Virginity pledges, in which young people vow to abstain from sex until marriage, have little staying power among those who take them, a Harvard University study has found.
In fact, more than half the adolescents who make such signed, public promises give up on their pledges within a year, according to the study released last week.
The findings have raised the ire of Concerned Women for America, a conservative organization that endorses adolescent sexual abstinence.
"The Harvard report is wrong," said Janice Crouse, a fellow at a Concerned Women for America think-tank.
Full Story @ Chicago Tribune
I got in a very small discussion the other day with someone who posted this same article on another site. I thought it would be interesting for a little discussion here.
This one guy on the other site stated how these abstinence pledges "really push kids to marry young, even though that sets them up for divorce, usually not too far down the road.". He went on to say that, "The single strongest indicator that a marriage will end in divorce is young age of the couple marrying. And (some) churches provide little support for members who divorce.".
(Just as a side note - I'm happy to say the church muddy and I attend does have a divorce support group that meets weekly)
Quite frankly, I couldn't agree with him more. I think this *does* push young people into marriage at such an age when the majority of them are absolutely NOT ready for it. My thought is this:
If someone WANTS to take that virginity pledge - GREAT! I hope they can pull it off. I think it's a wonderful goal. Virginity is nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of BUT what we these groups need to understand is true reality. It is completely unrealistic to think that the majority of teens and young people will save themselves for marriage. Christian or not. I've said this for quite a while now. There's obviously nothing wrong with encouraging kids to wait for marriage but at the same time, let's also teach them (Christians and non) about birth control, condoms and other forms of protection. -Ed
Posted by Mrs Muddy at May 14, 2006 12:05 AMI heard the funniest one liner the other day.
"Born Again - Virgins."
Hilarious.
Fornicators will burn in hell.
Posted by: mooseboy84 at May 18, 2006 10:39 AM"Fornicators will burn in hell."
Apparently, but they're not committing fornication - not that you care but....:-)
Posted by: mrs. muddy at May 18, 2006 01:59 PMActually, they are. Fornication is the act of sex outside of marriage.
Posted by: skywalker at May 18, 2006 02:54 PM"Actually, they are. Fornication is the act of sex outside of marriage."
Yeah, that's what I was taught too. However, according to Strong's dictionary that I have (in which my associate pastor said the Strong's is "pretty safe to go by" - I didn't mention the fornication thing to him but....), there are two words in the Hebrew and 3 in the Greek....not one of them talk about sex outside of marriage.
It talks about, harlotry, idolotry, adultry, incest, an excesive indulgance but I've not seen a word on pre marrital sex.
I've even talked to a fellow Christian who saved himself until marriage and he agreed that fornicatin doesn't mention sex outside of marriage.
I'm not saying the Bible doesn't preach against it (I'm not convinced anymore one way or the other) but fornication sounds like a frail argument the more I look into it.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at May 18, 2006 03:18 PMI'm indifferent. People have the right to do with their bodies as they please.
Posted by: skywalker at May 18, 2006 10:39 PMBut accoording to the better versions (and all the crappy ones too) of the Oxford dictionary, the english word fornication means sex outside of marriage ( pre-marital, adulterous or otherwise.)
Posted by: skywalker at May 18, 2006 10:40 PMBut accoording to the better versions (and all the crappy ones too) of the Oxford dictionary, the english word fornication means sex outside of marriage ( pre-marital, adulterous or otherwise.)
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I'm not talking about the english definition. We've screwed up enough words as it is.:-D I'm talking about the orignial Hebrew and Greek. You can't possibly find the true meaning of the Bible by using any english dictionary. That would be *almost* like taking a letter written 200 years ago by one of America's founding fathers and then going about to decipher it by using *today's* english. That's stupid.
I wasn't talking about the Bible though.
Posted by: skywalker at May 19, 2006 04:39 PMI wasn't talking about the Bible though.
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Okayyyy....but I was.
My point was, is that if you're living your life according to the Bible then you can't study these things from a regular *english* dictionary. That's all.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at May 19, 2006 05:01 PM