Dr. Nancy Moore
Clatworthy, sociologist, has been doing research on “living together”
for 10 years. When she began her research, the idea of living together before
committing yourself to marriage made good sense to her. Now, after scientifically
analyzing the results of hundreds of surveys filled out by couples who had lived
together, she opposes living together in any form. Her answers make a powerfully
Christian point: only a fully committed marriage relationship is really suited
to working out the best possible relationship.

_________________
Tim Stafford


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Stars Say, Yes!

In Michigan, in
four cities that studied junior high and high school girls, it was found that
the girls watch an average of two and a half to three hours of soap operas per
day, and that there is one episode of sexual intercourse per hour in those films
– almost always between unmarried people. But more surprising to us was that
the movies these youngsters wanted to see most were R-rated movies, and we found
that 66 to 77 percent of the girls in these four cities had seen the six top
R-rated films that year. The fascinating thing to me is that not one of these
girls were ever challenged at the box office although all of them were under
age, and the movies contained eight instances of sexual intercourse among unmarried
people per film. Two of these films had even more than that. One had fourteen.
That one was so popular with young people that it has now been made into a television
series.

I think the media
has downgraded morality in this country to the point where kids think if they
do what they see, they are behaving according to the norm of society.

________________________
Sermons Illustrated


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Somebody Always
Pays

Someone always
pays for promiscuity – and it is not always the primary participants who pay
the most.

This year there
will be 1.2 million pregnant teenagers. Do you know that it costs federal and
state governments an average of $100,000 in medical and welfare costs for every
single teen who has a child? Consider the following statistics from The Associated
Press:

Teenage child-bearing
cost the nation $16.6 billion last year and the 385,000 babies who were the
first born to adolescents in 1985 will receive $5 billion in welfare benefits
over the next 20 years, according to the study just released…The study
estimated that the government spent $16.5 billion last year in welfare costs
to support families started by teenagers. This estimate includes payments
for AFDC, Medicaid and food stamps as well as the costs of administering these
programs.

________________________
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Ann Landers recently asked her readers the question: Has your sex life gone down hill since marriage?

One reader, a man age 52, from Newark, New Jersey put it best:

“Your question – has sex gone downhill since marriage? -is an insult to those of us who waited until marriage to have sex. You ought to tell your readers that if they don’t eat the icing off the cake before dinner they are likely to enjoy the dessert more.”


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