Newflash: Teenagers Often Recant 'Virginity Pledges'

Evangelicals have trumpeted "virginity pledges" as an effective method of fighting teen pregnancy, but a new study finds many teens denying they ever took such vows.

Virginity pledges are oral or written declarations to remain a virgin until marriage. Most kids who take virginity pledges wear bracelets to symbolize their commitment to remain chaste.

Getting a kid with raging hormones to be faithful to his virginity pledge is like getting Oprah Winfrey not to renege on her promise to abstain from eating cakes and donuts.

Researcher Janet Rosenbaum of the Harvard School of Public Health found that 73 percent of teens who signed a virginity pledge and then engaged in premarital sex disavowed ever having signed such document.

"Yeah, I'm seven months pregnant, but I never signed a virginity pledge. That's not a virginity pledge bracelet, that's a WWJD bracelet."

To keep kids from lying we could always tattoo them on their foreheads when they take a virginity pledge, but seriously maybe we shouldn't force them to make pledges they can't keep.

For those parents who are determined to make their children take virginity pledges, at least make sure your kids know how they use contraceptives --just in case.

A hopeless optimist will be happy if his child is wearing a virginity pledge bracelet on his wrist, but a realist will be happy if his child has a safe-sex brochure in his back pocket.

To avoid teen pregnancies and STD's we need more pragmatic parents, and less optimistic ones.