is far superior to all other ways, by any measure of human thriving. Teenagers (who have yet to experience life and learn its hard lessons by experience) need to understand that there are lifelong consequences for “sowing wide oats”, as the most important chart in all the social sciences makes clear:
They need to be very familiar with the data (with the lessons of life experience) that the totally monogamous couple (only sexual partner ever: their spouse) is the least likely to divorce – by far. And that one third of women who have had only one other sexual partner (normally before marriage) are likely to divorce within five years, and that those who had two such sexual partners (other than their husband – again most likely before marriage) have a fifty percent chance of divorce within five years — and that half of their children will be raised without their father present.
Chastity may be difficult but it is central to a family-centered life. And it is also central to justice for children. There is no free lunch on this issue, not for teenagers, adults nor for society itself.
If churches and parents do not make the strongest case possible for the chastity-based family (and on its fruits and benefits it is an easy case to make) they will not get their religious freedom.
The rest of society may think such families are weird (despite the data) but they will likely respect them for the path they have chosen.
The future of the First Amendment rests on the freedom to teach the centrality of chaste family life. We will not win I if we are ambivalent or shy.]]>
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