The Rev. Harry Reeder III, senior pastor of the 4,100-member Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Ala., said Thursday's decision by the Boy Scouts of America to lift the ban on gay members may bump the popularity of alternative youth organizations.

"When a church holds to a biblical social ethic of sex only between a man and a woman in monogamous marriage, it cannot support an organization that opposes that," Reeder said, according to al.com. "That would introduce sexual anarchy into the teaching of the church. There will be a significant response from evangelical churches."

Sixty-one percent of the 1,400 BSA delegates voted on Thursday to change the organization's 103-year-old policy, which prevented gay youths from joining. The ban on gay adults who want to serve as scout leaders, meanwhile, will remain in place. Many conservative groups have argued that this was a bad decision on BSA's account, with Alliance Defending Freedom calling it "a rejection of values." more >>

A Christian legal group described the Boy Scouts of America Executive Committee's decision on Thursday to change its longstanding membership policy and allow Scouts to be of any "sexual orientation or preference" as a rejection of its freedom to promote values that the group has held for the last century.

"Sadly, the Boy Scouts Executive National Council's decision disregards not only the nearly 19,000 Americans who signed a petition urging BSA to 'uphold the values that have defined the organization for over 100 years,' but also the millions of Americans who have supported the program," stated Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman shortly after the decision.

"Those promoting the agenda to change what the Boy Scouts have always been won't rest until there is complete acceptance of any sexual preference for both leaders and members. With its decision today, BSA has rejected its freedom to promote and practice the values that have served to shape our nation's boys into leaders for the last century," Cortman said. more >>

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that teen birth rates in America fell sharply from 2007 to 2011, by as much as 34 percent on average for Hispanic girls.

"The thing that surprised me most was the big decline in rates for Hispanics: at least 40 percent in 22 states and the District of Columbia," said Brady Hamilton, a report co-author and a statistician at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, according to NBC News. "That was pretty impressive. It really caught my eye."

Almost every single U.S. state reported a decline in teen births in that time period, with overall rates falling at least 15 percent for all but two states – with seven states experiencing a percentage drop of more than 30 points. more >>

After a contentious challenge to their membership policy, 1,400 delegates of the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America youth organization voted overwhelmingly to adopt an amendment that effectively lifts the ban on homosexual youth in the organization on Thursday.

The ban on gay adult scout leaders will remain.

Sixty-one percent of the delegates voted in favor of the resolution while 39 percent voted against it at the organization's National Annual Meeting in Grapevine, Texas. more >>

In case you missed it, May is National Masturbation Month.

Yes, there is such a thing.

Founded by Good Vibrations, a sex shop in San Francisco, May was chosen as National Masturbation Month in 1995 to protest against the firing of the Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, who suggested that young people should be taught masturbation in their sex education classes. Since 1995, many events have been created to celebrate what Good Vibrations said in its annual press release is a "necessary reminder that self-satisfaction is a healthy, accessible form of pleasure engaged by almost everyone." more >>

Less than 24 hours after celebrating the wedding of their young adult leader, Jordan Costa, 21, members of a Canton, Mich., church were floored with heartache after they got news that he was killed in a car crash en route to a honeymoon with his new 21-year-old bride, Heather Favazza-Costa.

In an earlier report, David Stephens, associate pastor of Connection Church, where the couple got married last Saturday, said they were on their way to Myrtle Beach, S.C., when the deadly crash took place. Favazza-Costa was taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries.

Before the accident, according to Stephens, the couple had exchanged heartfelt vows in chapel packed with family and friends. more >>