Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, responding to a recent complaint, maintains that a state-sponsored Web site promoting abstinence education does not cross the legal line into promoting religion and so is consistent with a 2002 court agreement.
The American Civil Liberties Union had asked Louisiana to remove all religious content from the site, saying it violates the court order, which prohibited the use of public money to finance religious activities in the governor’s abstinence education program.
“While I do not believe that government should promote any religion, I will fight any efforts to banish the discussion of religious issues—in this case, links to outside Web sites—from any Web site or other forum under my jurisdiction,” Gov. Blanco, a Democrat, said in a Dec. 9 statement.
Joe Cook, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, which filed the original lawsuit, said further legal action may be taken against the state.
