ACLU suit sees religious content in abstinence plan

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston yesterday challenging the US government's funding of a faith-based abstinence program called the Silver Ring Thing, arguing that the public contribution of more than $1 million violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The nationwide initiative, which has held four events in the Boston area since 2002 and is planning more, urges middle school and high school students to forgo premarital sex and buy silver rings to symbolize their vow of abstinence. The three-hour events have drawn tens of thousands of young people since the program began 10 years ago.

In its suit against the US Department of Health and Human Services, the ACLU contends that the program's primary aim is to spread Christianity. The civil libertarian group cites several pieces of evidence, including a Silver Ring Thing newsletter that says the Pennsylvania-based ministry instructs young people that ''a personal relationship with Jesus Christ [is] the best way to live a sexually pure life."

''Federal tax dollars are clearly underwriting religious indoctrination," said Julie Sternberg, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, which prepared the suit. The federal government can fund faith-based programs that perform social services, Sternberg said, but it cannot bankroll activities that explicitly promote a religion.

A spokesman for the US Administration for Children and Families, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services that distributes grants for abstinence programs, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Denny Pattyn, the founder of the Silver Ring Thing, said in a statement that his group's goal is to teach adolescents about the risks of sex, including teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The organization, he said, believes it is using its federal dollars properly. Pattyn did not return several phone calls yesterday.

To Nikki Dingle, a 19-year-old freshman at Salem State College who attended a Silver Ring Thing event last year as a senior at Melrose High School, the federal money helps spread a worthwhile message.

Dingle attended a gathering held at Merrimack College in North Andover with a close friend and members of her Catholic parish, St. Mary's, having already decided to remain a virgin until marriage. 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; the other that had no religious theme.

''The general message that [the Silver Ring Thing officials] are trying to put out is a very good message," she said. ''And I think the fact that they're getting federal money is good, so they can spread it more."

The Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU filed the suit in Boston on behalf of the national organization. The group said it filed the suit here because members in the state were concerned about the program.

The ACLU acknowledges in its suit that Pattyn, who leads the events, allows teenagers to participate in the secular discussion group. But the ACLU, some of whose members attended a Silver Ring Thing event at Gordon College in Wenham in September, alleges 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 the religion-based discussion group can stay in their seats, the suit says. The ACLU contends federal money funds both the secular and religious presentations.

The ACLU also notes that the silver rings that youngsters buy for $15 are inscribed with a reference to a verse from the New Testament that says, in part, ''God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin." Adolescents who buy the ring also receive a Bible.

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. The events, often held at conference centers and college campuses, are meant to appeal to teens through skits and live music. In addition to the rings, teenagers can also buy memorabilia ranging from lanyards to water bottles.

Founded in 1995, the Silver Ring Thing calls itself the ''fastest-growing international teen abstinence program" and promises, after teens commit to wearing the ring, mentoring, guidance by e-mail, and access to advisers by instant messenger.

The Silver Ring Thing has held events in many cities across the country, but it is not clear how many teens have taken the pledge; the group's website indicates it hoped 40,000 would be wearing the rings by the end of 2004. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted Pattyn in December 2003 as saying the group's goal is to put 2 million rings on teens' fingers by 2010.

Pattyn, according to the suit, is also executive director of the John Guest Evangelistic Team, an evangelistic ministry based in Sewickley, Pa., that IRS records show has the same address and federal tax identification number as the Silver Ring Thing.

The federal money, according to the suit, helps fund salaries and benefits for the Silver Ring Thing staff, along with stage equipment and transportation of program officials to events.

Melissa Rogers, a professor of religion and public policy at the Divinity School at Wake Forest University, said that if the ACLU's description of Silver Ring Thing activities are accurate, federal funding of the group may violate both the Constitution and the Bush administration's own guidelines for faith-based initiatives.

Elected in 2000 with the firm support of religious conservatives, President Bush came to office pledging to open the government's purse strings to religious groups that provide social services. Such groups, he said, often do a better job helping the poor than the government. The government gave more than $1 billion in 2003 to organizations it considers faith-based.

Jim Towey, who directs the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has said that the Bush administration has made it clear that government money may not be used to fund religious activities.

But Rogers, a lawyer and scholar on the Constitution and religious liberties, cited ''a lot of confusion" among faith-based groups about what they are permitted to do with federal money. She said Bush has exacerbated the confusion by saying that the most important thing is whether the programs run by such groups do good work.

Since 1997, the federal government has spent more than $700 million on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, according to the ACLU. Earlier this year, the ACLU asked a US district court judge in Louisiana to hold its Governor's Program on Abstinence in contempt of a 2002 court order prohibiting the taxpayer-funded program from incorporating religion. A decision is pending.

A study released in March in the Journal of Adolescent Health indicated that young adults who took virginity pledges as teens were as likely to be infected with sexually transmitted diseases as those who did not. The study by two sociology professors -- one at Yale, another at Columbia -- said people who make the pledge generally have fewer sex partners, start having sex later, and marry earlier. But they are less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with oral and anal sex.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.