By Harold Keller / L’Observateur / July 15, 1998

This past spring, in a wealthy and privileged community in Michigan, the high school yearbook came out and showed a picture of the class president exposing himself.

The investigation that followed was even worse than the explicit picture.

Three freshman girls came forward with allegations that the class president and three buddies got the girls drunk and raped them.

In my opinion, the saddest news out of this Michigan report was what one of the residents was quoted as saying. “In my eyes, it’s just a sign of thetimes,” the resident said. Is that statement accurate? Indeed, it is. Just asign of the times.

For the last few months, I’ve noticed billboards with the message: “Virgin” (in big, bold letters), followed by the message: “Teach your children it’s not a dirty word.”Today, young girls who remain virgins are not the rule, but an exception to the rule. In my school years, the girls who had sex before marriage weresingled out. Now, the girls who choose to remain sexually pure are singledout and not in a positive way. Many girls who have lost their virginitymake fun of them and dare them not to stay sexually pure. (Isn’t itamazing how misery loves company?) The results of this pressure cause some girls to give in because they think it’s a sign of the times.

I like what I heard a few years ago about a young girl who was still a virgin and being pressured to have sex. She told the girls who were tryingto convince her to give in that the only difference between them and her was that she could be like them any time she wanted, but they could never again be like her. Wow!Who’s to blame for the moral decay of our young people? Like most problems, the parents are to be blamed.

Today, we have parents who expect their children to engage in sex and their children don’t disappoint them. They talk about safe sex (no suchthing). Some even buy birth control pills for their 14- and 15-year-olddaughters.

It’s no wonder we have a generation of young people who have no respect for their own bodies. The message we need to start preaching isabstinence.

No, that’s old-fashioned. It worked for our mothers and fathers and it’llwork for our children and grandchildren.

Like the billboards say: “Virgin – Teach your children it’s not a dirty word.” In fact, the dictionary defines a virgin as being pure, modest,virtuous, undefiled, in good taste.

When speaking to young men about girls, I often ask them what kind of girl they would like to marry? Regardless of how sexually free they have been, the answer 100 percent of the time is, “I’d like to marry a virgin.”Young ladies, the message is loud and clear. Being a virgin is the only wayto go and, most importantly, it’s God’s way!

Harold Keller is a regular columnist for L’Observateur.

Copyright © 1998, Wick Communications, Inc.

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