Free Republic

 OMAHA, Nebraska, June 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Archdiocese of Omaha severed ties with the Center for Marriage and Family (CMF), a ministry center at Creighton University (CU), for its proposal in support of premarital cohabitation. In the June issue of U.S. Catholic magazine, CMF director Michael Lawler and CU researcher Gail Risch wrote a proposal for the cohabitation of unmarried Catholic couples. The article says that there are two types of cohabiting couples—those that are committed to marriage, so-called “nuptial cohabitors,” and those that are not committed to marriage, or “non-nuptial cohabitors.” Quoting Pope John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical,...

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past. "This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades." Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings....

The University of St. Thomas today said it will not let staff or faculty who travel officially with students share a room on those trips with an unmarried partner. The decision by St. Thomas President Rev. Dennis Dease, posted on the St. Thomas Web site this morning, puts into policy the university's position. But it's unlikely to end the controversy that's divided the campus the past few months. While the travel policy affects only a few professors, it became a flashpoint on campus after two professors who live together as unmarried, heterosexual partners were told in December they could travel...

You know the old saying about having a hammer and everything looking like nails? I was reading an article in the Journal of Law and Economics about why housing prices in Manhattan are so high, and I thought, "Omigosh! The answer to the demographic implosion." Since my hammer happens to be sex and marriage, even an economics article reminds me of sex. So bear with me. I’ll explain what the article had to say about housing prices. Then I’ll tell you what it has to do with sex...

Why Wait: The Benefits of Abstinence Until Marriage by: Bridget Maher The mainstream media constantly bombards young people with sexually explicit messages. Television programs regularly feature premarital sex and sexually provocative content, giving the impression that all young people are sexually active before marriage. The good news is that despite the media's targeting of young audiences with sex-saturated shows, teens prefer the abstinence message.More Teens Remaining AbstinentIncreasing numbers of young people are practicing abstinence today. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of teens who have had premarital sex declined during the 1990s. In 1991, 54 percent of...

With at least six classmates pregnant, including the valedictorian with her second child, it was clear to a handful of girls that Mission High School needed more information on safe sex. So the four students at this school deep in South Texas along the Mexican border — where the teen pregnancy rate is among the highest in the nation — decided they could help send the message by making their own movie. Two years later, the 16-minute educational film promoting condom use is available to public schools around the state. The movie, named "Toothpaste" in reference to a teen code...

Pasadena Independent School District superintendent Dr. Rick Schneider has banned the book "Forever" by popular children's author Judy Blume from the shelves of libraries within the district. The book had previously been found in the collections of one intermediate and three high schools. Advertisement "It is never an easy decision to pull a book from the shelves. The superintendent has the responsibility to put materials in the system that are educationally suitable and appropriate. In this particular case, after reading the book, he felt that, though the theme is not unsuitable certain passages are and decided to remove the book,"...

Hey Kids! Want Good Sex? Try Abstinence.Warren ThrockmortonAs a mental health counselor, I am really troubled by the numbers of adolescents that I have counseled who cried for days and hurt for years because they engaged in "safer sex" within dead end, unfulfilling relationships. Sadly, they learned that “safer sex” can be hazardous to their emotional health. I think the current political debate concerning abstinence vs. contraceptive based sexual education has failed to include an important variable in the discussion of what to teach in school: sexual well being. In many contemporary sexual education curricula, young boys and girls who...

Divorce and premarital sex are OK, but polygamy and extramarital affairs still frowned onPRINCETON, NJ -- A recent Gallup Poll measured Americans' reaction to the moral acceptability of 16 of the leading social issues facing the nation. The results tell much about the cultural climate of the country, with most Americans expressing traditional values about polygamy and extramarital affairs as well as toward suicide and human or animal cloning. Americans generally see all of these as morally wrong. On the other side, divorce, the death penalty, gambling, and sex between unmarried partners all pass the test of moral acceptability for...

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Jasmine and Alberto, 16-year-old sweethearts in the Bronx, resolved early in their up-and-down romance to remain virgins. Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times Alberto has seen the hardships caused by teenagers having children. Jasmine also wants to postpone sex. Alberto and Jasmine are 16-year-old sweethearts, or were until that day in November when Jasmine, who planned to be a virgin until marriage, learned in the halls of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx that Alberto was "messing around." She raged, she wept and she broke up with him. He apologized, he cried and she took...

Was it good for us? Adult premarital sex is the 'sin' Americans wink at. But if you think casual sex is a problem only for teenagers, take a look at the numbers for grown-ups BY DAVID WHITMAN US News & World Reports, May 19, 1997 Teen pregnancy, Bill Clinton says, is the nation's "most serious social problem," and he has vowed to do something about it. The issue is a frequent "talking point" in his speeches, and earlier this month, in an elegant White House ceremony designed to underscore the administration's commitment, the first lady honored a dozen organizations for...

Remaining "outmoded" State laws invalidating deviant sexual behavior and premarital sex continue to be overturned by state and federal courts. Just recently a Southern State Supreme Court overturned a law prohibiting premarital sex, and a Texas law barring deviant sex will come before the US Supreme Court. Modern society assumes that the elmination of these laws is the path to a free and fair society, but is it? With the new morals has come a wealth of terminated pregnancies, children confused into believing they were born into the wrong sex body, an epidemic of deadly sexually transmitted diseases, rampant pornography,...

<p>Picture the mating rites of middle-schoolers. Perhaps you imagine hand-holding and first kisses, girls trying out eye shadow, boys sneaking a peek at vulgar men's magazines.</p> <p>Researchers in Washington, D.C., recently started a program to prevent early sexual activity. They planned to offer it to seventh-graders, but after a pilot study decided to target fifth-graders — because too many seventh-graders already were having sex.</p>