A New Agenda of Love - Jin Hun Park Moon

This is a transcript of a speech given at the Pure Love Rally held in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995.

Thank you for coming tonight and a special congratulations to all of you who signed the Pure Love Pledge and who are committing yourselves to a higher love.

What is pure love? We just spent the last 2-3 hours shouting our slogans, _pure and proud,_ _make it sure, keep it pure,_ and other thought-provoking ones. So what is pure love? What is purity? We really need to stop and think about this issue. It is a simple concept on one hand, but on the other hand, it is not easily understood. In fact, it is much easier to speak of what pure love is not.

From inside our homes to the classrooms of our educational institutions, the studios of Hollywood, and the offices of our statesmen, our society is saturated with impure lifestyles. It is everywhere around us. The prevailing love relationships are often corrupt, tainted, cheap and superficial.

There are innumerable examples of public figures demonstrating this, starting from celebrities such as Hugh Grant, Woody Allen, Madonna, and so many others.

The astronomical divorce rates further reveal to us that people do not have a clue about pure love. Since 1970, the percentage of married Americans has declined while the number of divorcees has risen 300%.

Current research suggests that several million Americans will be HIV+ by the turn of the century. Many of them will contract AIDS and die.

Every day, our minds are being fed immoral and toxic information through the information media network, which glorifies violence, infidelity, broken families, sexual abuse and perverse relationships. Is this what it means to live in a sexually liberated society? Who is truly free in this kind of environment?

While it is easy to focus on the big problems in society, if we make a real honest evaluation of our own lives, we can see that these problems are much closer to home. In fact, all the problems and distortions that we face in the larger society are but a mirror image of what is going on in our personal lives and relationships.

With a lack of moral example, a lack of moral guidelines and, most of all, a lack of personal commitment to the virtues of pure love, it is no surprise that we are so desensitized to what is truly pure, especially when impurity permeates every aspect of our lives. This is why it is so difficult to understand and describe what pure love is, let alone experience and feel it. And yet, without pure love, the whole society will self-destruct.

So, do we want to continue following this impure lifestyle? Our mind, heart and conscience clearly tell us that it is not right to live this way. We know that we need to change. Therefore, the real question is: how can we truly change? How can we better understand and create pure love relationships?

In a broad sense, what people usually mean when they think of _purity_ is abstaining from sexual relations until marriage and maintaining fidelity during marriage. Because of this narrow understanding, purity has such a stigma in our society, especially with young people. If you are not sexually active, you are looked down upon as being a nerd or an alien from another planet. In this type of sexually open atmosphere, people feel so pressured to engage in sexual relations even against their own desire or conscience.

Many religious, health-oriented and socially conscientious organizations, and even politicians, are speaking out against the dangers of casual sex and are promoting healthy family values. This is a good thing and is generally moving things in the right direction, but it is limited and can even backfire. Why do I say this?

If we do a reality check, we can see that all of the problems associated with promiscuity continue to increase exponentially, such as teen pregnancy, AIDS and other STDs, even though many more are speaking out against it. Why is that? What is missing?

All these groups have one common thread. They are using fear to try to motivate and encourage young people to practice abstinence. But we all know that the _fear_ method doesn't work well with young people, especially in America. Perhaps, more than any other previous, the independent and rebellious nature of Generation X propels us to do the very thing we are asked not to do-even when the dangers are clearly pointed out. It is simply not enough to say _don't do it._ Safety alone will never inspire people to change, especially young people.

Does pure love simply mean abstinence? How boring and shallow. We need to see that the pure love lifestyle is much more vibrant, exciting and dynamic than anything we have every experienced before. We need to understand that there is a much deeper kind of happiness which goes beyond physical pleasure and instant gratification, or merely enduring a relationship. When we think about it, it is a real tragedy to talk about pure love as merely an alternative. It should be the norm, the mainstream, and totally natural. Pure love should be our true reality.

Pure love produces a dynamic, powerful, rewarding and meaningful lifestyle. Sounds great, doesn't it? Pure love is more than an intense expression of love. It is a way of life. It is a decision and a commitment. It is a structured and orderly love. It is a formula. In chemistry, bonding takes place on the molecular level, which is set for eternity. The same is true with pure love; once you are set, you are set forever.

Pure love is practiced in ideal relationships within a family. It is experienced as filial piety in a child's love toward his parents; as loyalty between brothers and sisters; as fidelity and trust between marriage partners. It is the sacrificial and unconditional love which parents have for their children.

