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While many Christians are taught that premarital sex and cohabitation aren't advisable for many reasons, a growing number of single believers are following secular society's model instead of the biblical model. In the most recent episode of "Challenging Conversations" on the edifi podcast network, host Jason Jimenez, who's also a pastor and founder of Stand Strong Ministries, was joined by apologist Sean McDowell to discuss why some 60% of professing Christians believe cohabitation and sex outside of marriage are OK. Jimenez said that he and McDowell, who hosts classes on premarital sex and marriage at Summit Ministries, wanted to speak...

Half of Christians say sex between consenting adults who are in a committed dating relationship is sometimes or always acceptable, and over half — with the exception of evangelical Protestants — say casual sex is OK, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Some 62% of Catholics, 56% of Protestants in the historically black tradition, 54% of mainline Protestants, and 36% of evangelical Protestants say casual sex between consenting adults is sometimes or always acceptable, according to the survey. Among those who are religiously unaffiliated, as many as 84% say casual sex is sometimes or always acceptable, Pew...

'These outrageous allegations are simply false. I took the photos given to the media nearly 15 years ago and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described,' Porter said in a statement Wednesday. 'I have been transparent and truthful about these vile claims, but I will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign.

Utah lawmakers took the first step Tuesday to get rid of a state law that bans the “advocacy of homosexuality” in schools, a move driven by a court challenge from gay rights groups. The Senate Education Committee voted unanimously in favor of a Republican bill cutting the phrase from sex education law. The National Center for Lesbian Rights and Equality Utah sued last fall, saying the law creates a “chilling culture of silence that stigmatizes LGBTQ students” and exists only to express disapproval of being gay. A number of states have similar laws, but few others are moving to overturn...

Schools are being told that children should be able to have consensual sex at the age of 13 as part of government-backed guidance, it emerged today. The guidelines—which can be used as part of sex education lessons—say that having sexual relationships when children reach their teens represents a “safe and healthy” part of growing up.They have been produced by a national charity as part of a plan endorsed by the Department for Education to improve standards of advice given to pupils. …

Virginity does not rock at Ramay Junior High School in Fayetteville, Arkansas. That’s the lesson 13-year-old Chloe Rubiano learned. Chloe is in the eighth grade. She is also a good church-going girl. So you can imagine her mom’s surprise when she got in trouble at school. Chloe showed up at school wearing a T-shirt that reads: “Virginity Rocks.” “It’s a positive message,” said Bambi Crozier, Chloe’s mom. Apparently some folks at Ramay Junior High don’t understand the concept of virginity. But school officials disagreed. They said the shirt could cause a classroom disruption and contained sexual content. Apparently some folks...

A teenager’s parents have been fined €3,000 by a court in Bavaria for not stopping their 13-year-old daughter having sex with her boyfriend. The girl was 13 when she slept with her 16-year-old boyfriend and had talked about it with her parents beforehand. Her parents told the court in Viechtach, Bavaria, on Monday that they had tried to talk her out of it but could not convince her. …

Premarital sex is "immoral" and against the "tenets of every religion", a Delhi court has said while holding that every act of sexual intercourse between two adults on the promise of marriage does not become rape. Additional sessions judge Virender Bhat also held that a woman, especially grown up, educated and office-going, who has sexual intercourse on the assurance of marriage does so "at her own peril". "In my opinion, every act of sexual intercourse between two adults on the assurance of promise of marriage does not become rape, if the assurance or promise is not fulfilled later on by...

An Egyptian man has been killed in a so-called honor killing for allegedly having sexual relations with his wife before they were married, it’s reported. According to the English language Cairo Post newspaper, the man—identified only as Mohamed FM—was reportedly shot dead by his wife’s brothers after they discovered the couple had been intimate before getting married. …

On Monday, the Madras High Court weighed in on a spousal support case and inadvertently provoked a debate over what exactly defines a relationship between a man and a woman. The court had heard an appeal from a woman who was seeking financial support from the father of her two children and live-in partner of five years. A lower court had previously ordered the man to pay child support but ruled that because the woman was not his legal wife, he did not need to pay her anything. In overturning the lower court’s ruling, Madras High Court Judge C.S. Karnan...

