The city gave $50,000 in federal grant money in part to help support sexual abstinence education done by a Christian organization, according to a spending report presented Monday to members of the City Council.
The grant also financed tutoring and day camps for more than 100 kids.
The money came out of an $800,000 pool of Community Development Block Grant cash given away by the Office of Community Development in 2009 for “youth enhancement services,” according to documents handed out at Monday’s meeting of the council’s Housing and Human Needs committee.
The recipient of the award was Trinity Christian Community, a faith-based center in Hollygrove now embroiled in a separate controversy over a $1 million capital outlay appropriation from the state for a community center in Pensiontown.
Trinity was the only organization to receive money for abstinence education.
Thanks for the info. This seems unconstitutional — to give public funds to a religious organization, especially for a policy that has not proven to be in any way effective in reducing teen pregnancies. If the shoe were on the other foot — an public funds were to go to, say, the American Humanist Association to teach that contraception is an effective way to reduce pregnancies and STIs, the religious nuts would be up in arms. As usual, non-religious taxpayers like me are supposed to shut up and accept this crass violation of church/state separation. It’s infuriating.
Interesting and I wonder if Betty Jean Wolfe, CAO of the RSD, is involved with this or has a connection somehow. She was the president of the Urban Family Council in Philidelphia where she was a staunch advocate of abstinence. http://www.urbanfamilycouncil.org/