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Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
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ACLU sues state of Louisiana over abstinence
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56003-2002May8.html" target="_blank">ACLU Sues La. Over Abstinence Teaching </a>
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With $1.6 million in federal funds annually, the suit contends, Louisiana has spent money on "Christ-centered" skits, religious youth revivals and biblical instruction on purity. One group used the Christmas story of the Virgin Mary to teach abstinence, and the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette spent grant money organizing prayer sessions at abortion clinics, according to state documents outlined in the lawsuit.
"We are asking the court to stop the promotion of religion in this government-funded program," said Catherine Weiss, director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project.
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The ACLU quotes extensively from reports filed each month with the Governor's Program on Abstinence. The Rapides Station Community Ministries has submitted documents detailing how its $73,000 in grants have supported a radio program that teaches the Gospel, a youth revival that included commitments of faith and its Christmas project.
"December was an excellent month for our program," the ministries' report states. "We were able to focus on the virgin birth and make it apparent that God desire[s] sexual purity as a way of life."
One crisis pregnancy center received $111,000 for "Passion 4 Purity," which teaches abstinence through "scriptural concepts."
Richey, state coordinator of the program, said he has insisted on a health-based approach and in a few instances has asked organizations to remove religious references.
"We do not advocate in any way, shape or form a nonsecular component with any of our contracts," he said yesterday. "Out of 70 contractors, if one or two or three or four have incorporated the abstinence message with their faith-based message, well, those things happen."
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<a href="http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n050902a.html" target="_blank">ACLU press release</a>
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"The principle of religious liberty is violated when public money is used to promote religious beliefs," said Catherine Weiss, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. "This kind of misuse of public funds has a long history in abstinence-only programs, even though the law requires that their content be secular."
The Louisiana Governor's Program on Abstinence, which runs on government money, has proclaimed in its own materials that "it's time to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage in America." It has also made thousands of dollars in grants to programs that, among other things, presented "Christ-centered" theater skits, held a religious youth revival, and produced radio shows that "share abstinence as part of the gospel message."
Today's case is the first challenge brought against a program funded through the federal abstinence-only money made available in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which is up for reauthorization this year. The federal government currently provides more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds to abstinence-only programs.
"This case is yet another example of the state of Louisiana using public money to preach religion," said Joe Cook, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana. "The governor's office has to get out of the pulpit and stop putting taxpayer money in the collection plate."
In 1988, in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Bowen v. Kendrick, the ACLU challenged one of the federal statutes providing abstinence-only funding. The Court held that "any use of public funds to promote religious doctrines violates the [Constitution]."
Today's case demonstrates that the state of Louisiana is not obeying this constitutional rule, the ACLU said.
The case, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, is ACLU of Louisiana v. Foster. Lawyers for the plaintiff include Catherine Weiss and Jaya Ramji of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project; Lawrence S. Lustberg, Jessica A. Roth, Risa E. Kaufman, and Philip G. Gallagher of Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione; and Vincent Booth, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Louisiana, of Booth & Booth.
The ACLU brief is available online at: <a href="http://www.aclu.org/court/foster.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.aclu.org/court/foster.pdf</a>
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05-09-2002, 11:28 PM
