An article from the Fall 2007 symposium issue of the West Virginia Law Review, Volume 110, on “The Religion Clauses in the 21st Century.” The symposium was convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the West Virginia University College of Law on October April 12 and 13, 2007.

As part of the series of papers from the symposium panel “Religion and Politics,” Naomi Cahn, John Theodore Fey Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School and June Carbone, Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law, the Constitution and Society at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, wrote “Deep Purple: Religious Shades of Family Law.” Cahn and Carbone “explore the influence of religious belief on the regulation of sexuality in general and on abstinence-only sex education in particular. They document the ways in which the much-discussed gap between “blue states” and “red states” tends also to track degrees of religious affiliation and different attitudes toward sex and its regulation by the government. Cahn and Carbone argue that government policies requiring abstinence-only sex education represent an unhealthy melding of religion and politics, for the available evidence suggests that abstinence-only education is ineffective in preventing teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.” - From Introduction by William P. Marshall, Vivian E. Hamilton and John E. Taylor.