Virgins March On D.C. Group Promoting Purity Ends Cross-Country Tour

Five hundred virgins from throughout the nation and the world converged in front of the White House Friday to celebrate their abstinence and urge young people to “honk for purity.”

The D.C. stop was the last in a 25-city cross-country trip organized by the Pure Love Alliance, a group of male and female students and church groups promoting abstinence from sex before marriage and fidelity within marriage.

“I see so many problems in the world,” said Lenissa Strait, a 19-year-old from Bethesda, Md., who helped organize the tour. “I feel the real issue is the misuse and the misunderstanding of love.”

The tour, which began June 30, attracted adults and adolescents, the youngest being 13 years old. The demonstrators also visited Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, where they protested in front of Playboy magazine’s headquarters.

Waving banners declaring that “free sex is cheap sex,” the marchers began their day in the nation’s capital with a rally at Freedom Plaza where Mayor Marion Barry declared Friday “Pure Love Day.”

The 500 included representatives from Austria, Korea and Holland.

“All over the world, virginity is something that is considered stupid. I’m a virgin, and it’s not always something that’s been easy,” said 17-year-old Renate Verstraeten of the Netherlands, who made her first trip to the United States to participate in the tour.

“I really think we can show other people that it’s really normal and not strange,” Verstraeten said.