Category Archives: Op-Ed Pages

America…Land of the Free and Neutral

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When I taught 5th grade, my students memorized the Bill of Rights.  Listening to each young person recite our list of freedoms gave me, their teacher, a new appreciation for our democratic government.  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.[i]

Americans are free to speak.  Patrick Henry was willing to trade his life for the sake of a few words.   Two hundred years later, the American free press continues its war against tyranny.

I was moved by the story of Dan Eldon[ii], a photojournalist killed while covering civil war in Africa.  Through the magic of television journalism, his sister took us to the places he loved in Africa, retracing his steps and meeting with his friends.  She and photographers reconstructed his life up to the moment of his death, his sacrifice for the freedom of writers and photographers to tell the truth.

Justifiably, Americans hold an unshakable pride in our free press.  Our reporters and photographers have opened the doors on repression in China, reported atrocities in Rwanda and Iran, and unseated political leaders in the White House and Mexico.

The power of a free press is almost unimaginable.  The History Channel documents the story of the French Resistance, an entire movement of common people fighting the Nazis through use of printed posters and newspapers.  In Africa and in Europe, the power of the press to preserve freedom inspires awe.

This heightens the irony of the following sad truth.  Today in America, we uphold the freedom of the press, while we have prostituted its significance.

My fifth graders now feel that our precious freedom of the press is meant to protect their rights to rent R-rated movies.  As a sacred protection of the noble right to express religious and political views…they have not a clue, a hint, or an inclination.  The First Amendment gives store owners the right to display and promote profanity, nudity, and violence, making sure young children will be influenced by a free flow of depravity. The First Amendments’s role in preserving our liberty, the foundation of our way of life…yawn…hmmm…what’s for dinner?

America is awash with crudity and violence.  All the while, media and entertainment industry executives scramble to hide behind the noble mantra Freedom of the Press, their banners raised and defended at the great cost of American life.  In the same breath or frame shot, media and entertainment industry executives call out to American citizens, “We have rights, you know.  Don’t mess with our freedom.  That’s censorship!”

Interesting.  Americans are able to express any level of nudity and violence, largely because the free press establishment will expend great energy to prevent the slightest restriction on crassness in the public arena.  Reporters, scriptwriters, painters, songsters, and producers have joined in a strange alliance, suggesting that the promulgation of expressions of depravity is on the same noble plane as Jeffersonian editorials written to defend republican freedom.

Funny.  While we seem unable to hold back the tide of bad taste and filth, America has almost succeeded in eliminating 100% any reference to religion, and more specifically, any reference to God.  If we call “Him” the great force, the power-be-with-you, the spirit, the master, fate, or the hand of justice, we can print it.  But dare we call “Him” God, then we must separate him.  From what?

And this is the second ironic twist on the First Amendment freedom of the press.  While we refuse to limit and restrict the promulgation of violence, we are definitely willing to restrain the press, to restrict it, to limit it—when and only when it comes to God.

Sad.  America grew strong on the notion that free men could freely think for themselves.  Yet, we have a media frozen in the notion they must protect common man from the mention of “God.”  I want to call out in the newspapers, “God is alive.  He’s not dead.  You never killed Him.  You just quit talking about Him.”  But these are fighting words.  They must be restricted.  By whom?  The Free Press.

I want to call out again.  “Hey, this is America.  We’re free.  Remember?  We can talk about pubic areas, breasts, and God.”  I want to shout and accuse, “Censorship.”

But not in America.  We call it Neutrality. Now that’s an American oxymoron for you.  It’s as if by coining a word, we can create an American citizen devoid of opinion, thus, and American without bias.  He’s a genetic wonder, a DNA marvel, the Neutral Man.

Let’s think about this Neutral Man for a minute.  Has anyone ever met an American without an opinion?  In reality, Americans are famous for having opinions.

Years ago, a young foreign exchange student from Japan came to talk with my fifth graders.  She talked about foods, customs, language…all the things unique to Japan and United States, the things she had to relearn in order to understand her temporary ‘home’ in the States  Just before she finished speaking I asked her, “What major difference do you find between the people themselves, the Japanese and the American people?”

With a look of slight timidity, she smiled and answered, “The Americans, well,…they…if you ask them a question, they’ll tell you what they think.  They’re much more willing to speak out.”

“You mean, ‘We’re rude?’” I offered.

She broke into an open and relaxed laugh.  Then she diplomatically suggested, “Well, in my country, people are more reserved.  They don’t say everything that’s on their mind.”

But the students and I knew what she meant, even as she attempted to say it nicely because she liked us.  We’re rude.  America is the land of bias.  Mostly, we Americans seem rather proud about it.

Given this truth, just where do we think we’re going to find Mr. Neutral?   Yes, God and religion are a source of bias.  How could it be otherwise?  Religion with its claims on truth  forms the foundation of law, of nations, of morality.  It creates an order out of chaos, a way of structuring the world to make sense of small, daily events.  Everybody has Religion.  We all need to give structure to chaos.

