BOWEN v. KENDRICK

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether the 1981 Adolescent Family Life Act violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by providing federal grants to religious and community-based organizations to provide counseling and services related to premarital adolescent sexual relations.

Action

Reversed and remanded. Petitioning party received a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

A group of federal taxpayers, clergymen, and the American Jewish Congress filed this action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, and challenging the constitutionality, under the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, of the Adolescent Family Life Act, which authorizes federal grants to public or nonprofit private organizations or agencies for services and research in the area of premarital adolescent sexual relations and pregnancy. The Act provides that a grantee must furnish certain types of services — including various types of counseling and education relating to family life and problems associated with adolescent premarital sexual relations; that the complexity of the problem requires the involvement of religious and charitable organizations, voluntary associations, and other groups in the private sector, as well as governmental agencies; and that grantees may not use funds for certain purposes, including family planning services and the promotion of abortion.

Federal funding under the Act has gone to a wide variety of recipients, including organizations with institutional ties to religious denominations. Granting summary judgment for appellees, the circuit court declared that the Act, both on its face and as applied, violated the Establishment Clause insofar as it provided for the involvement of religious organizations in the federally funded programs.