Posted on Feb 17, 1997 | by Terri Lackey

MOUNT JULIET, Tenn. (BP)--Rachel Shepard and Kristin Gardner are not afraid to take a stand for God. In fact, the two 16-year-olds are bold enough to stake out a table in their high school cafeteria and publicly encourage fellow students to remain sexually pure until marriage.

Shepard and Gardner were the driving forces behind the "True Love Waits Goes Campus" campaign at Mount Juliet High School in Mount Juliet, Tenn. The Goes Campus campaign is part of the first year of a national effort to display True Love Waits cards on high school and college campuses on Valentine's Day.

This year, Shepard and Gardner and other members of Mount Juliet's Young Men and Women for Jesus group -- which meets daily at the school 30 minutes before classes start -- took their turns in the cafeteria asking classmates to sign pledge cards vowing to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. The Christian group, which began its campaign two days before Valentine's Day, had collected nearly 200 signed pledges by Feb. 14, the morning the cards were staked into the ground near the high school's flagpole.

"Signing the commitment card is no more than a step of obedience for me. God says to save sex until marriage," said Shepard, who is a junior and member of First Baptist Church, Mount Juliet. "It's not just a commitment to not have sex, but to stay pure sexually."

Gardner, who signed the pledge card three years ago at Tulip Grove Baptist Church in Hermitage, Tenn., where the TLW program officially began, said her decision to wait until marriage to have sex can be explained just as simply: "God told me to wait."

The teens say they are not afraid of being taunted by fellow students for taking a stand against sex and for God. "I love telling people about True Love Waits," Shepard said. "Anytime you take a strong stand for something, people respect you."

True Love Waits, an international campaign designed to challenge teenagers and college students to remain sexually abstinent until marriage, was launched by the Baptist Sunday School Board in April 1993. The first national True Love Waits rally was held in Washington in July 1994. The second rally -- where the Goes Campus campaign was launched -- was held in Atlanta in February 1996.

A total of 350,000 signed cards were displayed during the "Goes Campus" kickoff last year in Atlanta, representing pledges from all 50 states and 76 countries. Those cards had been collected since the original True Love Waits launch in Washington.

In heading the True Love Waits Goes Campus campaign at their school, Shepard and Gardner said they were fortunate because they had the support of Christian principals and teachers. Some students inMilwaukee however, weren't so lucky.

According to a news release from Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based religious civil liberties education and legal defense organization, students in the Christian Fellowship club at a Milwaukee high school filed a lawsuit against the school and the school district for being denied the right to display pledge cards or make announcements about the campaign over the intercom. The lawsuit claims censorship and violation of First Amendment rights to free speech and the federal Equal Access Act.

A federal judge subsequently issued an emergency restraining order requiring the school to allow Goes Campus publicity.

Richard Ross, one of the spokesmen for the Sunday School Board campaign, said, "While, the national True Love Waits team is not involved in litigation regarding True Love Waits Goes Campus displays, we do believe that the creating of pledge card displays on school campuses is a free speech action protected by the Equal Access Act adopted by Congress in 1994 and upheld by the SupremeCourt. However, we believe that is a local issue."

The 1997 Goes Campus campaign "is only the beginning of what we see as being an annual event on school and college campuses," said Jimmy Hester, another spokesman for the Sunday School Board's TLW movement.

Hester predicted "many more students will be involved in the 1998 campaign because of what they saw happen at their school in 1997. Youth groups under the leadership of ministers of youth will be more proactive next year because of what they observed and experienced this year."

An adequate record-keeping system for the number of young people who have signed True Love Waits cards has not been discovered, acknowledged Hester, who said he does know, however, that about 500,000 pledge cards were mailed to churches and Christian groups between February 1996 and January 1997.

Additionally, representatives from churches and youth organizations participating in the Goes Campus campaign may record the number of pledge cards their group collected on the Home Mission Board's youth evangelism site at: http://www.youthevangelism.com.

Hester said he believes the trend toward sexual abstinence will continue to grow and become the standard for young people in America.

"I believe we are going to witness a reversal in trends related to sexual activity, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. True Love Waits displays on campuses will serve as a reminder to adults that today's young people can make wise decisions when given the opportunity and choice to adopt and live by God's standards."
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