Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994 TAG: 9407120009
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
It's a sexual revolution in the opposite direction: More than 100,000 Southern Baptist youngsters are pledging to refrain from sex until marriage.
Under the hot June sun, hundreds of teens began setting up a stadium-size display of chastity pledge cards Tuesday morning as the 137th annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention opened.
``It's a way to tell the world not to have sex before marriage,'' said Katy Burks, 13, of Ferris Avenue Baptist Church in Waxahachie, Texas. ``It's really important to me. All my friends and stuff are getting pregnant, and it hurts to see them getting hurt like that.''
Since its humble beginning little more than a year ago, when 59 teens took vows of chastity in a Nashville, Tenn., church, the ``True Love Waits'' campaign has inspired more than 100,000 youths in the nation's largest Protestant denomination to pledge to abstain from sex before marriage. Thousands of signed cards were brought to Orlando to set up Tuesday's symbolic display on the lawn outside the convention center.
Risking the ridicule of their peers, teens say abstinence is an opportunity for redemption in a culture that often seems to expect them to give their libidos free rein.
``It gives other youths a place to look at and say, `We're not so odd. Look, there's 100,000 other people that are not having sex,''' said Rob Ladd, 18, of Nashville. ``Even if five of my friends are having sex, I don't have to.''
What has captured the imagination of these teens is the opportunity to ``get in the face'' of the free love generation that expects them to be promiscuous, said the Rev. Richard Ross, who started it all.
``Teen-agers like going against the flow,'' he said. ``Teen-agers ... like surprising adults and not fitting in with adult expectations.''
``There's some of us out here who do stand up for things and are pretty good people,'' said Lucy Gama, 17, also of Nashville.
The first group made their chastity pledges in Ross' Tulip Grove Baptist Church in Nashville. The idea spread, and pledge cards started stacking up.
Three hundred teens from inner-city Houston churches signed on at a rally. At a summer camp in Oklahoma, more than 13,500 teens took the pledge.
At some rallies, more than 10,000 young people at a time pledged ``to God, myself, my family, those I date, my future mate and my future children to be sexually pure until the day I enter a covenant marriage relationship.''
Other major church organizations looking for ways to promote traditional morality also signed on. About 26 groups, from the Roman Catholic Church and Assemblies of God to Campus Crusade for Christ and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, have joined the campaign.
by CNB