http://www.pittsburghpostgazette.com/pg/06054/660107.stm
Thursday, February 23, 2006
AP
BOSTON – The federal government has agreed to stop funding a Pennsylvania-based abstinence-only program for teens that a civil liberties group claimed was using federal dollars for Christian evangelization.
In the settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, reached today, the Department of Health and Human Services agreed to stop funding the Silver Ring Thing program until it complies with laws forbidding federal dollars from funding religious activities.
The Silver Ring Thing, based in suburban Pittsburgh, is a nationwide program that uses music and comedy skits to promote premarital abstinence. The ACLU claimed in a May lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston that the program was crossing the line by using federal grant money to urge teens to commit their lives to Jesus Christ.
During the past three years, the federal government has awarded more than $1 million to the Silver Ring Thing.
The Department of Health and Human Services suspended funding for the program in August, citing concerns that “the federal project that is funded … includes both secular and religious components that are not adequately separated.”
It terminated the grant, effective Jan. 31.
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