Suppose a husband and wife love each other so much that they will give their very lives for each other. Imagine these two people spending their lives to create an ideal environment to help each other to develop into true human beings. They will have such a deep and beautiful relationship throughout their entire lives. Imagine how such a relationship will affect their children and grandchildren. We are saying that the quality and the purity of the love relationship between a man and a woman is the most decisive predictor of the spiritual development and ultimate maturity of our children and grandchildren. The experience of pure love is more important than genetics, upbringing and education. Pure love teaches us how to love and live for the sake of others. We

learn how to value other's needs and desires as much as our own. Practicing pure love helps us to gain the moral strengths and abilities we are lacking, and then we are capable and willing to love others and the world in a powerful, caring way.

Pure love teaches us how to respect and appreciate the uniqueness of human beings of all races, cultures and nationalities. Ethnic and racial barriers, the cause of most wars and conflicts, would be nonexistent. People would marry freely among races and nations. In short, the commitment to pure love, when carried out, will be the single most important contribution which any of us can make to world peace.

If we have this kind of lifestyle, we can eliminate the gravest problems of humanity. For a start, AIDS and STDs will virtually disappear. Gone, too, would be the menace of rape, sexual abuse, incest and other crimes against women and children. The streets would be safe again for our sisters, wives, daughters and mothers. Divorce will cease to destroy lives and, instead, moral and stable families will be restored. As pure love and true families become the norm rather than the exception, the transformation of humanity will be well under way.

All of the world's major religions teach about a Supreme Being who is said to be eternal, absolute, unchanging and unconditional. These are the same qualities as pure love. Perhaps there is a relationship between purity and God. Perhaps because we lost God in our families, we lost pure love in our families. Therefore, if we can once again reclaim God in our relationships, pure love will then reappear and we can create lasting love and happiness in our marriages and families. Only then will it be possible to extend pure and true love into our society, nation and world.

What kind of positive steps can we take to restore and realize how pure love can become accepted in today's society as the norm, as the natural way of life? We must reverse the trend. In order to do this, we need a new agenda of love.

First, we need reeducation. We need a new vision of love and sexuality, marriage and family, so that people feel they are on the most intriguing and fulfilling journey of their lives. We need to understand what the basis is of healthy, satisfying and true relationships. We need to practice and acquire new relationship skills. We need to create families centered on the pure love lifestyle. We must create a healthy and spirited community which is trying to practice this lifestyle.

We also need to continue to reveal the dangers involved in having a promiscuous lifestyle. Many organizations are already making contributions, but much more is needed. We need to speak the truth clearly about how the liberal media and politicians are withholding critical information from young people.

Second, we need an intense commitment. It is not only necessary to commit ourselves to a way of life which can eradicate the misery and confusion of the past, but to commit ourselves to one which can also create a totally new lifestyle. The Pure Love Alliance is calling for nothing less than a revolution. The balance is stacked high against us at present: therefore, an unwavering commitment is required in order to go against the mainstream and reverse the impure lifestyle of our present society. Third, we will use the new technology to expedite this whole process

and facilitate this new understanding for all of humanity-crossing racial, cultural, national and religious barriers. We will remove these boundaries by sharing information and experiences with the people of the world to encourage and support them in upholding the highest ideals and virtues which all cultures can identify with and promote.

As idealistic young people, we want to live for something deeper, higher and wider. We want to commit ourselves to a moral and ethical lifestyle which can create lifelong and eternal bonds of love. We know that living a pure-love way of life will not only benefit the larger society, but our personal lives as well.

Our generation, which has been called Generation X, is the victim of the impure love and lifestyles of the previous generations. We don't belong anywhere or to anyone. We have no parents, no teachers, no one to look up to and respect. We often lack clear direction or moral guidelines about right and wrong. We have difficulty knowing how to fit into our families, society or world. Perhaps rebellion is one of our strong characteristic traits because we have suffered so much because of the mistakes and problems in the past. We want to negate the past because our experience clearly tells us that it only leads to sadness and misery. It has left us little to stand on or stand for.

This new vision of pure love and relationships should be the agenda our generation has been looking for, in order to reclaim our identity and value. By dedicating and committing ourselves to understanding the pure-love lifestyle, we can experience the dynamic and fulfilling relationships we have been longing for. We can even lead the previous generation to something new and better. Let us all become the champions who can uphold the highest virtues of pure love.

Thank you very much for attending this forum and for wanting to make more out of your lives.