Special to the Kentucky community papers

Sexual Abuse Hits Home 

A Hopkinsville, Kentucky abuse case underscores concerns over pornography and sexual abuse.

by Richard Nelson    

            Priests, scout masters, and police officers are supposed to be people parents can trust, but recent headlines have caused some to doubt—at least with their children.    Sexual abuse and exploitation of children is no longer merely a national issue, it has hit home.

Last week a Christian county jury recommended a 15 year prison sentence for a Hopkinsville police officer who molested his adopted daughters.  A 17-year police veteran, Siah Cornett pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and having sex with two of his daughters over a six year period. Cornett's defense attorney, Bill Deatherage called it a case of "misguided love," and a relationship turned "sour."  Deatherage claimed that Cornett "really didn't know how to be a parent."

            Talk about understatement.

            For most parents, the thought of having sex with their 12 and 14-year-old children never crosses their mind. Unfortunately, we are reminded almost daily that some people think differently.

            What has gone wrong in our society and how has the unthinkable become thinkable? 

            A strong case can be made that pedophilia is the logical conclusion of the sexual revolution in the 1960's.  After all, when sex is removed from the bonds of marriage, where is the new boundary and who draws it? For almost a quarter of a century extra-marital sex between consenting adults has been tacitly accepted by society.  It's been almost a decade since gay sex has been legitimized.  Today, we are in the infancy of the normalization of pedophilia. As Mary Eberstadt wrote in the Weekly Standard last year, "the social consensus against the sexual exploitation of children . . . is apparently eroding."
            Consider Judith Levine's book released this spring by the University of Minnesota Press: Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from sex.  In it, Levine argues against abstinence education and for lowering the age of consent to 12. Levine’s ally, University of Missouri Professor Harris Mirkin, argued that academic freedom allows him to promote pedophilia in the classroom. Years earlier, however, the American Psychological Association blazed the trail when it published a study claiming that pedophilia is not harmful to kids.

            Besides those in academia, pedophiles have found allies in the courts. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court removed a barrier between our children and sexual predators who prey on them when it struck down the Child Pornography Prevention Act, a 1996 law that cracked down on computer-generated child pornography. In June, a federal court in Pennsylvania struck down the Children's Internet Protect Act (CIPA) as unconstitutional. CIPA required public schools and libraries that accept federal subsidies to install Internet filters to protect kids from accessing pornography and being lured by pedophiles.            Advertisers like Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch are also guilty.  Both have pushed the envelope by using child-like models in erotic, sexually explicit poses in their advertising.
            If the sexual revolution is at the root of the normalization of pedophilia, then pornography serves to facilitate ill-placed sexual drive, with the user often turning to harder and more violent materials to achieve satisfaction.  Al Cooper, David Delmonico, and Ron Burg wrote last year in the journal Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity that pornography "is a hidden public health hazard exploding in part because very few are recognizing it as such or taking it seriously."

            And there is a solid link between porn and sex crimes, according to Jan LaRue, director of legal studies and pornography expert for the Family Research Council. "Eighty-six percent of convicted rapists have admitted to regular use of pornography; 57 percent admitted imitating pornographic scenes in the commission of their crimes; and 86 percent of those who had molested girls and 77 percent of those who had molested boys admitted to regular exposure to hard-core pornography."  Kenneth Lanning explained last fall in his detailed study Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis, "[child molesters] inhibitions are weakened after their arousal patterns are fueled and validated through [pornography]"

Why can’t our culture make the connection?  If smut was treated like tobacco, pornographers would be facing mountains of lawsuits. Maybe that day is coming, but in the meantime if we are serious about protecting our children from sexual predators then a multifaceted approach must be pursued.

            Parents need to be more involved with their kids: know what they’re viewing online (and offline), who they are communicating with, and where they are at all times.  Parents must also be concerned about freeing our society of pornography—the  powder keg fueling child sexual abuse. They should insist that their tax dollars do not support academics who advocate pedophilia.  Nor should they patronize companies who pander to sensuality through erotic child-like images.  Parents must also elect leaders who will fight for a safe and porn-free society by supporting federal judges who will uphold standards of decency instead of shooting them down.     

            Sounds like a tall order for most parents in our busy society, but what could be worth more than protecting the innocence and safety of our children?

Richard is a policy analyst and regional representative for The Family Foundation of Kentucky, a nonprofit education organization focusing on issues affecting Kentucky families.  He resides in Trigg county with his wife and three children.