Religious conservatives have no shame in raiding the public treasury to finance pricey "chastity" programs. Is it the business of government to tell teens -- or anyone else -- how to manage their personal lives? Many religious think so, and politicians agree...

ention spending government money for the arts, or education, or aid to welfare mothers and many social-religious conservatives express dire warnings of socialism and excessive government spending. But the sanctity of the public treasury seems to hold little meaning for Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas) and others on Capitol Hill who now propose tripling the size of a federal program with the purpose of discouraging sex outside of marriage and promoting chastity/abstinence programs in schools. Under new proposals now being made, government would increase spending for such programs over a five year period from the current level of approximately $250 million to $750million.

   Abstinence crusades are a hot item in Washington, but their trendy history goes back to the days of the Reagan administration. In the 1980s, amidst a political climate of cutting programs and declaring the need for less, not more government, First Lady Nancy Reagan proposed spending up to $20 million for a chain of "chastity centers" across the nation. Abstinence advocates pointed to rising rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, abortions and single moms. Critics, however, charged that sex education was a more effective and realistic way of dealing with those problems.

   The 1996 Welfare Reform Bill created the current abstinence programs which have been criticized from both ends of the political spectrum. In some states, abstinence programs have been implemented by cutting sex education classes that teach teens about contraception. Critics like Debra Haffner, President of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) charges that the chastity programs are simply fronts for those groups "trying to Christianize the schools." Haffner recently told the Scripps Howard news service that abstinence boosters "want to impose a single morality on America which is that there should be no sexual activity outside of marriage."

   "That's a world that has never existed in America," Haffner adds. Indeed, the wording of the Welfare Reform Act disturbs civil libertarians and state- church separationists; the program is to teach recipients that "a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity," and that "sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."

   Chastity programs are now no longer just directed at teens. Civil libertarians worry about the intrusive specter of Big Brother telling even adults how to organize their lives; in at least five states, abstinence money has been directed to adult programs. In a dozen more, women are discouraged from having abortions.

   Catholic and other religious schools also qualify for abstinence grants; in Atlanta, for instance, taxpayers are picking up the tab for one Parochial school program that costs $35,000 and combines the chastity message with golf and dancing lessons.

   Religious conservatives throughout the nation have been turning up the pressure for more government promotion of chastity, and to counter any attempts to dilute the abstinence programs now in effect. Leading the charge is a loose-knit coalition of 60 organizations affiliated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family movement in Colorado. The effects are beginning to show according to news sources.

   ¶    The influential Washington-based Heritage Foundation is calling for increased federal and state legislation to promote chastity. The group's "abstinence guru," policy analyst Robert Rector, crafted that portion of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act which implements chastity programs. Rector urges the creation of what the Nando (News & Observer) Times describes ironically as a "sexual pecking order" to be promoted for public ideological consumption. "Marriage holds the place of highest regard, followed by virgins until engaged, virgins until they met someone they wanted to marry, virgins until they fell in love, and on down to the bottom," a situation which Rector describes as "extremely dysfunctional, extremely destructive bar-hopping with casual partners to whom they have no commitment..."

   ¶    Religious groups are busy meeting with elected officials in states like New Mexico, George, Louisiana and elsewhere to promote their chastity agenda. In Tennessee, Gov. Donald Sundquist put more church leaders on the state panel that handles grant applications for the program. A program funded by taxpayers in Turner County, Ga. underwrites meetings at a local community center where a Christian minister often leads the youth in a prayer "asking God to control their minds so they will be able to walk as he would have them walk, live as he would have them live," according to an official with the sponsoring group. That organization, the Turner County health Coalition, is described as a "Bible-based, Christ centered and Holy Spirit-led" outreach.

   ¶    Not everyone is signing on to the chastity bandwagon. California and New Hampshire did not participate in the federal program last year. Officials in Richmond, Virginia opted out as well, saying that the abstinence-only message being delivered to teens was irresponsible and unrealistic.

   How effective are chastity-based programs? Critics say that declining rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and other measurable factors has more to do with increased use of contraception, and talking with teens about choice rather than mandated behaviors like abstinence. In addition, abstinence boosters are coming under attack for exaggerating the failure rate of contraceptives; there are also charges that the "chastity police'" are attempting to terrify young people about sex by showing lurid medical slides of untreated syphilis sores. There is actually little credible data to measure the long-term effectiveness of abstinence programs. Sex researcher Douglas Kirby of ETR Associates in California says that the few studies which have been done suggest that abstinence-only programs do not live up to the expectations of their backers. He adds that sex education programs combined with contraceptive information do reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates, however.

   For separationists, the concern over abstinence-based programs funded with public monies is that they often appear to cross the line into religious proselytizing. The Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down attempts use government funds for the purpose of promoting religious instruction; even so, chastity programs are a backdoor solution for putting churches or other faith- based outreaches on the public payroll. In some cases, such as the program in Georgia, for instance, there seems to be inadequate oversight of how the money is being spent. The ultimate irony, though, remains the precarious position which many social and religious conservatives find themselves in, namely, using the power of government and the public treasury in an effort to decide what behaviors are acceptable in the bedroom.

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