Silver Ring Thing
Encyclopedia
Virginity pledge
Virginity pledges are commitments made by teenagers and young adults to refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage.They are most common in the United States, especially among Catholic and Evangelical Christian denominations....
program which encourages teens
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
and young adults to remain celibate
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
until marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
. It is based in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and was until 2005 funded by the U.S. federal government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
. Drawing on Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, SRT uses rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
/hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
-style events in an attempt to appeal to 21st century teenager
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
s.
SRT events feature high-energy music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
, club-style
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
lighting and sound, music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s, sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
, and a faith-based
Faith-based
The term faith-based is a neologism , mostly current in US English, to describe any organization or government idea or plan based on religious beliefs, specifically Christian beliefs....
abstinence
Abstinence
Abstinence is a voluntary restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, or abstention from alcohol or food. The practice can arise from religious prohibitions or practical...
message. During the gathering, participants commit to a vow of sexual abstinence until marriage by purchasing rings.
Shortly before the end of the event, they receive their silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
rings inscribed with Bible verses
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, which are usually worn on the ring finger
Ring finger
The ring finger is the fourth digit of the human hand, and the second most ulnar finger, located between the middle finger and the little finger. It is also called digitus medicinalis, the fourth finger, digitus annularis, digitus quartus, or digitus IV in anatomy.- Etymology :According to László A...
of the left hand. The verse is First Thessalonians
First Epistle to the Thessalonians
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians, usually referred to simply as First Thessalonians and often written 1 Thessalonians, is a book from the New Testament of the Christian Bible....
4:3-4 and it states "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honor." The rings are token
Token
A token is an object of value, and may refer to:* In logic, computational linguistics, and information retrieval, a token is an instance of a type; see Type-token distinction...
s of their vow, a reminder of their decision to remain celibate
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
. The rings also are a way to signal to others that they are pledged to celibacy. After they put on their rings, they take a vow to remain abstinent.
Some studies of the efficacy of virginity pledges have found they may be effective in delaying vaginal intercourse but ineffective in reducing the rate of sexually transmitted infection and the likelihood of contraceptive use. Additionally, it has been reported that pledgers replace vaginal intercourse with other sexual activities, such as oral
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
or anal
Anal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
sex. At least one study has found no difference in the sexual behavior of pledgers and non-pledgers after controlling for pre-existing differences between the groups.
History
Silver Ring Thing was created in 1995 by Denny Pattyn, an evangelical ChristianEvangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
youth minister from Yuma, Arizona
Yuma, Arizona
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....
, as a way to combat what he saw as rising rates of STD
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
s and pregnancies
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
amongst teenagers, as well as a way to protect teens from what the founders saw as a distinctly American
Culture of the United States
The Culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore...
obsession with unhealthy (in opposition to biblical standards
Chastity
Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....
) sex, which, according to Pattyn, was a byproduct of the “promiscuity [of] the sexual revolution of the ‘60s”.
In 2000, Pattyn became Executive Director of the John Guest Evangelistic Team of Sewickley, Pennsylvania
Sewickley, Pennsylvania
Sewickley is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, west northwest of Pittsburgh along the Ohio River. It is a residential suburb of Pittsburgh. The population was 3,827 at the 2010 census...
, and SRT became part of the national outreach of the John Guest
John Guest
John Guest was a Commodore of the United States Navy, whose active-duty career lasted from the late 1830s through the Civil War.Guest was born in Missouri on 7 March, 1822...
Team.
SRT claims to have won pledges of chastity of more than 25,000 young adults since its inception, and Pattyn has stated that SRT plans to have rings on the fingers of 2 million youngsters by 2010.
Initially, SRT was funded entirely by private sources, but beginning in 2003, SRT began receiving money from the federal faith-based initiatives program. By 2004, SRT had received more than US $1,100,000 in U.S. government federal funding.
In 2004, SRT began expanding operations into the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, with mixed results. While some teens in the UK embraced the message of abstinence, some critics rejected and ridiculed SRT, claiming it was anti-sex or unrealistic, and have stated that it seems unlikely that abstinence programs will attract widespread support in the UK because of the UK's different attitude about sexuality and sex education, but the group's Assistant National Director for the UK, Denise Pfeiffer, says there is a real need for such a movement in the UK to curb what she sees as the ever-increasing rates of sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies, both of which she claims are the highest in Western Europe.
US
In 2005, the American Civil Liberties UnionAmerican Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services because it believed SRT used tax dollars to promote Christianity. SRT presented a two-part program, the first part about abstinence; the second about how The Christian Faith fits into an abstinence commitment. The ACLU claimed federal funding given to this program violated the separation of Church and State
Separation of church and state in the United States
The phrase "separation of church and state" , attributed to Thomas Jefferson and others, and since quoted by the Supreme Court of the United States, expresses an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...
.
On August 22, the department suspended SRT's $75,000 federal grant until it submitted a "corrective action plan".
In 2006, a corrective action plan was accepted by the department, the lawsuit was dismissed and SRT received its Federal Funding.
United Kingdom
In 2007, Lydia Playfoot, a 16-year-old from HorshamHorsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
, United Kingdom, took a case to the High Court of Justice
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice is, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, one of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
alleging that her school had violated her rights under the Human Rights Act
Human Rights Act 1998
The Human Rights Act 1998 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 9 November 1998, and mostly came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim is to "give further effect" in UK law to the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights...
by forbidding her from wearing a purity ring. The case was funded by individual donations gathered through the group Christian Concern For Our Nation
Christian Concern For Our Nation
Christian Concern is the trading name of CCFON Ltd, a Christian organisation in the United Kingdom which seeks to introduce a 'Christian voice' into law, the media and Government...
. On July 16, 2007, the High Court ruled that the Playfoot's human rights were not violated. The judge found that the school's actions were "fully justified" and that wearing the ring was not "intimately linked" to Playfoot's beliefs. Her father, Phil Playfoot, who at the time was the UK pastor for Silver Ring Thing, was ordered to pay £12,000 towards the school's costs.
External links
- Silver Ring Thing
- "Chastity Ring Ban", "Edward Baker". Archived by WebCiteWebCiteWebCite is a service that archives web pages on demand. Authors can subsequently cite the archived web pages through WebCite, in addition to citing the original URL of the web page. Readers are able to retrieve the archived web pages indefinitely, without regard to whether the original web page is...
at webcitation.org/5aLToXu2m., Youth Truth ZineZineA zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
, Volume 6, Issue 2, Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions.