A senior fellow at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) says that “functioning societies” should “punish” single people who engage in sex outside marriage.

Dr. Pat Fagan, who directs FRC’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI), on Monday told FRC President Tony Perkins that a 1972 Supreme Court case that established the right of unmarried people to use contraception was “the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court.”

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Fagan explained what the Eisenstadt v. Baird decision “essentially said is single people have the right to engage in sexual intercourse.”

“Well, societies have always forbidden that, there were laws against it,” he insisted. “Now sure, single people are inclined to push the fences and jump over them, particularly if they are in love with each other and going onto marriage, but they always knew they were doing wrong.”

“They just said, ‘No, singles have the right to contraceptives; we mean singles have the right to have sex outside of marriage.’ Brushing aside millennia, thousands and thousands of years of wisdom, tradition, culture and setting in motion what we have.”

But Fagan argued that society “never gave young people that right” prior to 1972.

“Functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever,” he opined. “The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there.”

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“What the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.”

Listen to this audio from FRC’s Washington Watch via Right Wing Watch, broadcast March 11, 2013.

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