Sexual Abstinence Education Programs Promoted, Sued

As U.S. promotes abstinence at U.N. children’s summit, ACLU sues program for promoting religion At the United Nations Special Session on Children, the United States is one of the only countries opposing encouragement of abortion and promoting abstinence, says Reuters. At the opening session, U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said the U.S. continues to support “healthy behaviors and right choices” for children by “strengthening close parent-child relationships, encouraging the delay of sexual activity and supporting abstinence education programs.” Speaking more specifically about that last point, he said, “As President Bush has said, abstinence is the only sure way of avoiding sexually transmitted disease, premature pregnancy and the social and personal difficulties attendant to nonmarital sexual activity.”

Another delegate, USAID Assistant Administrator for Global Health Anne Peterson, told reporters, “It’s not the only answer and it’s not the answer for every youth, but it is a clearly a very strong protective factor that many youth are willing to do and really does make a difference.”

It’s not the most controversial point of the meeting. Only the U.S. and Somalia have refused to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the U.S. says it infringes on parents’ rights. (President Clinton signed the convention but never submitted it to the Senate.)

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union plans to file suit against the state of Louisiana for an abstinence education program. The complaint this time isn’t the usual claim that abstinence education is ineffective and puts teens at risk—it’s that it’s too effective—in promoting religion. “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,” reports The Washington Post. “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.”

Governor’s aide Dan Richey, coordinator of the abstinence education program, told the paper, “We do not advocate in any way, shape, or form a nonsecular component with any of our contracts. 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.”

Heresy trial ends when heretic resigns Remember Andrew Furlong, the Church of Ireland’s Dean of Clonmacnoise who faced a heresy trial for denying that Jesus is God, the son of God, or savior of the world? It seems the trial is now off, as he’s decided to step down from his ecclesiastical posts. “I have always grieved when I left a parish but I am also grieving for the Church of Ireland because I feel it is missing out,” he told The Irish Independent. Indeed, it is missing out. As this was only the second heresy trial in 130 years, the dying church had an opportunity to take a stand for orthodoxy.

Sexual ethics:

Vicar jilted as rector’s wife ends their affair | When the Rev David Shenton gambled everything he had to pursue the relationship, he compared their plight to the parable of the lost sheep. Now he has been left without a flock, a career, and a woman in his life. (The Daily Telegraph, London)
Tolerance in schools a homosexual ploy, conservatives say | “Homosexual activists have hijacked our schools,” says Concerned Women for America (The Washington Times)
Gay father wins case over baby of lesbian | First case of its kind in England and Wales (The Times, London)
Gay couples could adopt children | Government pledges a free vote on the issue in the House of Commons (BBC)
Rights for same-sex couples | Same-sex couples in Alberta will enjoy some of the same legal rights as married couples (Canadian Press)
Most Finns oppose ecclesiastical blessings of same-sex relationships | One-third would accept gay clergy (Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland)

Polls, surveys, and studies:

Religion and health: New research revives an old debate | Dozens of scientists have claimed they have found evidence of links between religion and health, but one psychologist says these studies should never have been started. (The New York Times)
The state of grace: Small churches face challenges | American worship is lopsided toward small congregations, fewer men in the pews, a once-a-week gathering and few newcomers at the service, a national survey shows (The Washington Times)
Study finds ‘generational’ shift to Protestantism among Hispanics | But Hispanic Catholics and Protestants share many of the same views on public issues (Religion News Service)
Americans credit faith for nation’s strength, poll says | Most Americans say the United States is a Christian nation, but faith isn’t necessary to be a good citizen (The Washington Times)
Quarter of pew believers take God’s word as gospel | God created the world in six days and the Antichrist is coming, say nearly one in four Australian church-going Christians (Sydney Morning Herald)

Church & state:

Groups try to revive lawsuit over church-based job program | Texas officials should pay back taxpayer money that went to a job training program “permeated with Christianity,” say rights groups (Associated Press)
County attempts to thwart ACLU | Rutherford County officials are taking steps to remove religious connotations that might be tied to their posting of the Ten Commandments in the county courthouse last month (The Tennessean)
Judge files bias suit against state office | Blair Scoville Morgan says she was discriminated against because of her religious beliefs (The Tennessean)
Behind closed doors | Many religious boarding schools are unregulated, leading to tragedy (Editoral, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Politics:

