Father-Daughter Purity Balls Still Drawing Crowds, Criticism

In Colorado Springs this May, college and high school students and girls as young as four years old offered up their virginity into their father’s protection until their wedding day. The formal father-daughter dance known as the Father Daughter Purity Ball, co-founded by Randy Wilson and his daughter in 1998, is meant to reinforce fathers’ responsibilities as role models and protectors. Yet it has no shortage of critics. Despite the controversy, however, purity balls have spread to 48 states and are ready to be launched abroad. Similar events are held for mothers and sons. At the balls, fathers pledge to protect their daughter’s purity and to live their lives with integrity. The father-daughter pairs progress down an aisle and the daughter places a white rose beside a cross to signify their promise of, as college freshman... [read full story]