Apparently the millennial generation, or at least most of them, "are just drifting in the cultural soup of casual sex," according to Jennifer Morse, nee Roback, a shill for the National Organization for [sic] Marriage. The exceptions not diving into this casual sex soup are "the religiously serious, college educated young adults [who] know what they are about. They are intentionally living a counter-cultural lifestyle."
The implications are that most young people are secular oriented hedonists and that the minority are "religiously serious." Morse is wrong that the young are just drifting in this "soup" she has concocted. But she is right about something. Larger and larger percentages of the young are openly rejecting religion.
A Pew Research Center report, Religion Among the Millennials, indicates that a post-Christian era is dawning on the United States, and it is most clear among the young. Pew looks at religious beliefs among the various generations of Americans. They break it down into the "Greatest," those born before 1928; the "Silent", born between 1928-45; "Boomers," 1946-64; "Gen X," 1965-1980; and "Millennials," born after 1981.
Only 5% of the Greatest say they have no religious affiliation. It is 8% for the Silent, 13% for Boomers, 20% for Gen X, and 26% for Millennials. While 81% of Americans, over the age of 30, say they are Christian, for those younger than that, the percentage drops 13 points to 68%. While it is now common for Americans of all ages to leave a religion and become unaffiliated, it is more common for young people to do so. Pew found that 18% of all young people, 18-29, have switched from affiliated to unaffiliated, whereas only 4% went in the other direction. For individuals over 30 years of age, 11% have left a religion behind to become unaffiliated.
The evangelically-inclined pollsters at the Barna Group found that "a new generation is more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago." The young are viewing Christianity far more negatively today than previous generations did at the same age. They found "nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative." And one thing driving this negative perception is "they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians." Of course, Morse, as a NOM operative, has been an active campaigner against equality of rights for gay people thus contributing the to very decline in religion that she laments.
But the very idea that Millennials are diving into a cultural soup of sexual hedonism is just wrong. Certainly, the Jenny Roback I knew, in both Chicago and Connecticut, was "living in sin" with her boyfriend at the time. Young people today may be more secular -- I prefer rational -- but they are also more sexually careful than the Boomers of Jenny's generation.
A National Institute for Health study finds that teens, 15-19 are relatively conservative in their sexual choices. Just over half of females said they had zero sexual partners in the previous year, while 24.2% of them said they had one sexual partner and 13.5% said they had two or more partners. The numbers were similar for males with 48.9% saying they had no partners, and 25.1% saying they had just one sexual partner. While 21% of males reported two or more partners, given the disparity between male reports and female reports, a good deal of this strikes me as adolescent male bravado.
What we have actually seen is that since Morse was in college the sexual activity rate of teens has been in fairly steady decline. "Data over the years on vaginal intercourse among never-married adolescents shows a steady decline since 1988," according to the Centers for Disease Control. But just as Morse has been abandoning her previous libertarian stands, the young of today, are picking up the values she has cast aside. They may be more conservative in practice but they more tolerant and socially liberal than previous generations.
The Public Religion Research Institute, in a report, Committed to Availability, Conflicted About Morality, found the young to be strongly libertarian in their policy prescriptions even if they are personally more conservative. Whereas only 58% of the general public believes abortion should be available in their community, 68% of the Millennials do. And 57% of the Millennials have no moral qualms about sex between people of the same gender. The report says: "Millennials strongly support gender equality and rights for gay and lesbian people and generally have more permissive attitudes towards sexuality issues." They found that 76% either supported gay marriage (57%) or civil unions (19%).
The shift in sexual values started before any misguided "abstinence" programs were pushed into state-run schools, so they aren't responsible. What we are finding is that each generation of Americans becomes more secular and more small-l libertarian in their social values, even if they become more conservative in their own behavior. Conservatives, such as Morse, may lament the state of youth culture today, but compared to her generation, I have to say that the kids are alright. As far as I can see they are adopting, in larger number than ever before, the values she once held. And I consider that pretty sensible.
I expect the kids, today, do the same.
