaire George Soros, who helped redefine the political environment toward liberal causes
• Media mogul Ted Turner, who helped redefine who bears children according to anti-child, elitist population-control techniques
• Hollywood producer/director Steven Spielberg, who helped redefine Hollywood activism
2. Sanctity of Life Issues:
• AARP departed from its formerly "neutral policy" toward physician-assisted suicide (PAS).²⁶ Previously, AARP was so jittery about demonstrating any pro-PAS stance, it removed a volunteer from its Hawaii chapter’s lobbying committee for authoring a pro-PAS article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.²⁷ But rather than settle the issue, AARP generated more debate with the article “Colleen's Choice.”²⁸ Worse, it also gave wide attention to two right-to-commit suicide organizations, Compassion in Dying Federation, and Death With Dignity National Center.²⁹ Compassion in Dying led the fight for Oregon’s "physician-assisted suicide." Both organizations remain as referred links on AARP's Web site, leaving the false impression that suicide is a dignified death.³⁰
• Later in 2003, AARP joined Nancy Reagan's campaign to "open the gates of stem cell research." Because President Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's disease, Nancy Reagan "threw her weight into the political battle over stem cell research…positioning herself in favor of experiments on human embryos and against the Bush Administration’s severe regulation of them."³¹ Besides AARP framing the protection of human embryos as "severe," it also referred to embryonic stem cells' "nearly boundless potential to heal"³² and downplayed the flexibility of adult stem cells.³³

Misleading the Debate About Embryonic Stem-Cell Usage

In 2004, AARP polled voters age 40 and over, asking if they favored or opposed a number of issues, including "stem-cell research." AARP's questions, as well as its reporting of the results, appear to reveal a bias.

• The question failed to differentiate between embryonic or adult stem cell research.³⁴ An AARP news release tried to parlay the results into a descriptor of "liberal" versus "conservative." The survey simply showed 55 percent of boomers--51 percent of those age 58-to-69, and 44 percent of those 70 and over—all said they were in favor of "stem-cell research" minus any qualifiers.
• The July 2004 AARP press release stated, "Portrayed as liberal during the 1960's, the majority of Boomers, now comfortably middle-aged and moving into positions of power, hold decidedly liberal positions on some issues (e.g. abortion, gun control, stem cell research)."³⁵

Focus on the Family bioethics analyst Carrie Gordon Earll noted:

The AARP survey question on stem cell research is worthless as it fails to distinguish between the two primary sources of such research - embryonic and adult stem cells - thereby bypassing the entire debate. The survey question implies that someone is either for or against stem cell research and that's not accurate. This half-hearted approach to the subject is also reflected in the follow-up statement about “Boomers” holding decidedly liberal positions on some issues. It's inconsistent for AARP to ignore the core debate over stem cell research (the intentional destruction of embryonic humans) and then try to classify the issue as either "liberal" or "conservative." The whole treatment of the topic by AARP is irresponsible and smacks of a political agenda.

Read more: AARP: It's Not Who You Think It Is (Part 2)

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