Reporter Murray Waas' article asks "why an organization that promotes sexual abstinence for teens received a federal grant of over a million dollars, twice what it had requested, despite the skepticism Department of Justice staffers had about the group and the fact that it refused to participate in a congressionally mandated study?" The organization is "Best Friends," and the congressionally mandated study they refused to participate in is presumably this one — the April 2007 study that presents clear evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs don't work. So why did "Best Friends" make the grade and hit the jackpot? According to Waas: "Current and former staffers say it was because of Best Friends' powerful president and founder, Elayne Bennett. Not only is Bennett the wife of Bill Bennett, a former Reagan and Bush administration official and conservative political commentator, but she is also personally close to the chief administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), J. Robert Flores." Read on…

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