The group, which taught in 61 Chicago schools until this summer when newspapers reported the link to the Unification Church, urged students to take a "pure love pledge".
There is probably nothing as ecstatic and overwhelming as falling in love; pledging your love together before family and friends carries its own euphoria; holding your new baby is your arms is another of life's highs... all family moments.
A two-hour set that could hardly be any more all-inclusively communal closes with a mass singalong of Open Arms, before Elbow encore with the self-doubting love pledge of Starlings, and a fervent, expansive version of their signature tune, One Day Like This.
" 'Good Loving' is a version of 'One Night Affair' where the singer makes all these true-love pledges, stuff like 'I want you to be my wife,' " Noble said.
It's about the message a society delivers to men who love and pledge commitment to and maybe start families with other men, and to women who love and pledge commitment to and maybe start families with other women.
It is honored, not diminished, by the decision today that anyone who loves, and pledges to commit, should be recognized and respected.
Just before his sudden death, in the Cornwall house full of his children and grandchildren, he pledges "love... Just love" to his beloved daughter, who describes this as a "perfect ending" – for her, though not for her brother David.
When President George H.W. Bush broke his promise to not raise tax rates ("read my lips!"), he was abandoned by Republicans, who loved the pledge, and attacked by Democrats, who hated it.
Through it all, there's the singing about everything, which means songs about pledging love to another alternating with anthems about pledging allegiance to one cause or another.
I can pledge love and allegiance to the person I marry without promising to obey.
"As Americans, we should love America, but pledge allegiance to the earth, to the flora and fauna and human rights," he said.
