Grant proposals are due next week for a federal program that, at first glance, seems to support traditional marriage. But a closer look reveals that the program actually includes a blatant slap at biblical sexual morality.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced $75 million to be awarded to worthy applicants under the “Community-Centered Healthy Marriage and Relationship Grant” program. The funds were made available through a bill signed by President Obama in 2010. Here is a paragraph from the official Funding Opportunity Announcement:
Grants awarded under this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will fund demonstration grants to support programs that offer a broad array of services designed to promote healthy marriage. Applicants are strongly encouraged to provide comprehensive services in addressing family needs, including both services designed to improve marriage and relationship skills as well as job and career advancement activities to promote economic stability and self-sufficiency as part of an overall strategy to promote healthy marriage.
The announcement goes on to explain that one of eight activities authorized to receive grant money is “education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills, and budgeting.”
It sounds great… until you reach the section on “Funding Restrictions,” where you read that “applicants must include a written statement that specifically includes… A commitment not to use funds for unauthorized activities, including, but not limited to, an Abstinence Education program.” In other words, programs that teach high schoolers abstain from sex outside marriage are disqualified from receiving grant money.
Such a restriction suggests that the state believes either that teaching abstinence is detrimental to marriage or that it is illegal for the government to sponsor such teaching. Either way, the logic is deeply flawed. Wouldn’t character qualities taught in abstinence education—like self-control and respect for others—help teenagers succeed in future marriages? Not only does the restriction fly in the face of biblical teaching, but it also defies a growing body of research that links teen sexual activity to future divorce. One study, for instance, found that females who have sex in their teens nearly double their risk of divorce later in life compared to their peers who wait for sex (see Anthony Paik, “Adolescent Sexuality and Risk of Marital Dissolution,” Journal of Marriage and Family 73 (2011): 472-485).
So why would government officials object to teaching in a healthy marriage promotion program that sex should be limited to marriage? As the prophet Jeremiah taught, the answer lies in the condition of their hearts: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). This instance of “calling good evil” (Isaiah 5:20) evidences a sad cultural decay that only the transforming power of the gospel can remedy.