With expected government cuts to abstinence education funds, evangelical Christians are picking up the slack. By the way, teenage pregnancy and abortion rates rose from 2005-2006, according to a report released Tuesday.

Pro-gay religious leaders, including Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson are planning a multi-city event called “The American Prayer Hour” to counter the National Prayer Breakfast, which is run by The Family, a secretive conservative Christian group that has been accused of inspiring Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

In another sign that we’re not out of the economic wilderness yet, the Diocese of Rockville Centre, one of Long Island’s largest employers, plants to offer buyouts to 25 percent of its 6,000 employees, the AP reports.

John Travolta flew a private jet carrying supplies and Scientology ministers to Haiti. That’s Vinnie Barbarino next to one of his jets in a 2002 AP photo at top left. Federal prosecutors say a Nebraska man will plead guilty to hacking Scientology’s Web site. South Carolina’s lieutenant governor likened government welfare to feeding stray animals. “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals,” said Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. “You know why? Because they breed.” Bauer later said he wished he’d used a different metaphor.

In a break with the past, Goshen College in Indiana, a Mennonite school, will play the “Star-Spangled Banner” before athletic events. Historically, Mennonites have looked askance at the national anthem because it places love of country higher than love of God, The Mennonite reports.

Pope Benedict XVI decried a “growing aversion” to Christianity and said people should amp up the intensity on evangelism. The Russian Orthodox Church is using its muscle and government ties to squeeze out other faiths, human rights activists warned. An Auschwitz survivor has teamed with a hi-hop group to spread an anti-racism message in Germany.

A French parliamentary panel recommended that full-face veils be banned in public, including hospitals and mass transit. Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews are boycotting their own Web site. Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are in talks to save their unity government. Two of the Dalai Lama’s envoys are to arrive for talks in China today, but Chinese officials have not softened their hard line on Tibet.