September 1, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Silver Ring Thing, a nonprofit organization in Sewickley, Pa., that stages youth-oriented events nationwide to promote sexual abstinence, has had its federal funds suspended in response to charges that it used government money for religious activities.
In a letter to the charity, Harry Wilson, an associate commissioner for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, wrote that after attending a Silver Ring Thing event and reviewing its educational and promotional materials, the department concluded that the organization “may not have included adequate safeguards to clearly separate in time or location inherently religious activities from the federally funded activities.”
The Silver Ring Thing is named for the silver rings program participants wear after pledging to abstain from premarital sex.
The charity received $75,000 in federal grants earmarked by Congress for abstinence education this year. It has received $1.1-million in such funds since 2003.
The Department of Health and Human Services is requiring the nonprofit organization to submit a “corrective action plan” by September 6 outlining how it will remedy the alleged problems before the group can be eligible to receive additional federal funds.
The Silver Ring Thing’s president and founder, Denny Pattyn, declined to comment on the government’s actions, which came three months after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Department of Health and Human Services over its grants to the Silver Ring Thing.
In documents related to the lawsuit, the ACLU calls the charity a “pervasively sectarian institution” that uses abstinence promotion as a means to “bring students to Jesus Christ.”
Charges Denied
The Silver Ring Thing denies the ACLU’s allegations.
In June, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit legal group that encourages religious freedom, responded to the ACLU’s charges against Silver Ring Thing in court, saying the charity “complied with all governmental regulations and constitutional requirements concerning the use of the government funds” and that “none of the government funds have gone to indoctrinate students into any religious doctrine or teaching.”
