Replies

Sorry if I was being overly pedantic, but you used the term "adultery" [as distinct from "fornication", "living in sin", or any other such terms]. Words mean things, and adultery specifically means someone who is married having relations with someone outside that marriage.

Errr... I didn't do that, and I was agreeing with you. Sarcasm. I was tweaking the 'I think I'm holier than thou, but I'm really not holier than a cheese sandwich' posters.

I was tweaking the 'I think I'm holier than thou, but I'm really not holier than a cheese sandwich' posters.

Oh, okay, I somehow missed the /sarcasm tag.

Actually, I think conservatives might get a little more traction on moral issues if they didn't come across as painting a version of the past that never quite existed. Though illegitimacy rates have skyrocketed in my lifetime, the existence of premarital sex is nothing new. What's changed is the consequences.

By my understanding, it used to be that if an unmarried girl got pregnant, one of two things would happen:

She'd marry the father, and while their child would pop out six months later instead of nine, it would be considered fully legitimate.
She'd disappear for a few months, return not pregnant, and somewhere there would be a baby up for adoption.

Neither of these outcomes involved any sort of criminal sanction, and indeed the first was considered only mildly unacceptable. BTW, the first outcome is also entirely consistent with God's law given in Exodus.

BTW, another thing about the above consequences is that they represent the 'natural' consequences of people's actions; if anything, society is making them less severe than they otherwise would be. By contrast, those who would throw in jail unmarried couples who share a roof (whether or not they share a bed) are seeking to impose artificial consequences for the people's actions. For whatever reason, people tend to respond better to "natural" consequences than artificial ones, probably because in the latter case they blame whoever imposes the consequences while in the former case they have nobody to blame but themselves.