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February 13, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Great Britain’s culture of sexual promiscuity is not only destructive to the country on a moral level—it also comes with a hefty price tag, according to a recent “Cambridge Paper” published by England’s Jubilee Centre, a Protestant public policy institute.

After adding together the direct costs of promiscuity as well as the indirect costs resulting from family breakdown, the paper concludes that “£100 billion (157 billion USD) annually is probably a reasonable starting point,” which is “about twice as much as alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity combined.” The number would be equivalent to almost £1,400 per year per taxpayer, according to Peter Saunders of Britain’s Christian Medical Fellowship.

The paper’s author, Guy Brandon, notes, “legally, sex is a private matter between individuals” and that “under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, adults are essentially free to act as they choose, regardless of marital or relationship status.”

However, “There is some recognition of the flaws to this approach. Few people genuinely doubt that sexual freedom has consequences for third parties.”

The consequences of Britain’s libertine attitude toward human sexuality include family breakdown and unhealthy outcomes due to greater promiscuity, Brandon argues.

While a recent study by the British government, Breakdown Britain, found that family breakdown costs the taxpayer £24 billion ($37.8 billion), the author arrives at a much higher result by taking other effects of promiscuity into account.

The direct effects of promiscuity alone cost each taxpayer about 60 ($94) per year, and include the cost of abortions, treatment for STDs and the infertility they cause, and maternal care for pregnant teens.  However, on top of these consequences are more indirect effects that also entail serious expenses, including work absenteeism, domestic violence, and educational underachievement, which Breakdown Britain and other studies have identified as consequences of domestic breakdown.

“The moral hazard that arises from our society’s uncritical endorsement of sexual freedom results in massive public costs,” concludes Brandon, who offers three possible responses: the “Big State” approach, which aggravates the problem by shifting the costs of sexual irresponsibility to the society as a whole, the approach of harsh legislation represented by such traditions as Sharia Law, or the “Biblical model” of “greater accountability for sexual choices, strengthening extended families by increasing rootedness and giving them joint financial interests. “

“In this the Christian sexual ethic of faithfulness and stability has not only spiritual justification but offers a pragmatic answer to a failing culture that generally views Christian standards as hopelessly out of date,” Brandon writes.