My sons are 19 and 24 and they've done nothing but make me proud.
I hope both have healthy sexual relationships in their lives, I hope they both find love (one has found it and is getting married this year) and I hope they work to keep it.
When I think of my sons and their friends, they are much less susceptible to peer pressure than my era was. They are all great kids with a few flaws but nothing serious. The only kids in my sons peer groups who got pregnant as teens were the ones with the very conservative parents who didn't let them have sex ed and preached nothing but abstinence... coincidence? I think not!
I'm a tail-end Boomer, and have two Millennial sons. While I have no intention of self-confessing bad behavior my ownself, I will admit that my sons' peer group are, as a whole, much more cautious about many more things than we were at their age. Sure they have their outliers, the dumbasses who do all kinds of stupid things, but what group doesn't? I'd like to think that, in our own family, a parenting approach directly opposite of the strict, Southern Baptist upbringing I had made them more aware of things and took a lot of the mystery out of it, as opposed to me falling headlong into a lot of "bad" things in my early adulthood.
I find it particularly interesting that while religious affiliation has declined, the subsequent "moral depravation" in the form of sexual activity has not risen. It shows that religion does not necessarily guide moral behavior, and makes me wonder if the true threat to the churches is not a bunch of hoochies running around, but less rears in the pews, and less money in the plate.
Having lived in different western countries, with regard to the religion, the United States seems to be a generation behind everyone else. Other countries are giving up on religiousness much faster than the U.S. Shows you the power of the religious in the U.S., and what they feared most. People making up their own mind. Let's hope it continues.
Also, people don't "make up their own mind", especially children. They are taught things. When parents don't teach them about any subject including religion and faith, others will. Your kids learned from you that religion was not important. They then learned from peers, teachers, movie and music stars, authors, etc, etc., and filled in the blanks.
Nobody taught me to doubt.
And venom? So anyone who has anything bad to say about religion must have "venom towards religion"?
My dad told us that religion is usually an accident of birth but in the bible, all the great prophets went on their own spiritual journey to define their faith so he set us on our own journey. I have a sis who's Catholic, an Anglican sis and a Presbyterian sis and I'm spiritual but don't believe in organized religion. We raised my sons the way I was raised and they both have read many of the major books of faith. One is an atheist (and probably the most Christian person you'll ever meet because he's kind and good and caring and giving) and the other is currently Buddhist with the same wonderful attributes as his brother. Both are so responsible, honest, funny and a lot more sensible than we ever were and we couldn't be more proud of them.
Thanks for the informative article.
i bought my eight year old a book that spelled out the facts of life. we read it together and i answered her questions as openly as i possibly could. (i brought the book when she came home one day and told me how her friend told her babies were made--it was hilariously erroneous).
after we read the book i told her that this was information that i was just giving to her, was just for her and not for her to share. that her friend's parents would decide when to give this information to them.
'abstinence only' is still king here in alabama, providing your child comprehensive sex education is viewed by many religious conservatives here as giving them license "to swim in the soup" as you put it.
that is just sad. the reality is that no one asks their parent's premission to have their first sexual experience and we need to make sure they have the knowledge to make good choices and protect themselves.
My journey from Christianity happened when my eyes were opened to all the hate and hypocrisy I witnessed around me. I saw people who readily condemned me as gay and then, almost inevitably they turned out to be pedophiles. Others were just incredibly mean-spirited with no love whatsoever for their fellow human beings. I can honestly understand why the young are leaving religion behind.
I waited until I was in my twenties, and even since I have had a total of three partners. We were all cautious, spoke carefully about what we wanted, and have been honest with eachother about how we've felt on such issues.
What I've found most consistent is actually the lies the right likes to tell about these matters. Take for example Morse's comments on 'sexual soup' (now there's a horrifying image), but also the odious and obviously false 'rainbow parties' (look that up, I won't go into details). It's a never ending series of hit jobs and exaggerated sob stories that, damn the facts, are aimed at digging into peoples' emotional responses and not to target their reasoning minds.