BATON ROUGE, La. — The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the state of Louisiana, saying its sexual abstinence program is unconstitutional because some of its federal funding is used to advance religion.
The ACLU of Louisiana filed the suit May 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, charging that the Governor’s Program on Abstinence violates the Establishment Clause.
According to the complaint, some of the $1.6 million in federal funds the program receives annually has been used for pervasively religious programs. The suit challenges a program funded through a 1996 welfare reform program, which must be reauthorized this year in order to continue.
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