NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The existence of yet another international child pornography ring, this one uncovered by a child advocacy group in the Netherlands, is further evidence that the attempts by some to normalize sexual activity between adults and children is not without impetus, Richard Land said Aug. 10.
The ring, which included parents forwarding pictures of sexual behavior with their own children to others via the Internet, was broken up by law enforcement Aug. 9 with the arrest of 20 adults.
“The good news is that our government is working to bring these despicable people to justice and more importantly removing these children from the care of these people who are simply masquerading as parents,” said Land, host of “Richard Land Live!”
“The bad news is that such behavior is occurring and that more arrests are expected,” Land said.
Richard Land Live! is a caller-driven, midday talk program that airs each Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. Eastern time over the Salem Radio Network.
Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said the wide availability of child pornography on the Internet encourages pedophiles, according to an August 6 Associated Press report.
Bonner, who was involved in the investigation that led to the ring’s breakup, insisted that only by cleaning the Internet of child pornography would pedophiles be starved of the “sordid images that induce them to act.”
A significant percentage of people who are exposed to pornography will become addicted, with many becoming involved in child pornography and acting out their fantasies with children, agreed Land, who is president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “They’re taking away these children’s innocence and sometimes they’re taking away their lives,” he said.
The recently published book, “Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex,” asserts that sex between adults and children is not harmful if the children consent, Land explained.
“This is beyond grotesque,” he said. “Here is a book that purports to be a respectable academic book that argues we are depriving children from desirable sexual experiences.” The University of Minnesota Press published the book earlier this year.
Land noted a primary source cited by the book’s author is currently jailed in Brazil, charged with trafficking in child pornography. Lawrence Stanley also was convicted of sexual abuse by a Dutch court and is apparently wanted in Canada on similar charges. The author of Harmful to Minors, Judith Levine, failed to note in her book that Stanley, the man she described as the “most thorough researcher of child pornography in the 1980s,” is himself a child pornographer, Land said, expressing no surprise at the revelation.
“Attempts to normalize sexual behavior between adults and children today is precisely where the attempts to normalize homosexual and lesbian behavior was 20 years ago,” Land said. “If we do not take a stand against this now and demand the University of Minnesota Press withdraw this book, then the day will not be long in coming when the practice of adults engaging in sexual activity with children will be comfortably woven into the moral fabric of our society.
“As parents, as citizens, as God-fearing human beings, we must be outraged by this assertion. It reflects man’s depravity at its worst,” Land stated. “The perspective embraced in this book is feeding the vortex of child pornography and child molestation in the U.S. and around the world.
“Once you abandon the idea that some things are always right and that some things are always wrong, then you automatically have a society in which anything is possible,” Land said. “That is the society we live in today, where some allege that adult-child sex is the last taboo.”
The government needs to be on the side of children, Land said. “Children’s rights trump adults’ so-called rights. Adults should be protecting children, not preying on children,” he said, reminding his listeners the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the provision of the Child Pornography Prevention Act April 16 that had banned visual depictions, including computer-generated images, which appear to be of minors engaging in explicit sexual behavior.
Parents once were concerned primarily with protecting their children from normal childhood diseases; now they are frantically searching for ways to immunize and protect their children from child molesters and child pornographers who are trolling the Internet and city parks for innocent victims, Land said.
And the modern-day risks to children aren’t limited to child pornographers or child molesters, he said, bemoaning the news that the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization is allowing active homosexuals to be volunteers and mentors to children who lack a same-sex role model in their family.
“As a parent, I am appalled by this decision,” Land said. “This new policy of inclusion is beyond imagination. It is reckless and irresponsible.”
Land said the decision by Big Brothers Big Sisters shows the extent to which the culture’s moral compass has been demagnetized and its common sense quotient terribly lowered by the constant onslaught from the radical homosexual activists.
“When you are signing up active homosexuals to be ‘Big Brothers,’ mentors to adolescent boys, you are setting up a situation that is beyond any measure of common sense,” he continued.
“How can a homosexual teach a boy without a dad the skills he needs to be an effective husband and father? How can a lesbian woman teach a young girl the skills she needs to be a wife and mother?” Land asked, expressing further concern that parents with children in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program will not be told whether their son or daughter is being matched with a homosexual man or a lesbian woman.
“This organization has gone from a parental ally that could be trusted to one that is possibly putting a child in contact with a homosexual or lesbian mentor without the parent’s knowledge or consent,” Land noted, calling on churches to reach out to single-parent families in order to provide appropriate role models for adolescent children who don’t have a mother or father in the family.
–30–