DeLay proves to be a thorn in Bush’s side | House Whip refuses to soften party’s conservatism (Financial Times)
DeLay Diplomacy | Crass political reality is that Republican Whip is also an evangelist (Mary McGory, The Washington Post)
Clergy tell senators support depends on cloning ban | A broad coalition of Christian clergy yesterday urged the Senate to quickly pass a bill banning the cloning of human embryos for any purpose, and warned senators that this vote would be crucial for pro-life constituencies in upcoming elections (The Washington Times)

Persecution:

Two witnesses in Staines’ murder declared hostile | Missionary murder case continues in India (PTI)
Also: Dara Singh’s associate arrested in Orissa | Buluram Mohanty wanted for murdering Muslim trader while Singh stands trial for killing missionary Graham Staines (Rediff.com)
Indonesia arrests leader of Islamic militants | Jaffar Umar Thalib, leader of Laskar Jihad, charged with inciting Muslims to attack Christians near Ambon (The New York Times)
Pakistan defers stoning sentence | Zafran Bibi’s adultery case will now be heard by the federal Sharia court in Islamabad (BBC)

Missions & ministry:

British missionaries take ‘sleeper’ jobs to infiltrate Muslim nations | Frontiers has more than 600 missionaries in 40 Muslim countries (The Sunday Times, London)
Church sacrifices thousands to help struggling | Thousands of pounds in income have been sacrificed by the Church of Scotland to help the country’s beleaguered farmers (The Herald, Glasgow)

Church life:

Rifts growing among local Presbyterians | Orlando is fast becoming the staging area for an all-out holy war pitting Presbyterian against Presbyterian (Orlando Business Journal)
‘Obscene’ masts anger parishes | An initiative by the Church of England to raise £24 million by hiring out steeples for use as mobile phone masts has provoked opposition among parishioners angered by the commercial exploitation of churches. (The Times, London)
Also: Concern over church phone masts (BBC)
Flocks withstand tornado | La Plata congregations unite despite battered and broken churches (The Washington Post)

Holy Land:

America’s new Christian Zionists | The Jewish lobby has long been perceived as a powerful influence on US foreign policy but Israel has found new support from American Christians (BBC)
Give me shelter | For Palestinian gunmen, the Church of the Holy Nativity offers more than a physical refuge. Sanctuary law may be history, but it exists in spirit (The London Independent)
Under siege, fiercely longing for peace | Palestianian Christians are tired of the Church of the Nativity standoff (The New York Times)
Evangelicals, Jews build bridges | Israel isn’t the only issue where they’re working together: religious freedom, debt relief and other issues also bind them together (Samuel G. Freedman, USA Today)

Catholicism:

Priests told to cut back on absolution for groups | The Vatican announced that it was cracking down on priests who had become too free in granting group absolution to sinners or otherwise become lax confessors (The New York Times)
Also: Pope urges confession, bars forgiving ‘habitual’ sinners (Associated Press)

Clergy abuse scandal:

Jesus’ response? Don’t ask Newsweek | The Newsweek article could be written off as just one more example of poor journalism, one more broadside against Christian values, if it didn’t so accurately illustrate how our culture’s moral values have been systematically dumbed down. (Tim Swarens, The Indianapolis Star)
With too much to lose, Congress holds its tongue | In the halls of Congress, where lawmakers are eager to offer opinions and hold hearings on virtually any topic, the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has generated a startlingly unusual reaction: dead silence. (The Boston Globe)
Focus on gay priests may be a powder keg | In the midst of the Catholic Church’s widening sex abuse scandal, the relative abundance of gay men in the priesthood–a fact that for years was mostly ignored—has suddenly set off a divisive debate among American Catholics. (Chicago Tribune)
Bishops must balance civil, canon law in sex cases | America’s Catholic leadership may talk of zero tolerance for sex offenders in the priesthood, but bishops have a 100% problem with shedding such men (USA Today)