Even the atheist has religion.  But then we call it philosophy.  That means God is dead.  But isn’t that very idea of a dead god a religious position?  Or maybe we’ll invent a neutral religion.  We’ll just call him the force.  The Force be with you?  Sounds suspiciously like The Force is god’s younger, smaller distant cousin.  What if The Force were dead?  Who could kill Him?  And when?

Our major problem today in the media is not in its threat to freedom of the press, but in its intensely biased effort to sell the idea of neutrality.  Are there really two worlds, the biased world and the neutral world?  Can we really accept the assurances of a mere human being who insists he’s the unbiased gatekeeper for neutrality?

Can we really look any person in the face and accept that he/she doesn’t care?  That’s it’s all the same to them?  If it is really all the same…if neutral means everything goes…let it all hang out…then let’s change the force back into God.  If it’s really all just the same.

Just what do you mean by the force?  Assuming instead that we all work from a point of view, I’d rather know up front.  If you openly and forthrightly declare your definition, then I don’t have to guess.  Is god dead?  If I know what you think, dead or alive, then we don’t have to argue about it.  I certainly don’t expect you to change your mind or agree with me.  It just helps to know what you mean when you talk.  It helps to fill in the spaces between the words.

You see, after years of writing, I’ve learned there’s often a bigger story between the words.

Every writer burns with the indignation of losing precious words and thoughts to the scissors of an editor, as she works to make a story fit eight inches of newsprint.  More often than we like, she crosses out the boring parts, our own personal favorites left in the story because we the writer especially liked them.

But even before the editor gets her chance to snip and cut, before we writers write the words we write, we are all influenced by bias.  What else accounts for the urge of one reporter to spend a lifetime telling the story of the rise of Nazi regime as an alarm for future generations…while another reporter chases Loni Anderson to find out if she’s really as mean (or beautiful) as Burt Reynolds said in the latest article?

Every time a reporter chooses a story idea, he exercises bias.  He decides which point of view deserves to be heard, and he silences the others by ignoring them.  Working together, hiding behind the First Amendment, the American journalistic empire is not eliminating bias.  Rather, it is building a consensus of bias.

Taken together, choosing the story and writing the story, we writers can hardly avoid the influence of personal bias.  And as we write to please our editors…to get our stories in print…we work to satisfy the mainline bias, the industry standard, built upon the need to please editors who carefully pick and choose words to fit the story they want to tell.

“No, I don’t think we want to emphasize that point in this story.”  And the editor crosses out God and Jesus.

The only time mainstream writers are allowed to write God and Jesus in print is when they’re writing about someone who hates them, or at the very least, considers them quaint.  How else can you explain the extraordinary press received by the Jesus Seminar?

I don’t begrudge the atheists their press.  After all, this is the land of the free-thinking man.  But where is the free press of rebuttal?  Where are the scholars who can press these men into a test of intellect and integrity?  Unfortunately, these challengers hold God and Jesus in reverence, as believers, and, as such, are subject to the editorial scissors.  Where is a mainstream “neutral” reporter demanding that Jesus Seminar members declare their personal bias and evaluating the influence of atheism’s bias on their research?

The First Amendment never guaranteed neutrality.  Rather, it enjoined the government from establishing a single, required governmental religion.  It was written to guarantee the expression of all ideas, even the love of God.

Our Founding Fathers knew that every human being is guided by bias—a bias of faith and religion.  The authors were men of deep religious faith, a faith that gave them the inspiration and courage to fight and to die for the First Amendment.  They never dreamed a First Amendment inspired of God would be used to remove God from national dialogue.

Is there a remedy to this mess?  It might be easier than you think.  Let’s…each of us…declare our bias up front.

I suggest it would be immensely more honest if American journalists adopted a Secondary Byline policy.  Why not try to give readers a clue as to which words were cut out, why the paper interviewed a Buddhist or a democrat instead of a Christian or a republican?  Let the reader have a chance to decide what information is missing, and where the writer and editor molded the words to fit their own personal prejudice.  Let’s report the story, and give two bylines:

Presidential Candidates Debate American Morality
by Newt Rull
by Professed Atheist…or Christian, Muslim, Undecided…or Whatever!

With our biases declared front and center, we might finally open healthy national dialogue by exposing all points of view, in full disclosure, being willing to accept full responsibility for our own particular point of view, our own bias.  Wouldn’t the reader better understand a new story involving a moral point of view in the context of the writer Mr. Rull’s personal bias?  And —what does this particular story have to do with the bias of the editor who cut the words out and the publisher who owns the paper who paid for the story?

Until then…please, do me one favor.  A tiny favor.  Just don’t ask me to believe Mr. Newt Rull is unbiased.  Nor his editor.  Nor the publisher.  Not in America.  Sadly…and most especially…even in the Land of the Freedom of the Press.

********************************************

Television 9/5/99:  Dying to Tell the Story, C. 1998 Turner Broadcasting, story of photojournalist Dan Eldon, told by his sister and other family members (Kathy/Amy/Michael) about his death 4 years earlier (approx. 1994) in Africa covering civil war there.  Order for $20 at 1-800-278-7599

Same Night Television:  Story of the French Resistance on channel 71.  Common people fighting the Nazis through use of printed posters and newspapers.

