In October 2008, Truth Wins Out reported:
…We learn from Ken Avidor (via Pam Spaulding) that U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar is requesting $500,000 in U.S. taxpayer money for Minnesota Teen Challenge, a pray-away-the-drugs program whose parent organization ‚Äî strangely enough ‚Äî hires ex-gay speakers, utilizes ex-gay media, and is operated by the Assemblies of God, the world’ largest Pentecostal denomination.
The “Teen Challenge” network apparently offers no reputable professional counseling; instead, its amateur employees program youths with church ideology while blaming teens’ problems on “Satanic” influences such as Halloween and Harry Potter. It offers no well-designed tracking of success and failure rates; its reports and supposed success stories appear to consist of isolated anecdotes and head counts which exclude youths who failed to complete a treatment program.
In January 2009, we published a follow-up article:
Strapped for cash and suffering from a former board member’ alleged role in a Ponzi scheme, the Minnesota Teen Challenge now sees profit potential in launching a taxpayer-subsidized religious and cultural war against Haiti ‚Äî a Caribbean neighbor that the organization falsely accuses of being demon-possessed.
The Minnesota Independent reported today that the state still has not halted aid: In the past seven years, the evangelical, antigay program has received more than $10 million in government funds with little accountability. Instead of treating people for drug addiction, the taxpayer-funded program converts participants to a conservative pentecostal ideology and discriminates against non-Christian and gay would-be employees.
Its parent organization, Teen Challenge, still hosts ex-gay speakers around the country.
“To me, I think, that the legislature is setting special rates for a pervasively sectarian organization is enough to make that funding unconstitutional,” said Alex Luchenitzer of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “You have clear favoritism and endorsement of a religious program.”
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Lovely statement in their forums about how they deal with homosexuality. I remember at one time there was a lot of respect for this organization, but I recall some disturbing comments here and there by David Wilkerson. Seeing The Cross and the Switchblade in my teens did afford me an exciting (if momentary) look at Erik Estrada in his underwear. That was worth the price of admission at the time.
Comment by David Roberts — January 8, 2010 @ 7:52 pm