Ex-NBA star to promote abstinence
STEVE MAYNARD; steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
Last updated: January 5th, 2009 11:50 PM (PST)

A three-time champion with the Los Angeles Lakers will deliver a message of hope to young people about never giving up when he speaks at a scholarship dinner in Tacoma on Saturday night.  Former NBA forward A.C. Green says he also most likely will talk about what he’s best known for off the court: promoting abstinence.  Despite a recent survey questioning the value of “virginity pledges,” Green said it’s a positive step for youths to promise to delay sex until marriage.

“Any time you stand up for what you believe, there’s value in it,” said Green, 45. And Green said it’s realistic for young people to abstain from having sex until they marry.  “Of course,” Green said Monday over the phone from Los Angeles. “I did.”

Green will speak at the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet in Tacoma. The fund-raiser is sponsored by the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance, a group of 35 ministers most of whom lead predominantly African American congregations in Pierce County.  Green’s stance promoting abstinence was a draw for the ministerial alliance.  “We thought that was a good message for the youth to be able to hear coming from a professional figure,” said the Rev. Arthur Banks, alliance president and pastor of Tacoma’s Eastside Baptist Church.  Green, a Portland native who played for Oregon State University, was a member of Lakers NBA championship teams in 1987, 1988 and 2000. He holds the league’s Iron Man title, having played in 1,192 consecutive games before retiring in 2001 after 16 seasons.

Green, who lives in Los Angeles, established the A.C. Green Youth Foundation in 1989, focusing on abstinence education. He’s created a curriculum for middle and high school students called “Game Plan.”  During his NBA career, Green became known as a Christian who stuck to his decision to stay abstinent, despite the free-wheeling lifestyle all around him. Green said he remained a virgin until he married his wife, Veronique Green, on April 20, 2002.  He was 38.   When asked whether it was worth waiting, Green replied, “What do you think?”  He compared abstinence and premarital sex to choosing between prime rib and hamburger.  “It’s the best choice out there,” Green said. “We have to continue to speak on the value of marriage and relationships.”

But a recent federal survey cast doubt about the value of making a pledge to abstain until marriage.  The survey said teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence, and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to The Washington Post.

“Any survey is speculative,” Green said about the study. He stressed that it’s important for young people to decide individually for themselves to forgo sex until marriage.  That’s the decision he made and carried out.  “I’m living proof and an example that it can and does happen,” Green said.

Online: To learn more about the A.C. Green Youth Foundation, visit www.acgreen.com.
Originally published: January 5th, 2009 11:50 PM (PST)
www.thenewstribune.com

The honeymoon doesn’t have to be over just because you’ve been together for years, new research suggests.  Popular wisdom would have it that romance fades over time.  But new brain scans of people who say they are still in love after decades of marriage are similar to scans of those who have just fallen in love, leading researchers to conclude that long-term relationships can be just as passionate and romantic as new love.

“We’re confident it’s real,” says psychologist Arthur Aron of the State University of New York-Stony Brook, one of the researchers involved in the study.  “That’s what the brain scans are telling us.  People can’t fake that.”  The study, presented Sunday at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C., represents a dramatic shift in thinking.  Other research “always suggested romantic love is over by 12 to 15 months. This suggests that may not have to be the case,” says Richmond Thompson, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Bowdoin College, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Scientists used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 10 women and seven men who said they were still intensely in love after an average 21 years of marriage.  When they viewed photos of their partners, their brains reacted.  “If you ask people around the world whether romantic love can last, they’ll roll their eyes and say ‘probably not,’ and most textbooks say that, too. We’re proving them wrong,” says anthropologist Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, a co-author.

Lead author Bianca Acevedo, who has worked with Aron and now works with neuroscientist and study co-author Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., says the findings are similar to earlier research they did on 10 women and seven men who had fallen in love within the previous year.  Findings show long-term relationships don’t have the obsession and anxiety of new love; instead, they show increased calm and attachment, Fisher says. Couples view partners as central to their lives; they continue to want connection and engagement and maintain a sexual liveliness.  Elaine Hatfield, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii, says the studies are “a promising beginning – not the last word in our understanding of passionate love.”

By Sharon Jayson
USA TODAY
November 17, 2008