Hey, teaching about abstinence is ok in my book, but this group sounds hilarious. I can't help but think they'd make a fantastic episode of South Park.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...are_suspended/
Abstinence program funds are suspended
US halts support after ACLU suit
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | August 24, 2005
The federal government has suspended funding of a nationwide faith-based abstinence program, three months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit in Boston arguing that the public contribution of more than $1 million violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
The US Department of Health and Human Services yesterday notified the Silver Ring Thing program, which has held at least four events in the Boston area since 2002, that it has ''not adequately separated" its religious component from its secular message urging middle and high school students to forgo premarital sex.
Federal funding of the organization, which is based in suburban Pittsburgh, will be halted until the government is confident that the program is obeying department rules, said the letter from Harry Wilson, associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau. The Silver Ring Thing has until Sept. 6 to submit a plan showing that it separates its abstinence message from its encouragement of Christian values.
The Silver Ring Thing received $1.1 million from the federal government in fiscal 2003 and 2004 and has received most of a $75,000 allocation for the current fiscal year, said Steve Barbour, a spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families.
The ACLU yesterday applauded the government's decision, saying the Silver Ring Thing -- which sells silver rings for $15 to teens who take a vow of abstinence -- has been using tax dollars to bankroll religious indoctrination.
''It shows that they [the government] took our lawsuit seriously," said Lorraine Kenny, the public education coordinator for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project based in New York. The Silver Ring Thing, she said, had used federal funds ''to basically put on a religious road show across the country."
Its next event in the Boston area is scheduled for Oct. 15 at a middle school in Weymouth, according to the Silver Ring Thing's website.
The ACLU, which had been preparing to seek a court order to halt funding, plans to put its suit on hold to see what action the Silver Ring Thing takes to comply with federal guidelines.
Denny Pattyn, the founder of the Silver Ring Thing, declined to comment, saying he only gives interviews to newspapers ''that handle conservative causes pretty decently, which your newspaper, obviously, doesn't."
In May, his group said in a statement that the Silver Ring Thing's goal is to teach adolescents about the risks of sex, including teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and that the organization believes it was using federal dollars properly.
The Silver Ring Thing has held dozens of events in various parts of the country in the past three years, according to the group's website.
Nikki Dingle, 19, who attended a Silver Ring Thing event as a senior at Melrose High School, said yesterday that the federal money helped the organization spread a worthwhile message, and she is upset that funding is being suspended.
Dingle attended a gathering held at Merrimack College in North Andover with a close friend and members of her Catholic parish. Partway through the event, she said, organizers allowed the young people to participate in two group discussions about chastity, one rooted in Christian values, which she participated in, and another that had no religious theme.
''People could choose whether they wanted to relate it to God or not," she said. ''Because of that choice, it was fine."
The ACLU acknowledged in its suit that Pattyn, who leads the events, allows teenagers to participate in a secular discussion group. But the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU, which filed the suit in Boston on behalf of the national organization, said that young people feel pressured to participate in the religious discussion; those who want to participate in the secular discussion, for example, have to switch rooms, while those in the religion-based discussion group can stay in their seats, the suit said.
The federal government said in its letter to the Silver Ring Thing that its review of the group's activities included visits to an event -- held in Canton, Ohio, said Barbour -- and to the organization's headquarters. The officials concluded that the Silver Ring Thing was violating rules that prohibit community-based abstinence education programs from getting federal funds if they ''engage in inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytization."
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at
jsaltzman@globe.com.
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