Unification Church Views On Sexuality

The Divine Principle, the central book of Unification Church teaching, asserts that love is the strongest force in the universe, more powerful than law or principle, and true love is Unificationism's highest value. A fundamental teaching of Divine Principle is that the original sin causing the fall of man at the begninning of human history was, in fact, inappropriate sexual relationships that corrupted true love. Sexual union based on true love between husband and wife is spoken about frankly and approvingly in many speeches by Sun Myung Moon.

In your relationship as husband and wife do you want to just sit and look at one another and smile? Or would you rather have a love relationship that is so tight, so sweet, so strong that you would become totally one like a rubber ball, and roll around together? Once you become totally one and begin rolling together like a round ball, when you roll too fast you will shout and scream and God will hear you and come down and enjoy watching you. Interesting? Exciting? —Sun Myung Moon, from The Palace of True Love

One author calls marriage "really the only sacrament" in the Unification Church. Unificationists therefore view singleness as "not a state to be sought or cultivated" but merely as preparation for marriage. Pre-marital celibacy and marital faithfulness are emphasized, and adherents may be taught to "abstain from intimate relations for a specified time after marriage." The church does not give its marriage blessing to same-sex couples. The Unification Church excludes AIDS victims from marriage blessing ceremonies. In 1994 the Free Teens HIV/AIDS education program was rejected by a suburban Massachusetts school district, in large part because of the author's ties to the Unification Church.

Moon has emphasized the similarity between Unification views of sexuality and evangelical Christianity, "reaching out to conservative Christians in this country in the last few years by emphasizing shared goals like support for sexual abstinence outside of marriage, and opposition to homosexuality."