Executive Branch

In releasing his 2010 budget outline today, President Obama indicates that his administration will continue funding abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education, an approach that has repeatedly failed to reduce teen pregnancy. It does nothing more than prohibit sexual activity among unmarried young people, as if sexual activity after marriage has a different outcome.

To prevent teen pregnancy, the president’s budget "supports State, community-based, and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence-based models. The program will fund models that stress the important of abstinence while providing medically-accurate and age-appropriate information to youth who have already become sexually active."  Read more »

For Immediate Release: February 5, 2009
Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679

Washington, DC – As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised to abide by "a few basic principles" that would protect the constitutional separation of church and state in his plan for an expanded White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He was specific: "First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs."  Read more »

The Boy Scouts of America traditionally ask the President of the United States to act as honorary president of their organization. The Secular Coalition for America has joined with 18 other major nontheistic groups asking President-elect Obama to decline the invitation because it would be an endorsement of the Scouts' explicit policy of discriminating against nontheistic Americans.  Read more »

For Immediate Release: Dec. 18, 2008
Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679

WASHINGTON, DC - The Bush Administration today implemented the Provider Conscience Regulation (RIN 0991-AB48) through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Its purpose is to allow medical personnel and volunteers to refuse to participate in any practice they find morally objectionable. This rule has been widely criticized for the effects it will have on OB/GYN care; however, other areas of patient care will also be compromised under this rule and many groups of Americans could see their medical treatment undermined as a result.  Read more »