 

[i] “Bill of Rights,” The World Book Encyclopedia, vol. 2, pg. 234b.

[ii] Dying to Tell the Story,” Turner Broadcasting, C. 1998.  (Order for $20 at 1-800-278-7599)

Natural Childbirth

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Published September 4, 2006

Those of us in the boomer generation have lived through a time of great human experimentation.  It has focused on the foundational definition of life itself, with stunning implications for our children and grandchildren.  We stand on the brink of the brave new world we read about in high school English.  And we have a solemn duty.  We must bear witness to the changes we have made to a thread of life that will trail behind as we leave this earth.

Once upon a time, a man and a woman fell in love.  They committed to a lifetime together and gave birth to children.  As each baby grew in the womb, local wives tales served to predict whether the child was a boy or a girl.  In the end, couples went to the delivery room with one prayer, “Let our baby be healthy.”

Today, babies are ordered up according to specifications, like picking out a Beanie Baby off the shelf, ready made.  The variations on designing babies is endless:

  • In 2002, the story broke about a lesbian couple, both of them deaf, who chose to create a deaf baby.  Their son Gauvin was the second deaf child fathered for them by a sperm donor with five generations of deafness in his family.
  • Recent debate has focused on whether technology should be used to eliminate congenital diseases or disabilities. Many disability and gay organizations have felt threatened by the concept of pursuing “perfect” children.
  • In Britain, the legal barriers preventing a couple from creating a designer baby to help save the life of an existing sick child were eliminated in 2001.  Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis on embryos not only promises a baby free of certain identifiable diseases, but also allows “embryo selection” to determine the sex of a baby.
  • Chinese demographers warn that the nation’s social fabric could unravel based on sex selection that eliminates girl babies.  Figures published in Chinese media reveal 116.86 boys are born for every 100 girls in China. Since the 1970s, when China instituted its strict birth control policy, couples have sought ways to guarantee a son.
  • Sex selection in India and China is achieved chiefly through ultrasound scans followed by the selective abortion of female fetuses. In the United States, the Genetics and IVF (GIVF) Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, is pioneering preconception sex selection by means of a system that segregates sperm that will produce girls from those that will produce boys.
  • In England, Jamie Whitaker was designed by and born to his parents for the purpose of providing a genetic match to four-year-old brother Charlie who suffers from leukemia. Called “test tube baby treatment”, Jamie’s father defends the process by saying he didn’t select his baby for insignificant reasons like color of eyes or sex.  The Whitaker’s doctor Mohammad Taranissi says he is aware of dozens of other couples who want to undergo this same procedure.
  • Faced with high rates of infertility and a declining number of infants available for adoption, infertility treatment has become big business in the United States.  “Success” at producing pregnancies has given rise to the “problem” of increasing multiple births.  Twin births have risen 52% and triplet and greater births have quadrupled since 1980.  Multiple births increased by nearly 400% for women in their 30s and by more than 1,000% for women in their 40s.
  • In 2004, researchers in South Korea created 30 cloned embryos that grew to about 100 cells in size – further than any verified experiment so far. This meant they were able to harvest embryonic stem cells from one of the embryos. Internationally, scientists expressed concern that maverick scientists learning from this experiment will soon attempt to clone a baby. For the South Korean experiments, scientists used 242 eggs donated from 16 healthy women.
  • In 2005, the key South Korean doctor admitted to paying these women for “egg retrieval” in violation of ethical assurances the eggs had been donated.  Bioethicists warn of the dangers such payments pose for coercing poor women into risky medical procedures.
  • Insurance companies are coming closer to dictating gene profiling of unborn babies.  Many anticipate a day when insurance carriers will enforce abortion on parents with a “choose or lose” policy that refuses medical coverage for babies born with problems diagnosed in the womb.

With so much recent attention on creating babies, we must remember this is all taking place at the same time we are aborting over 1.2 million babies each year in the United States.  The reason?  No room at the inn…we can’t find a way to make a place for these babies in our lives.

Two thousand years have passed since the birth of the baby in the manger.  In the past forty years we have prided ourselves on modern progress.  We are busy manufacturing a world to leave our children, where babies are products of human design that can be destroyed like all products when they fail to meet manufacturer specifications.

It seems particularly important this year to look up at the sky and wonder at the majesty of babies created by the great Creator.  If we are dissatisfied with His grand design, how can we feel any greater satisfaction at our own handiwork?

Perhaps we would be better off accepting all babies that arrive at the doorstep, giving praise for their blessing to our lives, opening the door, and making one more bed in the inn.

___________________

First published at From the Home Front as “Natural Child Birth” on December 5, 2005.

GOWYL

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Published May 8, 2006

They offer advice to people in pain.  On the surface, their advice sounds forward-looking, pragmatic, and helpful:  Get On With Your Live…GOWYL.

Psychologists and counselors are dealing with a problem that many in America consider inevitable…divorce.  “We think of a marriage as a crap shoot, with worse than 50-50 odds of finding and marrying ‘the right person,’” writes Diane Sollee of Smart Marriages.  “If we marry ‘the wrong person’, we want the right to exit and try again.”  GOWYL.

