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Well! I look back and I realize that last month, I passed an 'abstinent anniversary" making this my twelve year of being chaste since breaking up with my boyfriend at age 21. I decided then and there to abstain from sex until marriage and I have faithfully kept that vow. It's been twelve years of major changes and my remaining non-sexually active has been a mainstay throughout those changes.

Because this column is devoted to promoting Catholic fatherhood, this is a special feast day: the Feast of Saint Joseph. The following is an updated version of a column that John wrote a few years ago. Men in history are often remembered for things like winning a battle, governing a country, composing a symphony, writing a masterpiece, or inventing a life-changing device. Today, the Church honors a man who did none of these.  Even in his own time, in the eyes of much of the world, this small-town carpenter was insignificant. But his greatness did not lie in his...

As anyone who’s read my abstinence column here at Fox News Opinion could guess, my wedding is something that I’ve looked forward to for quite some time. After having tied the knot at the end of August, I can now say beyond all shadow of a doubt, that it was everything I’d hoped and prayed that it would be since childhood. (I’d also prayed to be bitten by a radioactive spider and develop sticky hands, but… I was an idiot.) Let me preface this column by saying this: my wife (I have to get used to saying that) and I...

Friday August 6, 2010 Prominent Lutheran Pastor: Yes, I Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction By Peter J. SmithMINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, August 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rev. Tom Brock is a senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis who recently became the center of a controversy after his personal struggles with same-sex attraction were made public. Earlier in June, an undercover journalist with the Minnesota-based homosexual publication “Lavender” infiltrated and exposed Brock's attendance at a local chapter of Courage, a Catholic-run, prayer-based support group for men struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions.  Brock, 57 years old and a virgin by his...

MINNEAPOLIS — A Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis who opposes homosexuals being allowed to lead congregations said Monday he is attracted to men, but that he's not a hypocrite because he never acted on his urges. The Rev. Tom Brock told The Associated Press he has known for years he is sexually attracted to men, but doesn't consider himself gay because he never acted on it. In June, the Minnesota gay magazine Lavender reported that Brock was a member of a support group for Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction. Brock's church, the Hope Lutheran Church, placed him on leave while...

This is a troubling story. There are support groups of all kinds. Groups that help you stay sober or drug free. There are groups that support you if you battle gambling addiction or even porn addiction. The one thing that all these groups have in common is a bond of privacy. What gets talked about in the group stays in the group. But what if what you are battling something that others don't want you battling. Does your privacy go out the window? A Lutheran Pastor who is opposed to gay clergy suffers himself from same-sex attraction. But this Pastor...

Friday, April 09, 2010 The Validity of Homosexual Vows of Chastity in Religious Life By Regis Scanlon We are all too painfully aware of the problems that homosexuality in the priesthood has caused the Catholic Church. When the John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted its research into clerical sex abuse for the U.S. bishops in 2004, it found not a pedophilia crisis but what Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, described as a pattern of "homosexual predation on American Catholic youth." The first question that comes to mind is: Should the Church accept homosexuals into diocesan...

The temptation to have sex before marriage is as old as marriage itself. More than 1,600 years ago, St. Augustine, grappling with his desires, cried out to God, "Give me chastity . . . but not yet!"What is chastity? The word is often used to mean simply abstaining from sex, as if it were equivalent to celibacy. So it may be strange to learn that, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life." If that meant total abstinence, how would there be any new Catholics? (After all, cloning is...

One never knows what might be posted as a YouTube video, readily available to anyone with an internet connection. Among the most recent is a shocker starring Planned Parenthood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvlCx3w_tss Federation of America's vice president for medical affairs, Vanessa Cullins, M.D. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/ask-dr-cullins-6602.htm In a recent Wednesday STOPP Report, http://www.all.org/article_printerfriendly.php?id=12279 Rita Diller, http://www.stopp.org/rita_diller.htm national director of Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP), described this video's basic message quite simply as "Get sexually active and get your STDs." In fact, Cullins makes it clear that you should "expect to have HPV (human papillomavirus) once you become sexually intimate; all of us get...

Sikh bracelets, but no Christian rings at school bans pupils from wearing 'purity rings' A group of teenage Christians have been banned by a secondary school from wearing "purity rings" as a symbol of their religious belief in chastity until marriage. At least one of the dozen pupils, who all attend the same girls' comprehensive in Horsham, West Sussex, is considering legal action against the Millais School for "a breach of human rights". Although the school allows Muslim and Sikh pupils to wear headscarves or kara bracelets as a means of religious expression, the purity ring - a small band...

Teens fight for a chaste Valentine's ABSTINENCE: Some high school students suggest honoring Feb. 14 as a "Day of Purity. BY STEPHANIE SIMON LOS ANGELES TIMES High school sophomore Ally Hall plans to exchange valentine cards with her friends today. But her true tribute to the romance of the season was Monday, in the principal's office at Lebanon High School in the small town of Lebanon, Ohio. Hall wrote a brief script to be read over the public-address system. Her message: The most romantic way to celebrate Feb. 14 is to honor it as a "Day of Purity," by pledging...

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...

Mr Fineman, As I read your latest article, I was introduced to a reality equally as frightening as an armed, malicious, mass-murdering enemy; and that would be a press institution globally unrestrained by integrity, logic and facts. The media, as represented by characters such as you, is now an agitprop dispensation machine. Regardless of how often or how strongly some may protest the fact of bias, a mainstream media institution that behaves in lock step to subvert truth is more dangerous to this nation and everyone within, than any armed enemy. As I note your not-so-subtle inferences, do let's be...

One of the most compelling love affairs in U.S.history involved a president.And I'm not talking about Thomas Jefferson's dalliances with his slave,Sally Hemings.No,for my money, the "hottest"romance in White House history was the one that starred John and Abigail Adams.A husband and wife - how boring!Right? But, as contemporary historians have turned their attention to this fascinating marriage,an inspiring portrait of sacrifice and devotion has emerged that rivals the best romantic fiction.Perhaps most intriguing is the revelation that,behind Abigail Adams'"dearest friend"(as she always referred to John in their voluminous correspondence)stood a wife who was in every sense the president's...