Bowen v. Kendrick, 29 June 1988
Annual Review of Population Law 15: 13
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0364-3417 PMID: 12289183 Document Number: 380028
A group of taxpayers and religious leaders challenged the constitutionality of the Adolescent Family Life Act, which authorizes federal grants to public and nonpublic private organizations for services and research in the area of premarital adolescent sexual relations and pregnancy. They claimed that the Act violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution because the Act provides that the complexity of the problem requires the involvement of religious organizations, and funds had been given to institutions with ties to religious organizations. The Court held that the Act does not violate the Establishment Clause since 1) the passage of the Act was motivated primarily by the legitimate secular purpose of eliminating or reducing social and economic problems caused by teenage sexuality, pregnancy, and parenthood; 2) the Act does not have the primary effect of advancing religion because the services provided are not religious in character; and 3) the Act does not create excessive entanglement of church and state. It remanded the case to the lower court to determine whether the Act was unconstitutional as applied to specific organizations.