It’s hard to imagine a family that hasn’t been touched by divorce today.  The method preferred by social scientists in determining the divorce rate is to calculate how many people who have ever married subsequently divorced. Counted that way, the rate has never exceeded about 41 percent, researchers say.  Rising radically in the 1960s, since the 1970s, the rate has steadily been inching downward.

Still, even as divorce rates decline, the number of lives impacted is staggering.  In 2003, based on the 45 reporting states (excluding CA, HI, IN, LA, OK), 920,060 marriages were dissolved.  Over 1.8 million men and women will have to GOWYL.

Richard Cohen, Washington Post critic-at-large, speaks for the frustrated majority.  Conceding the damage divorce does to children, he demands that those who preach family values finally come clean and admit there are no solutions.  GOWYL

As Cohen and so many see it, we are stuck.  There is no way out.  Without divorce, we are asking people to choose between their own happiness and the happiness and well-being of their children.
”[As] much as we hate the fallout, we’ve become convinced that divorce is inevitable — one of life’s necessary evils,” says Sollee.  “This is due to our attitudes about marriage. And, we want to preserve this right for our fellow citizens. No one, we have come to believe, should have to live in an unhappy marriage.”

 

Stuck in the negative, and pushed to accept the inevitable, America has developed an extensive support system designed to make divorce easier and happier.  Divorces are no-fault.  Property is divided.  Child support payments are calculated, if not paid.  And life goes on.  Make the best of it.  GOWYL

But wait.  Yes, wait!

We have been encouraged to accept failure as a way of life.  And we have created several divorce industries…lawyers and counselors…generating millions of dollars for people who profit from the failure of others.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Failure is not inevitable.

As it turns out, we don’t have to choose to be miserable in marriage to make our children happy.  The real data on happy and unhappy marriages tells a very different story.

When you look at a nationally representative sample of married people who say they are “very unhappy” in their marriages, and follow them over time, 60 percent of those who stick it out (about 15 percent do not) say they are “quite happy” or “very happy” in their marriages five years later. Another 25 percent of couples report improvement in their marital happiness.

These couples did GOWYL.  But they did it by staying married.  They were once unhappy.  And, without the help and assistance of divorce attorneys and counselors paving the way, sticking with their marriages, they were able to create a happy marriage once again…not just for the sake of their kids, but for the sake of themselves.

That’s right.  Unhappy couples aren’t doomed to a life of personal misery in their stoic, chin-up choice to stay together for the kids’ sake.   They can actually recover, restore and reconnect.

If these couples can do it, why can’t other couples do it?  And if they can do it, then how?

As sociologists and politicians since the 60s worked to normalize and even elevate the deconstruction of the traditional family, these questions were considered regressive.  Divorce was the solution.  Marriage was the problem.

Today, as we measure the pain and cost of divorce, these questions offer a long-overdue hope to people everywhere.  They create a new focus for GOWYL.  Marriage is the solution.  Divorce is the problem.

Life is more than just matter of getting on with it.  It’s a matter of where we are getting on to and what life will be when we get there.  If you’re headed toward a solution, a happy marriage is still a wonderful destination.

_____________________________

First published at From the Home Front as “GOWYL” on May 1, 2006.

 

Still Golden After All These Years

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Published May 1, 2006

Do unto others…unto others?  Is it a poem?  Shakespeare?

I shudder with a mixture of dread and curiosity every time Jay takes to the street with his camera crew and a microphone in hand.  In a regular feature Jaywalking, Leno approaches people on a Hollywood street to survey their knowledge on current news or a particular topic.

One night it’s history.  Leno asks passersby how many judges there are on the Supreme Court.  A young man laughs, shrugs his shoulders and tosses a number in the air.  Thirty six?  Leno laughs, too.  So, he asks, did you go to college?  Yeah, the man replies.  I graduated last year.

The Golden Rule?  It’s a mathematical formula, isn’t it?

In a variation on his regular theme, Leno one night lets people choose their questions from either a 4th, 6th, or 8th grade text.  Jen, a registered dental assistant, says the Grand Canyon is 3200 miles long, and an Alabama State student says Columbus discovered America in 1842.  What country did we fight in the Revolutionary War, Jay asks Selena.  Oh, my gosh.  I don’t know this stuff, she admits.  I really don’t know this stuff.  Keeping a straight face, Leno tells her, I believe you

Another night, and another question…laughter gives way to sadness as we witness the current state of affairs in modern American life.  What is the Golden Rule, Jay asks.  One after another, each person stares at him with a blank face.  You know, he persists.  The Golden Rule…do unto others…?  That’s enough to get them started.

The Golden Rule?  Do unto others…before they do it to you.  Yeah, that’s it.

 The ethic of reciprocity is a general moral principle found in virtually all religions, often as a fundamental rule. It is most commonly heard as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  This traditional rule is so highly valued that it has been known in English for centuries as the “Golden Rule”.

