Federally Funded Silver Ring Thing


I wrote a few weeks ago about the Silver Ring Thing phenomenon... The Washington Post has a story today about how the US Department of Health and Human Services has suspended a federal grant to the Silver Ring Thing abstinence program because they are using the money for religious purposes.

Duh! Is anybody surprised by this? If you give money to a bunch of evangelicals to fund a faith-based sexual abstinence program, what do you think is going to be the substance of their faith??? I can't imagine it would be anything other than their evangelical Christian God

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services ordered the group to submit a "corrective action plan" if it hopes to receive an expected $75,000 grant this year.
In a letter to the program director, Harry Wilson, associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau, concluded that the project funded with federal dollars "includes both secular and religious components that are not adequately safeguarded."
The action comes three months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against HHS, accusing the administration of using tax dollars to promote Christianity. In documents filed in federal court in Boston, the ACLU alleged that the activities, brochures and Web site of Silver Ring Thing were "permeated with religion" and use "taxpayer dollars to promote religious content, instruction and indoctrination."

Posted: Tue - August 23, 2005 at 06:35 AM        

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