Center for Inquiry Office of Public Policy

More on abstinence only and its harmful effects on our young people: on June 1, the Washington Post reported on the Parents for Truth campaign which is being launched by the National Abstinence Association. The association sent out an e-mail to organize 1 million parents nationwide to lobby their local schools for abstinence-only sex education instead of “real sex” education.

We posted a lengthy blog (May 5 200 on the perils of abstinence-only education. We urge you to take every opportunity to monitor sex education in your local schools and make sure our adolescents are learning about “real sex” and effective contraceptive methods.

Meanwhile, another threat, from a movement called “The Pill Kills.” Of course the pill doesn’t kill–but ignorance can. The anti-abortion movement is now becoming the anti-contraception movement, spreading false rumors about how contraception works and equating it with abortion.

Why? It’s fundamentally an assault on women, a religiously based attempt to get us all back into long dresses, the kitchen, and servitude. It’s also an assault on children, because children whose births are planned and who are wanted by their parents thrive and become responsible adults; children who arrive unbidden and unwanted disproportionately populate our prisons.

Have the abstinence-only people thought of that?

The theory of evolution. On this day 150 years ago, Darwin’s paper on the theory of evolution was read at the Linnean Society in London. It was hurried on to the program in order to forestall the claims of Alfred Russel Wallace to being the first with the theory. Darwin wasn’t there and neither was Wallace, and those present weren’t moved to debate, but nevertheless, the cat was out of the bag.

Amazing to think we still have to counter unnecessary arguments against the theory of evolution after 150 years. How many more until we can agree as we do about gravity or the heliocentric universe?

The Center for Inquiry has joined 425 organizations in calling on the House Appropriations Committee (chair Rep.David Obey) to increase the allocation for the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and Labor by at least $15 billion for FY 2009.

These funds would support programs and services in education, training, disability, public health, medical research, and child welfare. The money needed for these vital social services has been cut, eroded by inflation and stretched thin by the increasing numbers of needy people. Many programs are now funded below their 2005 level–some were even cut altogether.

The President’s FY 2009 budget request deepens cuts for these programs. But they represent vital investments in our national living standards, so CFI, along with our partners and colleagues who work with and care about the health and social well being of the nation, is urging Congress to ensure that they are funded at least to the 2005 level by adding $15 billion to the budget.

The Center for Inquiry is very happy to announce Ruth Mitchell will be joining the Office of Public Policy on July 01, half time.  Ruth has been working with the OPP and the DC Center as a volunteer and member of the Washington DC Coordinating Committee for about a year now. She facilitates our original book club. She has authored the Same Sex Marriage position paper and is currently working on our Abortion paper. She is a member of the position paper review committee. She is very dedicated and quite accomplished. We welcome Ruth to the Center for Inquiry family!

Scientific research shows that abstinence-only sex education programs are ineffective, inefficient, and in some instances even harmful. Since their inception, these programs have failed to accomplish or even advance their intended goals and millions of teens and adolescents across the United States are losing out. Not only do abstinence-only programs fail to prevent premarital sex and teen pregnancies, they also threaten the separation of church and state and prevent funds from being used for other more effective programs.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, abstinence-only education programs have been the main focus of the Bush administration’s sex education. In total, over $1.5 billion in federal funds has been wasted on abstinence-only programs. But in his budget request for the 2009 Fiscal Year, President Bush is asking for $204 million more in abstinence-only funding.

Enough is enough. It is time for Congress to stop wasting money on ineffective programs. The Office of Public Policy recently urged members of Congress to eliminate funding for abstinence-only programs in Fiscal Year 2009 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill (S.1710). We believe that tax dollars should go toward funding effective programs that maintain the separation between church and state and will educate teens and adolescents about all of the options, instead of just one.

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On Wednesday, April 25, 2008 the Senate refused to pass the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831). Although the bill received endorsements from women’s rights and civil liberties groups and was supported by a majority of Senators, the legislation was filibustered by a group of members in the Senate (see how your Senator voted here). Both members of Congress and civil rights leaders expressed disappointment with the filibuster. “[I]t is hard for me to understand how the Senate cannot support equal pay for equal work,” said Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL).