How did we manage in America to loose sight of the Golden Rule?  Why is it impossible for these regular people to immediately recite the simple statement for Jay?  How can we possibly teach our children new attitudes of respect and love when we have lost sight of a common cultural law as basic as the Golden Rule?

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. [Mat 7:12]  A nation that does not have this law written on its heart is a nation that has forgotten how to love.

As I would have them do unto me?  Would I have them yell at me and trash me with vulgarity and accusations on Jerry Springer’s show?  Certainly not.

Would I have a dear family member meet me center stage on a national television talk show to reveal a devastating “secret,” entertaining the world at the expense of my humiliation?  Of course, I wouldn’t.

What part of letting my friends get drunk on Spring Break is a measure of my love for them?  Not one bit of it.

Restoring a healthy expression of love to our nation is as simple as remembering one rule, golden in value:

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. [Mat 22:36-40]

As we take up the great commandment and make it the watchword for our life, it is exceedingly clear how much of modern life encourages us to focus on what is good for ourselves regardless of how it impacts others.

The Golden Rule is the narrow path.  It is the touchstone, the measuring stick, the weight and measure for all we say, do and think.  It is not merely a “good idea.”  It is the law.  It is a commandment.  It is the sight we must fix our eyes upon, the bandage for our spirit, and the balm for a hurting world.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

_________________________

First published at From the Home Front as “Still Golden After All These Years,” on April 10, 2006.

 

 

Reconsidering Kinsey

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Published, January 2005

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  World War II focused national attention on a global threat to mankind.  Meanwhile, unobtrusively, in the heartland of America, the seed of a quieter, but equally profound attack on America was taking root.

On the quiet campus of Indiana University, a group of researchers was busy interviewing men and women, collecting data on their intimate sex lives.  Alfred Kinsey seemed to be the perfect man to direct this project:  married, a father of three children, a zoologist well-respected for his work with gall wasps, and known around campus for his open and comfortable approach to talking about sex.

Kinsey’s move from gall wasps to humans began even before 1938 when popular lore has it that “the Association of Women Students petitioned Indiana University for a course for students who were married or contemplating marriage.”  On the side, outside of his regular teaching duties in the zoology department, he began to collect sexual histories, developing an extensive list of over 350 interview questions which he committed to memory.

When soldiers returned home in 1945, Kinsey was on the home stretch of preparing his findings for the American public.  On January 5, 1948, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was published.  While it had only one week as #1, it spent 43 weeks, just short of one year, on The New York Times bestseller’s list.  A second volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, followed in 1953.

Kinsey’s authority on sexual behavior went virtually unchallenged for thirty years.  Then on July 23, 1981, at the Fifth World Congress of Sexology in Jerusalem, a diminutive American psychologist stepped to the podium to present her research findings to a standing-room only session.

I was confident my sexology colleagues would be as outraged as was I by these tables [Tables 30-34 from Male] and the child data describing Kinsey’s reliance on pedophiles as his child sex experimenters.  Perhaps worst of all for me, as a scholar and a mother were pages 160 and 161 where Kinsey claimed his data came from ‘interviews.’  How could he say 196 little children—some as young as two months of age—enjoyed ‘fainting,’ ‘screaming,’ ‘weeping,’ and ‘convulsing’?  How could he call these children’s responses evidence of their sexual pleasure and ‘climax’?  I called it evidence of terror, of pain, as well as criminal.  One of us was very, very sexually mixed up.

Dr. Reisman laid out her charges methodically, presenting slides of Tables 30-34 and analyzing the specific entries which calculated the rates and timed the speeds of orgasms in at least 317 infants and children.  How, she challenged the audience, did rape and molestation of children ever make the transition from criminal activity to research?  And she rested her case.

“The reaction in the room was heavy:  it was numbing for some, discomforting for others.”  A Kinsey Institute representative present for her presentation predictably “protested that none of this was true.”  Yet, Dr. Reisman felt certain her documentation would be a call to action, stimulating an immediate and thorough scientific review of Kinsey’s research.

She recalls what actually happened. “Late that afternoon my young assistant from Haifa University returned from lunch visibly shaken.  She had dined at a private table with the international executives of the conference.  My paper was hotly contested and largely condemned, since everyone at her table of about twelve men and women wholeheartedly agreed that children could, indeed, have ‘loving’ sex with adults.”

This potential “loving sex” is best described by Kinsey’s coauthor Dr. Paul Gebhard in a letter to Dr. Reisman, where he explained the source of data on the tables in question.  The data, Gebhard explained, “were obtained from parents, teachers and male homosexuals, and …some of Kinsey’s men used ‘manual and oral techniques’ to catalog how many ‘orgasms’ infants and children could produce in a given amount of time.”

Further research by Reisman linked “some of Kinsey’s men” to one man in particular, Mr. Rex King.  Biographer James Jones fleshes out the details in an interview for a Yorkshire documentary, Secret History: Kinsey’s Paedophiles.  “Kinsey relied upon [King] for the chapter on childhood sexuality in the male volume….I think that he was in the presence of pathology at large and…Kinsey…elevated to, you know, the realm of scientific information…what should have been dismissed as unreliable, self serving data provided by a predatory pedophile.”