Barbara Hewson, a London barrister, has made the call for lowering the age of sexual consent in the United Kingdom from 16 to 13. Her reasoning (if one may call it that) is that the current age of consent leads to the harassment and “persecution of old men.” She also believes that underage victims should have no right to anonymity, and that law based on the best interests of the child should not trump the “rights” of men who like to kiss a 13-year-old, or put one’s hand up a 16-year-old’s skirt. time to end this prurient charade, which has...

Jillian Melchior makes the case for selling the pill over the counter. I couldn’t agree more; women should not need a doctor’s permission to take a birth-control pill (or just about any other pill, for that matter). But regarding the argument that this measure will reduce abortion, I was compelled to check the data.As I argued two years ago, abortions by and large aren’t the result of poor access to birth control. Instead, most abortions happen because people intentionally engage in high-risk sexual activity and use abortion as a backup. But this is a country with a million abortions a...

The latest episode of “Taboo” aired last night on National Geographic Channel. It explored the issue of “Teen Sex.” One segment introduced viewers to the Kreung people of Cambodia, who build “love huts” for their teen-aged daughters to have pre-marital sex with as many teen-aged boys as they like. Another featured 15-year-old Australian tart Cassie Osborne and her teen-aged girlfriends, wearing barely-there dresses, practicing their sexual flirtation, looking forward to becoming some young bloke’s boy toy. And yet another took a look at Purity Balls here in the United States, in which teen-aged girls pledge to remain pure and abstain...

“First base, second base, third base, home run,” Al Vernacchio ticked off the classic baseball terms for sex acts. His goal was to prompt the students in Sexuality and Society — an elective for seniors at the private Friends’ Central School on Philadelphia’s affluent Main Line — to examine the assumptions buried in the venerable metaphor. “Give me some more,” urged the fast-talking 47-year-old, who teaches 9th- and 12th-grade English as well as human sexuality. Arrayed before Vernacchio was a circle of small desks occupied by 22 teenagers, six male and the rest female — a blur of sweatshirts and...

This is no nursery rhyme but rather the cast of characters lining up to appear at the 2012 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh. ACT I: An assault on marriageThe chameleon:  This character will attempt to lead commissioners to see marriage differently than the Church has historically defined it. Separating marriage from the Biblical narrative of creation and the Biblical witness of Jesus' affirmation between one man and one woman, the assembly will be asked to see a "new normal" that is inclusive of gay marriage. Presented plainly, the redefinition of marriage will arrive at the assembly through...

Shorter University in Rome, Ga., is requiring its employees to certify that they are not gay as a condition of employment. All 200 employees of the Baptist university, located about 65 miles northwest of Atlanta, received a "personal lifestyle statement" last Wednesday, which they must sign or risk being fired. Employees must pledge to be "active members of a local church" and to abstain from, among other things, drug use, premarital sex and homosexual behavior. "I reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible, including, but not limited to, premarital sex, adultery and homosexuality," the statement...

There was a time when having sex with a woman meant a wedding ring, a court ship or at the very least, dinner. But social psychologists say those days are quickly coming to an end as women become more promiscuous, Yahoo Shine reports. -snip- Other things that are said to have contributed to these changes include gender equality, birth control and internet porn.

A young Christian at an purity rally spreads the word. True love doesn’t wait after all. That’s the implication in the upcoming October issue of an evangelical magazine that claims that young, unmarried Christians are having premarital sex almost as much as their non-Christian peers. The article in Relevant magazine, entitled “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” cited several studies examining the sexual activity of single Christians. One of the biggest surprises was a December 2009 study, conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which included information on sexual activity. While the study’s primary report did not explore...

Despite record decreases in the rate of U.S. teens who have unplanned pregnancies, America still leads in the number of teen births compared to most Western European countries, according to census data. U.S. figures collected in 2009 and released in December show that there was an average of 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 to 19, 15 more than the European averages. Europe averages reveal a 24 per 1,000 birth rate among mid to late adolescent girls. In secular France, the rate is 7 per 1,000. Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands all have birth rates below 10 per 1,000...

For the second time in less than a year, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), an official agency of the denomination, has published an article arguing that sexual relationships outside the covenant of marriage are not necessarily improper. “An Ordained Single Woman and the Discipline,” published June 7 as part of the “Sex and the Church” series in GBCS’ weekly Faith in Action online newsletter, contends that sexual relationships should not be off-limits for unmarried UM clergy. Last August, the controversial series featured an article by Unitarian “sexologist” Debra Haffner who wrote that one can have...