In The News

18 States Ban Gay Marriage

Kansas became the 18th state to ban same-sex marriage, in a referendum in early April proposed by religious lobbies. In April, the governor of Connecticut signed a law making that state the second to establish civil unions for same-sex couples--and first to do so without court order. In mid-March, a California judge ruled the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

Church Politicization

U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has introduced yet another recycling of "Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act," to permit pastors and ministers to endorse candidates but retain tax-exempt status.

School Prayer Litigated

Two sets of parents filed a federal lawsuit in late Feburary to bar the Indian River School District, Del., from promoting religion at school functions.

The lawsuit alleges "an environment of religious exclusion" and school-sponsored prayer, often explicitly Christian. Prayers are imposed at official school board meetings, athletic events, banquets and graduation services. The lawsuit says students who participate at the bible club at Selbyville Middle School receive preferential treatment. Mona and Marco Dobrich, and their son, Alexander, who are named plaintiffs, are Jewish. When they complained last August at a school board meeting, a former board member suggested Mona Dobrich "might just 'disappear' like Madalyn Murray O'Hair." She was warned on another occasion to either convert or move away.

Abstinence Funding

Although Pres. Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget would drastically slash funding for hundreds of social programs, he proposes increasing funding for religion-fostered "abstinence education" by $39 million, to $206 million next year and $270 million by 2008.

In the past five years, according to Reuters, Bush has more than doubled funding for such programs, which preach abstinence from sexual activity until marriage, but discuss birth control or standard sex education.

A study cited in a March Journal of Adolescent Health found teenagers who pledge to abstain from sex until marriage have the same rate of sexually transmitted diseases as peers who did not pledge, are less likely to use condoms to present disease, to seek medical testing and treatment and some are more likely to engage in oral and anal sex to "preserve virginity."