While trained sexologists easily dismissed this sexual abuse of children as “loving sex with adults,” persistent inquiries from concerned lay people finally prompted The Kinsey Institute to post responses to these charges on its web site.  These statements, drafted by Director John Bancroft, M.D., are carefully worded denials that proceed to confirm the truth of the charges but “explain” them in “harmless” terms.  In other words, “It depends on what the meaning of is is.”

Before you buy a ticket to the new movie Kinsey, consider this.  Papers promote the film with an endorsement from Paul Gebhard, the man who catalogued orgasms of infants and children and used this to demonstrate the benefits of incest.  He likes the film.  He gives Kinsey a thumbs-up.

What could this film do to offend Mr. Gebhard?  He gives a thumbs-up to Kinsey, but consider who is behind the thumb.  Endorsing fame and adulation for one of the greatest child abusers of the modern world is child’s play for a man unmoved by the ‘screaming,’ ‘weeping,’ and ‘convulsing’ of innocent children.

Considering seeing Kinsey?  Don’t.

 

____________________

First published as an expose revealing unknown truths about Kinsey at From the Home Front:  “Kinsey: Brave New World?” on November 19, 2004.

Food, Sex Best Within Boundaries

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Published January 1, 2005

Is there anything we haven’t eaten in the past week: ham, tamales, potatoes, chocolate, brandy, wine…and…

On the way to eating, there is tasting, munching, nibbling and sipping.  Whatever you call it, the food goes in…and settles in for a long winter’s nap…right around the waist.

One week later, stuffed to the gills, we must face the truth.  A diet is in order.  The belt is tight, and we are too bottom-heavy to lift out of the recliner.  Eating may be natural, but it certainly has its limits.

Guided by New Year’s Resolutions, millions of Americans begin to set boundaries on what we put in our mouth.  We post calorie counts on the refrigerator door, we empty the kitchen of temptation and we carry boxed chocolates to the office.

Indulging at the banquet table comes at a cost.  Anyone laboring to shed a few “holiday pounds” knows the painful and difficult process of “paying for our pleasure.”  Food is only one item on a long list of indulgences…each with a cost.

For the past thirty years, we have winked at sexual indulgences, and our children are paying the price.  An epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and thousands of children raised by single moms are testimony to the need for a diet of a different kind.

Abstinence education is about more than sex.  It is a diet for the soul.  It is about making the connections for our children between the indulgence and the consequence.  It offers children hope because it tells them they don’t have to pay a price if they can learn restraint.

Abstinence education is about the dreams of our children, about the quality of their lives both now and forever.  It works to give young people the imagination, confidence and tools to fulfill their dreams.  Sex is a part of the dream.  And so is restraint.

Debates over sex education continue to rage.  Millions of dollars are being poured into campaigns to paint abstinence educators as fear-filled, shame-based fools.  After all, one condom-friendly sexpert lectured her audience…sex is natural…like eating.

This was the major point she wanted to make?  A woman with over twenty years experience in teaching our children about sex?

She turned to face an abstinence teacher and lashed out in her most indignant voice.  “We want our children to celebrate sex.  We don’t need them to be fearful and filled with shame.  We want them to feel at home with their sexuality.  After all, sex is perfectly natural.”

She smiled…smugly.  She had trumped any challenge to acting on a sexual urge.  Well…after thirty years of reassuring our children that sex is natural, these sexperts have achieved their goal…and more.

No fear and no shame…this goes a long way to explain Superbowl XXXVIII and its international show of bumping and grinding center stage…pelvic thrusts set to music…complete with one naked breast.  Not to mention MTV.  And this sexpert wants us to believe the most pressing thing to teach our children is that sex is natural?

Eating is natural.  But it is only healthy when it is managed, limited, and held inside the bounds of medical realities by exercising self control.  Eating is not to be feared.  But it is to be restrained.  If not, why bother with New Year’s Resolutions?

Sex, just like dining at a banquet table filled with delectable dishes, is a passion best enjoyed when boundaries are observed.  Natural desires have natural consequences.  This is the truth from which we build New Year’s Resolutions…both for the kitchen and for the bedroom.

No fear.  No shame.  Teaching our children restraint is not about teaching shame.  Restraint is their ultimate liberation from the very real fear of paying a consequence more severe than a few extra holiday pounds around the waist.

Our children need more than the simplistic reassurance that sex is natural.  They need the perfection of nature’s ultimate truth:  Our greatest hopes and dreams are more often than not fulfilled with a simple resolution of self control made…and kept.

Happy New Year.

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First published at From the Home Front as “New Year’s Resolution: Another Kind of Diet,” on December 27, 2004.

Afterwards, Bridging the Divide

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Published November, 2005

The day after the election, the calm after the storm, talking heads on every channel are asking how the red and blue zones on the map can come together in the next four years.  How can we heal the wounds, how can we bridge the divide?

I am tired.  Americans are tired.  We have had contentious nastiness play itself out in a four-year filibuster preventing the constitutional process of judicial appointments, and we have endured two years of electioneering where the “best” of political debate was handled by Bruce, Barbra, and the D. Chicks.  And then there is Michael Moore.  Yep, Monsieur Moore.

