Our Kids

Last week, the topic was about authentic love. Calling something love which in reality is selfishness causes many problems, including the break down of marriages. One particularly upsetting issue is that of pornography, especially when it involves children. I am not tech savvy, but I wonder about the availability of it to kids. I understand that parents could put a filter on their computers to prevent inappropriate material from being opened by their children. Now, I wonder about the ease with which the internet can be accessed through cell phones and other hand held devices such as tablets. Do parents have the ability to screen out bad stuff from these e gadgets? I was told that even with filters there are ways to get around them. Moreover, what happens when kids are presented with dangerous sites on other kids' machines? Also, there is the unimaginable peril of becoming victims of predators through chat rooms or other web sites.

It is interesting that pornography gets such a free pass by our laws. It is permissible because of what reason? Art? Can anyone be serious about this? I remember that in the early eighties, President Reagan commissioned Attorney General Edwin Meese to do a study as to why there was such an increase in sexual crimes against women and children. The answer came back: the availability of pornography. But nothing was done. Here we are thirty years later, and there still is the proliferation of lewd material in publications, in film and on the internet.

There is the argument that one is free to look or not look at this material. The same argument can be used to say that one is free to buy or not buy a controlled dangerous substance. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. How hard it is to curb it. Just imagine the tax revenues it brings. But, should not every effort be made to protect our children, to protect women and men too? Should we not invite the love of God into our hearts and see everyone as his children who deserve nothing less than respect?

Father Stanley