Many psychological studies have emerged in recent years detailing the decreased risky behavior and low rates of depression amongst church-going adolescents. Religious services create a social community where kids can gain the support of peers and feel like they belong.

As it turns out, however, such studies failed to recognize that these rates can increase among particular minority groups, including females, Latinos, and Asian-Americans. A new study, conducted by Richard Petts, a sociology professor at Bell State University, unveils new information about the relationship between religion and depression:

The study found that white and African-American adolescents generally had fewer symptoms of depressive at high levels of religious participation. But for some Latino and Asian-American adolescents, attending church more often was actually affecting their mood in a negative way.

Asian-American adolescents who reported high levels of participation in their church had the highest number of depressive symptoms among teens of their race.

Likewise, Latino adolescents who were highly active in their church were more depressed than their peers who went to church less often. Females of all races and ethnic groups were also more likely to have symptoms of depression than males overall.

What could explain this?

The results suggest that something unique was affecting adolescents within these two groups when they went to church often. Petts believes that the traditional nature of religion for these two groups may be conflicting with the ideals and customs of mainstream American society. This conflict may be putting additional stress on these youth as they try to balance competing principles and traditions, he said.

“Asian and Latino youth who are highly involved in a culturally distinct church may have a more difficult time balancing the beliefs of their family and their traditional culture with mainstream society. Their religious institution is telling them what should be important in their lives and how to behave, and mainstream society is saying something else,” he said.

It should be noted that the study also discovered that Latinos who never attended church services did have higher depression rates than white and African-American teens, though Asian-Americans who never attended church services had the lowest rates.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has won a victory for the separation of religion and government in a lawsuit they filed in Florida along with a coalition of civil liberties and education groups and which was heard yesterday by the Florida Supreme Court.

At issue yesterday were three ballot amendments, two that directly involved church and state (subject to the AU lawsuit) and another addressing property taxes and public education. As the Miami Herald reports:

Amendment 5 — known as the tax-swap amendment — would have eliminated property taxes that pay for schools, lowering average tax bills by 25 percent and forcing legislators to replace the money with sales and other taxes.

Amendment 7 would have repealed the 100-year-old ban on direct state funding of religious institutions, including religious schools.

And Amendment 9 would have overturned the state Supreme Court decision that invalidated state-paid vouchers for students in failing public schools to attend private schools.

All three amendments were placed on the ballot by the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, a panel of citizens that only meets once every twenty years. The court ruled that the commission had exceeded its authority on the voucher-related amendments and that Amendment 5 was worded in a misleading manner and struck all three amendments from the November ballot.

What is really striking about the juxtaposition of the three amendments is that Amendment 5 would have denied the state a primary funding source for public education by cutting property taxes but made no provision for a new revenue stream for public schools (beyond protecting funding for one year after passage), while Amendments 7 and 9 would have stepped up state support for private, religious education, thus delivering a one-two punch to both the public education system and the separation of religion and government. Voucher supporters often point to failings within the public school system as a reason to support paying for students to go to private schools, but they ignore another answer: giving public education the support it needs. In this case, passage of all three amendments would have denied public schools funding while channeling state money to private, religious schools, giving students in Florida more incentive to leave failing public schools and attend private religious ones at taxpayer expense.

Fortunately, these rulings will not allow this scenario to unfold. Congratulations to Americans United and its partners in the lawsuit for this victory in defense of secular public education and the separation of church and state!

After far too much kvelling, I’ve been asked by my colleagues in the Secular Coalition for America office to take a moratorium on mentioning the name Stephen Colbert. But He who shall not be mentioned was so much fun! A few weeks back, I taped a two hour interview for the Colbert Report that was cut to a five minute segment. (We were aware in advance that this is how it is done.) While I am sworn to secrecy on some of the more detailed descriptions of the process, I can generally attest that the Colbert folks, including Stephen himself, were very gracious and put this guest quite at ease.

Many individuals have asked which parts of the long interview I would have liked to have seen in the final cut (as opposed to on the cutting room floor). There was a very funny pledge of allegiance, much information about military proselytizing, and my insistence that Stephen and I don’t have to agree on theology to agree to live in a civil society – not a theocratic one. Of course I covered lots of issue oriented things that didn’t make the final cut, but the goal was to let the Colbert Nation viewers know that the Secular Coalition for America exists and then have them go to our website to get more extensive information. Mission Accomplished.

I received numerous e-mails after the show expressing excitement about the interview and those who “get” Colbert’s format understood how it works. But I also got one very funny e-mail, though the sender didn’t realize it was funny. The gentleman wrote about the issues I should have covered during the five minute interview (I guess he thought it was a live-to-tape five minute stint). He seemed to think it was supposed to be a serious debate with a serious opponent – and missed the satire completely.

After the taping, I asked Stephen to autograph my copy of his book, I Am America and So Can You. For anyone who hasn’t read it, he has a terrific section on the “Big Secularist Agenda” and how the secular “caucus” of Representative Pete Stark (the only out nontheist in Congress) – he, himself and him – is taking over. Mr. Colbert inscribed the following in the front of my book: “Better watch your back. GOD [underlined three times] bless you. Stephen Colbert.” Ya gotta love this guy!