This Valentine’s Day, Liberty Counsel has a message for everyone who’s not currently in a heterosexual marriage: Don’t do it.

Literally, don’t do it.

The 16th annual Day of Purity is a campaign that encourages students to wear white on February 14 to publicly promote abstinence and inspire other young people to save sexual intimacy for marriage. … Liberty Counsel’s Director of Communications and International Director for the Day of Purity Holly Meade said, “The Day of Purity is an opportunity for young people to take a stand for purity and publicly communicate they will not be influenced by Hollywood’s images. In today’s culture, students are bombarded with messages luring them to become sexually active at a young age and to experiment with their sexual preferences. However, research confirms that practicing purity before marriage has spiritual, physical, emotional, and social benefits.”

Research also shows that promoting abstinence-only sex education is ineffective and unethical. That doesn’t come up in the press release, though.

Have you already had sex? Not to worry — Liberty Counsel says you can have a “clean start” and still promote abstinence. (Why Bristol Palin isn’t the spokesperson for this campaign, I don’t know.)

Still, the campaign seems destined to fail. Liberty Counsel is taking a holiday that’s all about love and romance and (yes) sex, and treating it as if it’s only about sex. They never even take the opportunity to encourage people to focus on non-sexual love, such as that between friends.

Christian culture isn’t exactly known for being welcoming of single people, treating their relationship status as a problem to be fixed, but Liberty Counsel isn’t making it any easier.

Abstinence is fine, by the way, if that’s a decision you’re making for yourself. But there’s nothing morally superior about remaining abstinent, no matter how much these conservative Christian groups want to shame people who make a different choice.