We’re more than tired.  We’re exhausted.  We want civility.  We want progress.  Unity.  Peace.  Quiet.  The talking heads ask what we all want to know.  After the election, how can we come together as a nation?

In this bruised state, we cling to the words offered by John Kerry in his concession speech.  “[W]e all wake up as Americans….There is a desperate need for unity, for finding a common ground, and for coming together. Today I hope we can begin the healing.”  Call me cynical, but I hold out, waiting for the flip to flop.

Only one paragraph later, the white flag comes down.  “I believe,” Kerry says, “that what we started in this campaign will not end here….Our fight goes on….Our fight goes on….Our fight goes on.”  Now if that isn’t a red flag in front of the bull, I don’t know what is.

Edwards is there for the fight, too.  “We will continue to fight for every vote….We didn’t start fighting for you when this campaign began, and we won’t stop fighting for you when this camp ends….You cannot walk away.  This fight has just begun.”

And their army of rebellion needs little encouragement.  Fresh off the e-mail, the same day Kerry and Edwards say goodbye, I receive a Planned Parenthood letter.  “Don’t Agonize, Organize.  Just Say NO To Bush Agenda.”

In a democracy where majority counts, it is not just the “Bush Agenda” that wants to ban partial birth abortion.  At least two-thirds of the people in America think that crushing a baby’s skull after the brains have been suctioned is a horrific “procedure,” no matter what you call it.  Now that these Americans have voted their agenda, are those in the minority at Planned Parenthood willing to accept any curb on the unrestricted right to abortion?

This is only one of issue after issue where Americans have voted our agenda.  In spite of the political rhetoric, we are not a nation divided.   A map of the over 3,000 counties in America is a wash of red, a unified sign that Americans all across the nation share common dreams and have voted with one voice.

Bush is not in charge of creating peace on his own.  It takes two.  Lincoln offered a political path to end slavery.  But this meant nothing to people with war in their hearts.

Yes, Bush and the Republicans can reach across the aisle.  They can take the first step.  They can offer the first olive branch.  But this will mean nothing if those on the other side of the aisle want the whole tree and are willing to chop it down just to get their way.

Here’s the olive branch.  Now put down the axe.

Taking on AIDS with Morals

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Published June 14, 2004

Stephen Langa knows about AIDS and failure firsthand.  And that’s why he also knows about success.

Stephen is from Uganda.  The devastation of the African continent by AIDS is personal: his own younger brother died.  Stephen works in the schools where hundreds of thousands of children experience the loneliness of life without parents.  To date, nearly two million Uganda children are orphans because of AIDS.

It takes looking failure full in the face to be able to appreciate success.  And that’s why Stephen came from Uganda to visit the United States.  He brings us a story of success:  Uganda alone in the world is turning the tide in the battle against AIDS.

“I come from Uganda,” Stephen tells his audience, “and HIV has devastated our continent and our country.  In Uganda, especially in the early 90s we had whole villages wiped out, where the entire adult population was wiped out….Everyone of us in Uganda has either been infected or affected by HIV.”

Responding to the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic, Stephen left his career in electrical engineering and founded Family Life Network, an organization that sends teachers into the high schools to teach young people one simple message.

All over Uganda, teachers are working to prevent HIV infection “by teaching what we call value-based sex education in secondary school,” Stephen says.  “Now, by value-based we mean sex education that has morals in it.  That’s what we teach.”

The message is as simple as ABC.  “A” stands for a personal commitment to abstain from sexual relationships until a person is ready for marriage.  “B” stands for fidelity inside of marriage…”B” faithful.  Finally, “C” refers to condom use.

But Stephen warns us about America’s reliance on the condom.  “Condoms are not 100% safe.  You see, human life is precious….Now if there’s a chance of failure, it means we are risking precious life.  A life is priceless. So we want to have something that can actually protect our people.”

And this is where Uganda has set the standard for the world, becoming a beacon light of hope against the rising tide of AIDS infection.  Uganda is committed to A and B.  Totally committed.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet provide the national leadership and tone for their country by emphasizing the value of time-honored Uganda cultural practices.  They inspire the Ugandan people to return to abstinence and marital fidelity.

Under their leadership, the commitment of a child toward abstinence until marriage is given dignity and support.  Students sign commitment cards, and their name on the line is more than a momentary gesture to please a teacher.  It is a personal promise they are willing to keep.

Why do students in Uganda honor their pledge to remain sexually abstinent outside of marriage?  Stephen tells us it’s more than their fear of becoming infected with HIV.  “We go out there and we teach these young people about sexuality.  And we found out that if you teach sexuality and teach young people about sexuality in relationship to all of life, then they understand it.  They see the big picture.  When you see it from the big picture point of view, they understand it and they behave.”

The results are in.  Uganda has demonstrated a cure for the AIDS epidemic.  In the early 1990s Uganda had one of the worst African AIDS infection rates, but by 2001 Uganda had reduced HIV by 70 percent.

