True Love Waits (TLW) is an international Christian group that promotes sexual abstinence outside of marriage for teenagers and college students. TLW was created in April, 1993 by the Southern Baptists,[1] and is sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources. It is based on Christian views of human sexuality that require one to be faithful to one's husband or wife, even before marriage.
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The True Love Waits pledge states: "Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship." In addition, they promote sexual purity, which encompasses not only abstaining from intercourse before marriage, but also abstaining from sexual thoughts, sexual touching, pornography, and actions that are known to lead to sexual arousal.
In the first year of the campaign, over 102,000 young people signed the pledge, which was also taken up by other church groups including the Roman Catholic Church and Assemblies of God. The campaign has continued to spread across the US, making use of occasions such as Valentine's Day to gain attention.[2]
The program was specifically criticized in the 2004 documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox, which dealt with a high school student's efforts to bring comprehensive sex education curricula to her Lubbock, Texas high school. Knox, who led the efforts to change her school district's policy, had taken a vow of purity through the True Love Waits program.