BREAKING NEWS: PEOPLE SINNED IN THE PAST

In the continuing effort to discredit and stop abstinence education a new study reveals that "Even grandma had premarital sex, survey finds":

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.

Now I'm skeptical that 90% of people over the past 60 years has pre-marital sex, but even if we concede the point for the sake of discussion, it doesn't matter. Should we stop anti-smoking campaigns because we might find that 80% of people have had a cigarrette? The study seems to make no difference between someone who may have been involved with one partner one time and someone who is promiscuous with multiple partners over years and years.

The dominant culture is insistent that sexual freedom be glorified, and anything that hints at moral disapproval of sleeping with whomever whenever one gets the urge must be quashed.

That people sinned in the past is no shocking news. From a health standpoint the fact that people have been involved in pre-marital sex has no bearing on the very real dangers. From a spiritual standpoint the fact that people have and do sin has no bearing on the fact that it's still wrong.