"Normalizing" premarital sex.

A new study conducted by Lawrence Finer, research director at the Guttmacher Institute, claims that 95 percent of Americans have had premarital sex, and that this rate extends even to women born in the 1940s.

The report, entitled Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954-2003, has received media attention that rivals the publication in 1948 of Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. There is, in fact, a common link to both reports. Kinsey's work was funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. And the Guttmacher Institute is a special affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which has been funded lavishly by members of the Rockefeller family and the Rockefeller Foundation since its founding (under its original name, the Birth Control League of America) in 1916.

From Planned Parenthood's point of view, a study helping to create the public perception, especially among impressionable young people, that almost everyone has engaged in premarital sex, and that there's really nothing wrong with doing it, is actually good for business.

The new Guttmacher report frankly admits that its purpose is to discredit sexual abstinence programs (e.g., "Due in part to government support, private advocacy efforts to promote abstinence until marriage are also gaining prominence and political clout.") and substitute its own agenda in their place ("The results of the analysis indicate that premarital sex is highly normative behavior.").

Although there is little doubt that the rate of premarital sex has increased since the onset of the "sexual revolution" in the late 1960s, many individuals find the report's findings incredible. Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America expressed skepticism: "Any time I see numbers that high, I'm a little suspicious. The numbers are too pat."

Especially questionable is the report's statement: "Among those turning 15 between 1954 and 1963, 82% had had premarital sex by age 30, and 88% had done so by age 44." Anyone familiar with American culture of the 1950s and even the first half of the 1960s recalls the social ostracism that awaited young ladies who did not wait for marriage. In the 1957 hit song, "Wake Up Little Susie," the Everly Brothers sang about a couple who had missed their curfew after ...