Of all the federally-funded abstinence programs, “Silver Ring Thing” has always been among the most problematic. This is an evangelical Christian program that’s received more than $1.2 million in federal and state subsidies, despite offering wildly irresponsible lessons about contraceptives to young adults — including the notion that a sexually-active teenager is better off avoiding condoms altogether because they won’t offer protection against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
The bad news is, Silver Ring Thing will continue to spout its nonsense to an untold number of American teens. The good news is, the group probably won’t be using our money to do it anymore.
The Bush administration yesterday suspended a federal grant to the Silver Ring Thing abstinence program, saying it appears to use tax money for religious activities.
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.”
When the Bush gang says an evangelical program is too religious to get funding, you know it’s an extreme curriculum.
Keep in mind, the administration hasn’t pulled funding because Silver Ring Thing’s program is a failure that doesn’t prevent young adults from having sex, though it is. With the Bush gang, effectiveness in a government-sponsored program is largely irrelevant.
Instead, the abstinence group may not get the money because the ACLU brought up some inconvenient facts about the lesson plans.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit [in May] against the Department of Health and Human Services, accusing the Bush administration of spending federal tax dollars on an abstinence education program that promotes Christianity.
Filed in federal court in Boston, the lawsuit alleges that the programs and educational materials distributed by Silver Ring Thing are “permeated with religion” and use “taxpayer dollars to promote religious content, instruction and indoctrination.”
Silver Ring Thing is a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that promotes abstinence until marriage through its Web site, brochures, videos and seminars. Teenage graduates of the program, after signing a covenant “before God Almighty” to remain virgins, receive a silver ring inscribed with a Bible passage that the group renders as “God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of sexual sin.”
“Who would have ever thought we would see the day when promoting sexual abstinence among students would become an opportunity to communicate the Good News of the Gospel,” the group’s newsletter states. “Through our Silver Ring Thing program, students who are longing for sexual purity have the chance to begin again.”
The Silver Ring Thing’s ministry produced a newsletter last year that said, “The mission is to saturate the United States with a generation of young people who have taken a vow of sexual abstinence until marriage and put on the silver ring. This mission can only be achieved by offering a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as the best way to live a sexually pure life.”
If a church wanted to sponsor a program like this, fine. But Bush’s HHS was giving tax dollars this group despite the fact that it is little more than a program aimed at converting young people to Christianity. If that’s Silver Ring Thing’s goal, it shouldn’t get handouts from the government with our money. And thanks to the ACLU’s lawsuit, it probably won’t.