Patrick, et al, cold-blooded murder, the wanton taking of life without proper authority is reprehensible and immoral. There is no social value in glorifying it. Most everyone here will agree with that. The act of illicit sex, can lead to the making of life without proper authority, is immoral. There is no social value in glorifying it. Many, if not most, here will disagree with that. Be that as it may.

It's not unlike giving a child a loaded gun to play with. There is the potential there for a life to be taken accidentally. When two people, an unmarried man and woman, have sexual intertcourse there is the potential there for a life to be created accidentally.

That's the answer, now as to whether or not anyone will accept it is another story.

In a report given in 1966, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, in referring to the decline in moral standards, said, "Most radical social changes come slowly. But not this time. It is almost as if the demonic powers in sex-and make no mistake, sex has its demonic side-had been released in a sudden explosion that has blasted away the restraints and traditions of centuries. The spark that has set off this explosion is a twisted concept of freedom, a `new freedom' that too often leaves its adherents in chains." And then Dr. Peale gives a Newsweek report which states: "Undoubtedly the key to the new morality is the widespread belief that a boy and girl who have established what the college calls a meaningful relationship have the moral right to sleep together."

Who is hurt?

The young people want to know what difference it makes if no one is getting hurt, but Dr. Peale says, "This sounds fine in theory, but multiply this attitude by millions of eager experiments and what do you get? You get such statistics as these: `Between the years 1940 and 1957 the illegitimacy rate increased 112 percent in the 15-19 age group; 300 percent in the 20-24 age group; 462 percent in the 25-29 age group; 478 percent in the 30-34 age group, 456 percent in the 35-39 age group; and 196 percent in the 40-44 age group.

"`Venereal disease among adolescents rose 130 percent between the years 1956 and 1961. The illegitimacy rate has tripled since 1953. By 1970, ten-million Americans will have been born out of wedlock. Forty percent of the unwed mothers are between the ages of 15 and 19.' "No one is getting hurt?" continues Dr. Peale. "What a laugh! What a hollow, tragic, gruesome laugh! And the hurt is not confined to individuals; it damages and degrades our nation throughout the world. From the beginning of recorded history, men have known that the sex drive had to be controlled if civilization was to replace anarchy. Dr. J. D. Unwin, Historian of the Cambridge University, made a study of eighty civilizations ranging over a period of four-thousand years and concluded that a society either chooses sexual promiscuity and decline, or sexual discipline and creative energy. Writes Dr. Unwin: `Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy, or to enjoy sexual freedom, the evidence is that they cannot do both formore than one generation.' "

From the site The Future of Children: "Before the 1996 law was enacted, no federal program expressly sought to promote marriage, but the issues surrounding family formation have gained increasing public attention as the incidence of children living in divorced, never-married, and teen parent households has grown. The proportion of children living with only one parent has more than doubled in the past 30 years, from 12% in 1970 to 27% in 1998. In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the growth in single-parent families was caused by increases in divorce, but in the next two decades nearly all the growth was driven by increases in out-of-wedlock childbearing. Although fewer than 4% of all births were to unmarried women and adolescents in 1940, 33% of all births were outside of marriage by 1999."

And this does not even begin to scratch the tip of the iceburg.

So the question is: Has the decline in moral values hurt our society?

How would you answer?