New research by Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center in Washington, reported in last month’s issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, shows that the more frequent a parent’s religious attendance and the more a family participates in religious activities, the more likely an adolescent will delay his or her first sexual experience.
And according to Jennifer Manlove, lead author of the article, this is true regardless of denomination and it is true for all racial and ethnic groups except blacks.
That’s the good news. The bad news is, these same kids are less likely to use contraceptives or condoms during their first sexual encounters