THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 5, 1994 TAG: 9408040249
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY THOMAS PEAR, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 169 lines
LANCE WRIGHT, 14, stood on the National Mall in Washington last Friday evening swallowed up in a sea of some 25,000 teens and young adults assembled on the nation's lawn in a show of solidarity.
A slow, steady rain that periodically turned into a downpour did little to drown out the rock 'n' roll message blaring from center stage. And while the bands belted out anthems with titles like ``Boycott Hell'' and ``Beyond Belief,'' Wright and about three dozen friends who had just made the four-hour drive from Virginia Beach were enthusiastically caught up in their cause.
They had come not so much to protest but to promote.
Their message: ``True Love Waits.''
They had come to celebrate their commitment.
``We should wait to have sex until we are married,'' said Wright, a member of the London Bridge Baptist Church youth group who will be a freshman at Greenbrier Christian Academy this fall. ``I'm just going to be cool and not mess around with girls.''
Weeks earlier Wright put that promise in writing. He and almost a quarter of a million youths signed abstinence pledge cards that were planted in the National Mall for Friday's rally, forming neat rows that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The message sent by the kids was simple:
``Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, those I date, my future mate and my future children to be sexually pure until the day I enter marriage.''
The rally featured popular Christian rock groups DeGarmo and Key, Petra and contemporary Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman.
``To know that these people are taking an oath to remain abstinent and remain in line with God's command is very exciting,'' said Eddie DeGarmo. ``It's a celebration.''
During an era when kids see their school mates and friends engaging in premarital sex ``it kind of turns peer pressure around a little bit,'' said London Bridge Baptist Youth Pastor Randy Bonner.
While the London Bridge group was in Washington for only a few hours, other youth groups had arrived there on Wednesday for a Youth for Christ conference that was held in conjunction with the rally.
A group of 33 teenagers from Providence Presbyterian Church were among 23,000 who attended the conference and the rally.
``It gave me a sense of security knowing that there are other people out there with me,'' said 12-year-old Shannon Meyer who attends Providence Presbyterian and is a rising seventh-grader at Brandon Middle School. ``I just felt so good because I saw other people who believe in the same thing I do.''
While the teens admitted that they feel pressured by their peers at times, many said the media pressures them even more.
``I think that the media constantly shows that part of being a teenager is sex and drugs and they never show anybody that's not doing that, and I think they need to because there are a lot of people out there who aren't,'' said 15-year-old Stephanie Webster, a rising sophomore at Kempsville High School.
``It's hard to get away from the pressure by the media,'' said Providence Presbyterian youth group leader Claudia Cosimano, who teaches at Princess Anne High School. ``You can hardly find a movie that doesn't show people in bed together who are not married. Even `Sleepless in Seattle,' which was a sweet adorable movie, they still showed two people in bed together who were not married. And they didn't need to do that. It would have been a wonderful movie otherwise.''
The Providence Presbyterian youth also believe that Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders is using the media to send the wrong message when she claims that kids are going to have sex and uses that assumption to advocate condom use.
``If that's the attitude then people are thinking well they don't even care anyway. They think I will do it, so I am going to do it,'' said Webster.
Julie Brown, 15, a rising junior at Salem High, said kids do not take condoms seriously.
``I know at my school condoms are almost a big joke because during lunch this one guy he came in with a box of 100 condoms that he got at the free health clinic here in Virginia Beach and they (the kids) started blowing them up and filling them with water and shaving cream and tossing them around,'' she said.
Brown believes that schools, which she says are ducking the the safe-sex issue by not teaching abstinence or condom use, should teach abstinence.
Other Providence Presbyterian youth group members said that condoms provide a false sense of security.
``The only safe sex anymore is abstinence and that's the only way it was,'' said 14-year-old Beth Tinkle, a rising freshman at Kempsville High.
Realizing that ``safe sex'' through the use of a condom is not an option for them, the youth have even more reason to keep their promise to remain abstinent. But some admit it won't be easy.
``Every one of you going home is going to be challenged,'' Christian author and speaker Josh McDowell told the crowd at the rally. ``The things that will pull you through are your commitment to Christ, your friends around you and a commitment not to defile yourselves.''
Webster already has a strategy mapped out to handle such pressure.
``There's a verse in the Bible and it says `love is patient,' and no one who is patient and really cared would make you have sex when you really didn't want to,'' she said.
Then there's the approach of Kristen White, 14, another rising freshman at Kempsville High.
``If the guy says, `I just can't resist you,' the comeback is: `You would be able to resist me if my dad was in the back seat,' '' she said.
Earlier Friday before the rally, 150 teenagers and 10 adult leaders made a White House visit to listen as President Clinton addressed their concerns of teenage promiscuity.
``He said the government has a limited role in affecting teenage sexuality,'' said Southern Baptist Sunday School Board consultant Richard Ross, the founder of the ``True Love Waits'' campaign.
He said President Clinton told them that the government's ``limited'' role includes welfare reform that would make having children out of wedlock less attractive economically and tougher laws to make biological fathers pay child support.
``He (Clinton) expanded the concept of personal morality to say that in many arenas of life government external policies and control cannot prevent the destruction of society. Only an internal sense of rightness and wrongness can,'' Ross said.
Ross started the ``True Love Waits'' movement more than a year ago after he heard two girls in his junior high youth group at Tulip Grove Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn., discuss how they felt awkward because they were virgins.
``It concerned me that our society has shifted so much that teenagers living God's way feel they are living in a tiny minority,'' Ross said.
``Statistically, I knew the girls were wrong.''
A recent poll commissioned by USA Today, for example, revealed that 72 percent of teens agree with the message of abstinence.
To show that kids who choose abstinence are not alone Ross developed the idea of having teenagers sign covenant cards and putting them on public display.
From that moment ``True Love Waits'' was born and was later joined by 28 other denominations and Christian youth organizations.
``True Love Waits'' has spread worldwide and a parade was held in Uganda at the same time as the D.C. rally. The ``True Love Waits'' campaign also will be included in another Youth for Christ rally in Los Angeles later this month.
Hopefully, said Bonner of London Bridge Baptist, the kids will take the message to their peers in their respective hometowns.
``It could affect the whole teenage culture.''
At least one passer-by in Washington already was moved by the scene.
``It's a lovely message and we need to see more like this in the world,'' said Francelle Holmes, a security guard at the National Art Gallery who studied the pledge cards as he strolled along the Mall during his break. ``True love waits, you gotta love it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos by THOMAS PEAR
Einat Yehene, left, and Naor Ashkenazi, visitors from Israel, share
a kiss among the ``True Love Waits'' pledge cards.[cover photo]
Scott McDaniel of the ``True Love Waits'' staff helps to arrange
about 250,000 signed abstinence pledge cards on the National Mall
before the rally.
``True Love Waits'' has spread worldwide, and a parade was held in
Uganda - featuring these T-shirts - at the same time as the D.C
rally. Another rally is planned for Los Angeles later this month.
``It concerned me that our society has shifted so much that
teenagers living God's way feel they are living in a tiny
minority,'' said Richard Ross, founder of the ``True Love Waits''
campaign.
Heather Rasmussen, 15, a rising junior at Kellam High, and Eric
Grenier, 17, a rising senior at Atlantic Shores Christian School,
were among the contingent from London Bridge Baptist.
Among the 25,000 teens and young adults enjoying the popular
Christian rock groups were Beach residents (left) Henry Harris, 15,
a rising 9th-grader at First Colonial High, and (above) Amy Durbin
and Leeanne Talbot, both 13 and rising 8th-graders at Landstown
Middle School.
by CNB