Rev. Moon’s Faith Based Alternative to Sex
Ten years ago investigations by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and The New York Times exposed how the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon was quietly infiltrating school systems and other institutions with a deeply flawed sexuality curriculum called “Free Teens” in New York, New Jersey and around the U.S.
Fast forward ten years: Free Teens is still at it. But the difference between then and now, according to a remarkable investigative report by veteran religion reporter Don Lattin in The San Francisco Chronicle, is that not only is the Bush administration in the business of providing patronage grants and jobs to its political supporters in the religious right through the so-called Faith Based Initiative, but the Moon empire is getting its share.
I was particularly struck by this report because I was a co-author of the PPFA investigation into Free Teens, as the editor of its investigative newsletter at the time, Front Lines Research . Once exposed, school systems, Catholic churches and other “abstinence” oriented organizations dropped the Free Teens program like a hot potato. But the Moon organization has a way of surviving such set backs. Indeed, they have friends in high places.
The Chronicle reported, “Moon has also partnered with the Bush administration in support of the Korean evangelist’s strong teachings against premarital sex. Free Teens USA, an after-school program in New Jersey promoting abstinence until marriage, has been given $475,000 by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, another part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Free Teens is led by Richard Panzer,… [an] alumnus of Unification Theological Seminary. Panzer was also a leader in the American Constitution Committee, one of many political organizations affiliated with Moon.”
The Chronicle also sat in on a “marriage seminar” for church leaders taught by a “marriage specialist” with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unbeknownst to the audience and, apparently to the sponsors of the event, the teacher was a graduate of the Rev. Moon’s Unification Theological Seminary, and before her job with the Bush administration, “was the director of marriage education at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut” a Moon controlled school whose president, Neil Salonen, is a former president of the Unification Church in America. People who completed the three-day seminar held last month in Oakland, received a”Certified Marriage Education Professional Document of Completion,” from, you guessed it, the University of Bridgeport.
All this may strike people as rather unusual, since according to mental health professionals and former members, the Unification Church almost arbitrarily selects one’s spouse, and marriages are performed in mass ceremonies in sports arenas. That’s after the deceptive recruiting practices that separate people from their biological families in order to induct them into the “True Family” headed by the Rev. and Mrs. Moon. It is for these, among other reasons, that the Unification Church has been called a cult, and across the political and religious spectrum is understood to be an organization that engages not in family building, but family smashing activities. I could go on -- and I did in my book Eternal Hostility: the Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, in which I discuss, among other things, the role of the Moon organization in the abstinence education movement and its ties to former president George H. W. Bush.
As for the New Jersey-based Free Teens, their web site says up top that there are “alternatives” to sex. It doesn’t quite say what those are, but indeed, you could join the Moon organization and not have any. Members are to remain abstinent until marriage, and only allowed to consummate the marriage when church leaders give the green light, usually after years of missionary or political work.
Fast forward ten years: Free Teens is still at it. But the difference between then and now, according to a remarkable investigative report by veteran religion reporter Don Lattin in The San Francisco Chronicle, is that not only is the Bush administration in the business of providing patronage grants and jobs to its political supporters in the religious right through the so-called Faith Based Initiative, but the Moon empire is getting its share.
I was particularly struck by this report because I was a co-author of the PPFA investigation into Free Teens, as the editor of its investigative newsletter at the time, Front Lines Research . Once exposed, school systems, Catholic churches and other “abstinence” oriented organizations dropped the Free Teens program like a hot potato. But the Moon organization has a way of surviving such set backs. Indeed, they have friends in high places.
The Chronicle reported, “Moon has also partnered with the Bush administration in support of the Korean evangelist’s strong teachings against premarital sex. Free Teens USA, an after-school program in New Jersey promoting abstinence until marriage, has been given $475,000 by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, another part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Free Teens is led by Richard Panzer,… [an] alumnus of Unification Theological Seminary. Panzer was also a leader in the American Constitution Committee, one of many political organizations affiliated with Moon.”
The Chronicle also sat in on a “marriage seminar” for church leaders taught by a “marriage specialist” with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unbeknownst to the audience and, apparently to the sponsors of the event, the teacher was a graduate of the Rev. Moon’s Unification Theological Seminary, and before her job with the Bush administration, “was the director of marriage education at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut” a Moon controlled school whose president, Neil Salonen, is a former president of the Unification Church in America. People who completed the three-day seminar held last month in Oakland, received a”Certified Marriage Education Professional Document of Completion,” from, you guessed it, the University of Bridgeport.
All this may strike people as rather unusual, since according to mental health professionals and former members, the Unification Church almost arbitrarily selects one’s spouse, and marriages are performed in mass ceremonies in sports arenas. That’s after the deceptive recruiting practices that separate people from their biological families in order to induct them into the “True Family” headed by the Rev. and Mrs. Moon. It is for these, among other reasons, that the Unification Church has been called a cult, and across the political and religious spectrum is understood to be an organization that engages not in family building, but family smashing activities. I could go on -- and I did in my book Eternal Hostility: the Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, in which I discuss, among other things, the role of the Moon organization in the abstinence education movement and its ties to former president George H. W. Bush.
As for the New Jersey-based Free Teens, their web site says up top that there are “alternatives” to sex. It doesn’t quite say what those are, but indeed, you could join the Moon organization and not have any. Members are to remain abstinent until marriage, and only allowed to consummate the marriage when church leaders give the green light, usually after years of missionary or political work.
posted by Frederick Clarkson at 6:49 PM
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