From the cnn.com article http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/01/22/virginity.value/index.html

“A recent study in the journal Pediatrics showed that religious teens who take virginity pledges are as likely to have sex before marriage as their religious peers, and less likely to use condoms or birth control when they become sexually active.”

In an early blog post, I mentioned that we tell kids the reasons to wait for marriage then send them out into an oversexed world. Of course, it doesn’t help that often times youth put themselves in to a position where they “get on the bus” and there aren’t any stops between the bus stop and “the end of the line” (being sex). And that bus stop is  fine line. A young man or woman may have all the plans in the world to wait but putting on the breaks once the bus starts moving can be very hard.

I also think the quote from the article above seems to be making religous people look like freaks. Pleanty of people say “no” and plan to wait who have no religious affiliation. I have helped out with a friend who did an after school program to teach abstinence and they were asked to sign a pledge to wait. This program did not have a religious affiliation. As a matter of fact, when working with the group, my friend was not able to talk about God at all, due to the source of her funding.

To keep kids from engaging in sex once they made a pledge to wait, we need to teach them how to stay off the bus.