By now, many of you have heard about the latest controversy surrounding Amazon.com's offering of an e-book entitled, "A Child Lover's Code of Conduct." CNN.com talked about the uproar that this book has caused. While most certainly not agreeing with the content (in fact, it disgusts me, and even makes me angry), I find the public response to this book quite hypocritical.
Ten years ago, when the public debate about homosexuality was at its breaking point, I remember sitting in a philosophy of religion class where Dr. Bruce Little, prophesied about the slippery slope that our culture would find itself in. By removing any source of objective authority that passed judgment on sexual ethics, Dr. Little remarked that we would soon find ourselves in a place where if the rationalization for homosexuality proceeds, then things like pedophilia and bestiality were not far behind. Here's what he meant. By in large, the major arguments for homosexuality are that they are born that way, and that everyone is entitled to feel love and to be accepted. Opponents to homosexuality are portrayed as close-minded bigots who are trying to superimpose their values onto the society at large. But do you see where this leads us? If this sort of justification and reasoning is true, then could the same arguments be offered for pedophiliacs? Here's what one part of the CNN article said.
"True pedophiles love children and would never hurt them," Phillip R. Greaves II said in a phone interview with CNN on Wednesday. When asked if the self-published e-book was a "how-to manual," he said, "there are certain parts that are advisory," which set out lines that should not be crossed. "Penetration is out. You can't do that with a child, but kissing and fondling I don't think is that big of a problem," he said.
What we are seeing is the natural progression resulting from of a rejection of authority. "Everyone does what is right in his own eyes..." Even if the thought of pedophilia is repulsive (which it is), following the current acceptance of homosexuality and other "sins" (which I label as "sin" based on a source of authority from divine revelation) leaves us no way to condemn or protest pedophilia with any sort of consistency and coherence. It's simply us imposing our "old-fashioned" values (in this case, against pedophilia). This is another example of tolerance at it's worst. In fact, another portion of the article said as much.
A few Amazon.com users defended the author's right to free speech, and a discussion on the site titled "Why Amazon is Right" delved into the constitutional implications of the controversy.
"While I think 99.9 percent of us object to pedophilia (even though I think this particular book was a publicity stunt/joke), I think we can all agree that we don't want someone else censoring a subject matter that we may be interested in. Religion, atheism, homosexuality, etc. are some subjects that spring to mind ... and they have been censored in the past until we realized that it's best to let all information in (even if we don't like some of it), rather than allow some authority or individual decide what we can and can't know about based on their own opinions or motivations," one user wrote.
So you see, when it comes to judging lifestyles, we can't have our cake and eat it too. We can't reject an objective source of authority thus dictating a "who are we to judge?" stance towards one issue, but then vehemently reject something we don't agree with based on "principle". God, help us and the way our culture is moving, and may he show us the hypocrisy of the current perspective of tolerance.
The big difference between the gay issue and pedophila is that the latter involves an adult abusing a child who cannot give consent. Pedophilia is disgusting and recognized by most civil beings to be unpermissable. Even among the prison population, pedophiles are treated as the lowest of the low, and are not tolerated. Children must be protected at all cost, their innocence preserved; loved, not abused.
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