Today the feminist corner of the internet is very much in love with this piece by Jill Filipovic for The Guardian debunking the exclusive morality of chastity before marriage. Despite my interest in reframing the conversation about pre-marital sex, particularly within the church, I found it riddled with unfounded assertion and the assumption that correllation equals causation. Here’s an example:
So here it goes: having sex before marriage is the best choice for nearly everyone.
How do I know? Well, first of all, nearly everyone has sex before marriage – 95% of Americans don’t wait until their wedding night. And that’s a longstanding American value. Even among folks in my grandparents’ generation, nine out of ten of them had sex before they wed.
Data? Not in evidence.
I see this type of ill-considered writing (and speech) all the time from evangelicals, too. It’s what happens when your culture becomes so insular that you start mistaking your conclusions for valid premises.