However, the fight for fair pay is not over yet. Despite the filibuster, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act still has a chance to make it to the floor in the future. The Office of Public Policy has been meeting with Senate members and staff to emphasize that until this bill is not passed, work places across the nation can discriminate everyday on the basis of gender, religion, race, age, disability, or national origin.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which passed in the House in 2007, is named for Lilly Ledbetter, a former employee for Good Year Tire & Rubber, Co. Throughout her career as a Goodyear factory manager, Ms. Ledbetter unknowingly received lower pay than similarly situated male employees at the same factory. Soon after discovering that she was being discriminated against on the basis of her ender, Ms. Ledbetter filed suit against her employer and her case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Ledbetter v. Goodyear the Supreme Court ruled against Ms. Ledbetter. The Court decided that employees who receive disparate pay on the basis of gender must file suit within 180 days of the first discriminatory pay check whether or not the employee knows that she or he is being discriminated against.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter makes it difficult for people to file claims for gender, racial, religious, or age-based wage discrimination. People who are disabled, elderly, of various national origins, of particular religious faiths or none–and women–are all threatened by the underlying Supreme Court decision. Said Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), “That has to be altered. It has to be changed.”

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act corrects the Supreme Court’s decision by allowing an employee to file claims against her or his employers for up to 180 days after each discriminatory pay check. Under the act, employees will not be required to file nearly impossible claims and employers will be encouraged to provide similar pay for similarly situated employees.

You also can help pass this historic bill. Contact your Senators today to tell them to support the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act or thank them for their support (see if your Senator is a co-sponsoring here).

For more information on the Ledbetter bill and CFI’s letter to the Senate please visit the CFI homepage.

Little doubt remains that climate change and global warming are realities that need to be dealt with–now. CFI is helping to pass legislation that addresses global warming and calls for renewable energy sources in the United States. We’ve been successful once again!

With CFI support, the Senate recently passed the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act, H.R. 3221. Initially introduced by Representative and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the bill will move the U.S. toward greater energy independence and security, developing innovative new technologies; reducing carbon emissions; creating green jobs; protecting consumers; increasing clean renewable energy production; and modernizing our energy infrastructure. The House passed the bill in the Fall of 2007 and the Senate passed an amended version earlier this month within the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008.

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Whatever the official relationship is called—marriage, civil union, registered partnership—the Center for Inquiry believes it should be the same for same-sex and heterosexual couples. All couples should have equal rights under federal and state law, the Center urges in its recent position paper, “Same-sex Marriage—and Marriage,” available at www.centerforinquiry.net/advocacy.

At present, same-sex couples are essentially second-class citizens, even in Massachusetts where they can legally marry. Their marriages or civil unions do not apply outside the boundaries of the state and not on the federal level because of the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 2004. (more…)

The Center for Inquiry (CFI), urges voters to contact Senate members to halt re-authorization of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Act (SAMHSA) unless critical changes are made to the so-called “charitable choice” provisions in current law. These provisions have undermined civil rights and religious liberty protections since their enactment in 2000.

Although the reasons to oppose charitable choice are numerous, there are three main reasons to oppose this legislation: discrimination against employees, devastation of local civil rights legislation, and the destruction of constitutional religious liberties. First, charitable choice allows federally funded programs to discriminate against potential employees solely on the basis of the candidate’s religious or non-religious affiliation. Second, charitable choice threatens to devastate local civil rights legislation by preempting local anti-discrimination laws. Third and finally, charitable choice destroys the religious liberties protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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DECLARATION IN DEFENSE OF SCIENCE AND SECULARISM

We are deeply concerned about the ability of the United States to confront the many challenges it faces, both at home and abroad. Our concern has been compounded by the failure exhibited by far too many Americans, including influential decision-makers, to understand the nature of scientific inquiry and the integrity of empirical research. This disdain for science is aggravated by the excessive influence of religious doctrine on our public policies.

We are concerned with the resurgence of fundamentalist religions across the nation, and their alliance with political-ideological movements to block science. We are troubled by the persistence of paranormal and occult beliefs, and by the denial of the findings of scientific research. This retreat into mysticism is reinforced by the emergence in universities of “post-modernism,” which undermines the objectivity of science.

These disturbing trends can be illustrated by the push for intelligent design (a new name for creationism) and the insistence that it be taught along with evolution. Some 37 states have considered legislation to mandate this. This is both troubling and puzzling since the hypotheses and theories of evolution are central to modern science. The recent federal court decision in the Dover, Pa., case has set back, but not defeated, these efforts. Moreover, the resilience of anti-evolution movements is supported not only by religious dogmatism but also by the abysmal public ignorance of basic scientific principles. Consider these facts:

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