Newspaper article on teen purity

Teen purity movement stakes
a claim on larger territory
___By Michele Melendez
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Mickey Harris Jr. is young, strong and pure. He's 16, a 6-foot-3 athlete and a virgin who shuns risky behavior.

Daphne Stevens, 39, of Pennsauken, N.J., created Purity Jams, at which youth come together to dance, sing and pray about staying abstinent until marriage, avoiding drugs and being considerate of others. Her daughters are Kristine,15, and Jasmine, 13. Purity Jams build in the success of sexual abstinence movements like True Love Waits.
___"Purity is abstaining from anything that can affect you mentally, physically or spiritually in a bad way," he said. "You can make mistakes along the way, but you want to come back to being pure."
___In Pennsauken, Harris' southern New Jersey town, and in communities across the country, purity is a label that goes beyond "sexually abstinent" or "drug-free." It means unsoiled in all respects, in an emerging, largely Christian movement toward straight-edged youth.
___Harris regularly joins hundreds of other young people who act, rap and dance at Purity Jams. In suburban New Orleans, teens are expressing a Passion4Purity with role-playing and song. In the St. Petersburg, Fla., area, teens are taking the Purity Power Pledge.
___This outpouring is bubbling as Congress discusses public funding to promote sexual abstinence, the element most associated with purity. President Bush has requested $135 million for abstinence-only education programs, a $33 million increase from last year.
___Critics argue the programs are blind to the reality of adolescence and, by withholding safe-sex information, may put teens in danger. Picketing has occured in California arguing teens are being brainwashed.
___But apart from the debate over whether abstinence education works, religious community leaders say they're convinced devotion to purity benefits teens in all areas.
___"It's not just 'Say no to sex,'" explained Daphne Stevens, founder of Harvest Ministries in Pennsauken, which runs the Purity Jam in churches and schools in the Philadelphia area and throughout New Jersey. "It's about destructive behavior, violence, peer pressure, prejudice."
___Purity programs involve role-playing, games, music, prayer, skits and peer counseling. Some offer weekend retreats, and others meet for short gatherings. Discussion often turns to talk of consequences, how a thrill can fester into torment.

Mickey Harris is a 16-year-old participant in a Purity Jam.
___Pete Chryss, executive director of Passion for Purity, a mens' and youth movement in California , said concentrating only on sexual abstinence ignores other vital teen struggles. Many who were active in the abstinence movement that emerged in the 1990s realized the focus was too narrow,he said.
___"What I've seen is that it's only the surface of the need," he explained. "You have to get deeper to the heart of this younger generation. We start with the Dads and their struggles and handle the teens by allowing them a conduit of information, friendship, and encouragement."
___Passion for Purity's mission has touched Kristen Alexander, 18. By age 14, she already had decided to remain sexually abstinent before marriage and devote herself to God. At age 16, she started volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, where she saw girls younger than she was pregnant and distraught.
___When she turned 17, Alexander joined Passion for Purity, which is affiliated with the pregnancy center. The weekly meetings, held in the group's strip-mall office, let young people talk about topics they're afraid to mention in school, where purity can be unpopular.
___Last year, Marisa Tompkins, 17, of Tampa, Fla., started thinking about what her reputation would be. Her peers were getting more physical with boys, and some were trying drugs and alcohol.

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'Don't make someone a priority when they only make you an option.'