Teen Uses Purity Day Platform to Promote Abstinence to Peers
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
February 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - For the second year in a row, Florida-based Liberty Counsel has declared February 14 as a "Day of Purity." So, once again, young people across the United States made a public statement by celebrating sexual purity this Valentine's Day.Youth taking part in this the Day of Purity observance were encouraged to wear special white T-shirts symbolizing sexual purity. Ally Hall is a 14-year-old 9th grader in Lebanon, Ohio, who participated locally. At her school, she says, "We are actually having a table at lunch that has flyers on abstinence and STDs and what can happen without staying sexually pure."
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Ally Hall |
Hall's efforts at publicizing the Day of Purity resulted in Ohio Governor Bob Taft issuing a statewide proclamation regarding the special event, supported by Ohio State Representative Tom Raga. Meanwhile, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter to which she belongs sponsored the Day of Purity activities in her school. Hall's FCA group promoted purity and educated students and parents alike about abstinence by distributing educational flyers, purity-themed bumper stickers, balloons, and "little sticker tattoos and stuff like that, just to get kids involved," she says.Some of the facts the group tried to make known involve important numbers: like the $31 million in grants given by the Health Resource Services & Administration to help communities develop and implement abstinence-only sex education programs. HRSA Secretary Tommy G. Thompson notes that premarital sexual activity can have "negative social and psychological impact on teenagers," while abstinence-only programs offer teens support in their decisions to remain abstinent until marriage.
The HRSA invests that kind of funding in abstinence-based sex education, Hall asserts, because the agency officials "know purity works." And that is why the student, along with the HRSA, is trying to help youth see that abstinence offers positive benefits and rewards to young people, both in their immediate and future lives.
The Ohio teenager believes many young people are hungry for the truth about the benefits of abstinence. "In today's culture," she notes, "students are bombarded with the message that they should become sexually active at a young age and experiment with their sexual preferences. So the Day of Purity offers youth that don't want to do that an opportunity to stand for what they believe."
Hall says last year's inaugural event was "a huge success," with thousands of students and organizations around the world participating. "The Day of Purity is a day when everybody in the world can make a public demonstration of their commitment to remain sexually pure in mind and actions," she says, "and by wearing the white T-shirt, that shows that."
The ninth grader believes the Day of Purity observance plays an important role, not only in educating her peers and the rest of the public about the benefits of abstinence, but also in standing up for those youth that are committed to sexual purity. "There are teens in this nation who are making good choices that benefit their community," Hall says. "We just need support."
A recent NBC News and People magazine poll found that 87 percent of teenagers age 13 to 16 are not sexually active. Seventy-four percent of this age group say they have not had sex because they have made a conscious decision to wait.