Cambridge researchers confirm that Uganda’s success is “linked to a 60% reduction in casual sex.”  And they confirm Stephen’s warnings about condoms.  “Despite substantial condom use and promotion of biomedical approaches, other African countries have shown neither similar behavioral responses nor HIV prevalence declines of the same scale.  The Ugandan success is equivalent to a vaccine of 80% effectiveness.”

Americans, take note.  While our companies are loading crates filled with condoms onto ships bound for Africa, Stephen makes us realize that America is exporting failure.  It’s time to make a change.

Is there a cure for AIDS?  Yes!  And Americans have the answer within reach, imported straight from Uganda.

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Originally Published at From the Home Front as “AIDS: Importing the Cure,” on June 4, 2004.

Some of My Best Friends Are Still Democrats

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Published January 20, 1999

I’m a voter with a checkered past.  I’ve voted an equal number of times for Republican and Democrat presidential candidates.  I’ve voted for an Independent.  I voted once for President Clinton.

I’m having trouble finding a label that fits me.  Left Wing Liberal or Right Wing Radical, the label I most remember is the 60’s epithet, Bleeding Heart Liberal.  It hints at why I find the Democratic party often appealing and why some of my best friends are still Democrats.

I admire Democrats for taking up the cause of the down-trodden.  I admire them for looking at the good qualities of all people.  I cheer when they uphold the rights of the minorities, women, and the unfortunate.

It’s wonderful to watch the debates during the impeachment process and see so many women and minority members of Congress now participating in national politics.  Bill Clinton and the Democratic party have done much to make this possible.  That’s why the current party divisions over impeachment make me wish I could agree with Democrats.

            If only the Democratic party could look to the cause of the under-dog for a sense of why I can’t abide the damage President Clinton has done to our justice system.

History is filled with examples of blacks, Mexicans, Indians, and women who suffered injustice.  The darkest marks against American justice are those times when power, money, and white supremacy kept a white American out of jail or put a minority person into jail.  No minority has escaped prejudice.

Democrats, among others, fought entrenched prejudice.  Better yet, they have opened their arms, encouraging full political participation for women and minorities.  They have fought hard to uphold a justice system that treats all Americans equally and fairly.

I am truly saddened today to see how fiercely Democrats, to the man or woman, will fight to provide preferential legal treatment to a powerful, rich, white leader in a legal system that would not hesitate one minute to convict a poor, common, minority citizen.

Is there any Indian, black, or Mexican citizen who doubts they would suffer the severest legal penalties for perjury?  In years past, most of my best friends would have demanded equal treatment under the law.  What has changed?

Her Honor, Chief Justice of the Playground

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Published February 10, 1999

I am struck by awe as I watch lawyers and politicians carry on the impeachment proceedings in the same buildings where our ancestors outlawed slavery, gave the vote to women, and entered World War II.

Unfortunately, after years of teaching elementary school, it’s nearly impossible to avoid a special type of teacher translation where adult business can be viewed in terms of little people on the playground.

Every teacher spends part of her life on the playground, whistle and clipboard handy.  Inevitably, at least once during the year, there is a “major” feud.  The teacher’s eye is caught by a clump of wrangling students in the distance, and unmistakable shouts and threats are punctuated with red faces and pounding fists.

As quickly as one can run to the scene and pull students apart, the unofficial legal wrangling of the combatants and witnesses begins.  It’s always the same jumble of overlapping cries:  He started it.  It’s not fair.  You’re just playing favorites.  You won’t even listen to me.  He’s lying.  He hit me first.  I only pushed him a little.  I’m going to tell my dad.  Ask them.  They saw it all.  I’m not going to let anyone call me that.  I had to.  I wasn’t the only one.

Twenty years ago, this feud might have been adjudicated right then and there by the duty teacher.  Students might have been set against the wall, punishments meted out, and subject closed.

But schools have learned, as has society at large, it no longer pays to be soft on crime.  Sheriff Joe in Arizona will find room for every offender, even if it’s a cot under a tent.  Voters have passed three-strikes-you’re-out laws.  Mandatory sentencing laws keep judges in line.

Schools have learned and changed with the times.  Every school fight today moves to the front office, with written reports, and an appearance before Her Honor, the Chief Justice of the Playground.  She may like your child, but fighting is fighting, and there are guidelines in place.

School districts have developed a “no sympathy” approach to discipline.  If you “hit,” you will be punished.  There are no “good” reasons.  There is a formal list of “crimes,” and a set list of punishments, all written as official policy in the school district’s manual.  Fights on the playground are at the top of the list for tough justice.

It doesn’t matter who started it, who’s the teacher’s favorite, or who your dad is.  Schools are hard-line districts anymore, having learned that soft hearts and soft discipline create war-zones in the schoolyard.

Politicians, take note.  The President may be your favorite kid in the Capital.  He may not be the only one to sin.  He may be sorry.  But be mindful of the lessons of the little guy.  Bending rules and going soft for the Big Guy, President Clinton,  wouldn’t even be considered if he had to appear before Her Honor the Chief Justice of the Playground.