From The New Yorker, a fascinating article on teen pregnancy, abstinence and Christianity, particularly the Evangelical kind. It looks at the success rates of abstinence pledges (”True Love Waits”, etc.), discusses the statistical oddities of Evangelical teens. The article gives a nuanced and in-depth view on the strange relation between beliefs (intent) and actual behavior.
Some interesting quotes:
The gulf between sexual belief and sexual behavior becomes apparent, too, when you look at the outcomes of abstinence-pledge movements. [...] More than half of those who take such pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse.
Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical.
On the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter Bristol:
But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America’s dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.
Well worth the read! Let me know what you think…
Through the wonders of 
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize — much less cultivate — the talents of many brilliant people. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: “If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk, please stop whatever you’re doing and 
In 20 pictures, a poignant portrayal of a single mother and her young son as he loses his battle with cancer (2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography).