`Just say whoa': judge blocks `faith-based' abstinence education. (People & Events).

"Abstinence-only" sex education programs that promote religion cannot be funded with tax dollars, a federal court in Louisiana has decided.

U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. ruled July 25 that the Governor's Program on Abstinence (GPA) must stop awarding public funds to groups that incorporate religious messages "or otherwise advance religion in any way."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed the lawsuit in May, asserting that organizations were spending public dollars to promote religion. The state used money provided by the federal government to pay for the efforts as part of an emphasis on "abstinence-only" education included in the 1996 welfare law.

Court documents uncovered several examples of religious groups using tax dollars to advance their faith viewpoint. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette, for example, received $46,000 in GPA funds to operate a program called "God's Gift of Life." Another group, called "Just Say `Whoa,'" used nearly $30,000 in taxpayer money to put on skits at junior and senior high schools featuring a character called "Bible Guy" who advised, "As Christians, our bodies belong to the Lord, not to us. God wants more for you than a one-night stand."

One organization, the Southwest Louisiana Area Health Education Center, went so far as to use $750 in tax funds to purchase Bibles. Another group, Rapides Station Community Ministries, bragged in its annual report that it had spent $20,000 in GPA funds to use the story of the virgin birth of Jesus "to make it apparent that God's desire [was for] sexual purity as a way of life."

Officials in Louisiana insisted that they have stopped funding religious instruction through the program. But Judge Porteous, noting the scope of the abuses, said he felt a need to "install legal safeguards" to prevent future abuses and issued a temporary injunction blocking GPA subsidies of "pervasively sectarian" organizations.

The court decision casts new doubts about the constitutionality of President George W. Bush's "faith-based" initiative, a plan to pay houses of worship to provide social services.

In other news about "faith-based" funding:

* A federal judge in Wisconsin has ruled that a "faith-based" drug treatment program can receive tax aid as long as it obtains its assistance in the form of vouchers.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb had earlier struck down a Wisconsin Department of Corrections program called Faith Works, which was receiving direct tax funding despite its religious orientation. Since that ruling, prison officials have begun offering inmates the option of attending Faith Works or a secular alternative. Crabb, citing the Supreme Court's June 27 decision upholding private school vouchers, said this makes the program constitutional.