Critics Debate Religion’s Role in Abstinence Programs

The role that religion plays in abstinence education could be pivotal as Congress decides whether the

$50-million a year it authorized under the 1996 welfare law should be continued.

Some observers say the possibility that religious beliefs could be a component of abstinence-education programs is a reason to proceed cautiously with federal financing. They note a federal court’s decision last month that said that a government-supported abstinence program in Louisiana violated the separation of church and state by distributing Bibles and preaching Christianity.

Members of the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education, which represents 140 national groups, are hopeful that the decision will have ramifications outside Louisiana.

“It will make people around the country more cautious about what kinds of information they put into those programs, and hopefully they will think carefully about a religious component, particularly in public settings,” says Tamara Kreinin, president of a member of the coalition, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

But others say federal guidelines already make clear that religious beliefs cannot be advanced in government-supported abstinence programs, and that money for abstinence education should be expanded.

Those guidelines also include other rules about what grantees can do with federal money. Government grant recipients must teach youngsters that abstinence until marriage is the only acceptable course of behavior and must never provide instructions on the use of birth control.

Some groups say that government officials who review grant proposals are taking an overly rigid view of what it means to promote abstinence. Several groups that are prominent in the abstinence movement say they have been denied federal funds from the welfare pot and other sources. Among them: the Best Friends Foundation, which was started by Elayne G. Bennett, wife of William J. Bennett, the U.S. secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan.

Ms. Bennett says her group teaches “self-respect through self-control.” She says she believes her group was rejected for an abstinence-education grant because it said in its application that it stressed abstinence “preferably” until marriage, instead of saying that abstinence until marriage was the only acceptable behavior.

Ms. Bennett says she wishes the government had taken a more expansive view of what it meant to promote abstinence. “There is room in this effort for lots of approaches within the abstinence field, because the bottom line is the protection of the physical and emotional health of our children,” says Ms. Bennett.

Federal officials who oversaw the grants competition involving Best Friends said they would not comment on the reasons that the group was denied money.

Federal Guidelines

Federal law explicitly spells out the criteria for distributing money for abstinence programs. An eligible project is one that:

• “has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
• “teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;
• “teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
• “teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;
• “teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
• “teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society;
• “teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and
• “teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.”