Karen, there is a constant struggle in our society to balance ideas. Freedom of speech has to be weighed against inciting violence, or distributing pornography. Otherwise, our mailboxes would be filled with pornographic material every day.
Just because the science of preventing pornography isn't perfect at it relates to filtering material from the internet. Doesn't mean we should abandon the attempt altogether. I have a filter on my 8 year olds computer. As do most parents I know. Why the libraries and schools can't use them to make it a lot more difficult for children to view pornographic material makes no sense at all to me. But then, I'm a parent of three young children, who has to worry constantly about the graphic nature of sex and violence in our society. And ponder over what it might be doing to their innocence and childhood memories.
Anyone with half-a-brain knows without filters more and more children will view pornographic material at our libraries. If they can't see the the correlation between no filters, and kids being shown pornographic material, then they're either in complete denial, or daft.
Culture is like a blanket that surrounds and protects our society, when you pull on one strand of fiber here, then another, and another, it's no telling what will happen to the cohesiveness of the blanket over time.
We humans can accustom ourselves to almost anything, provided we are given a little time in which to do it. Some of the things we come to see as normal today, would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago. The prevalence and access to graphic sexually explicit material being one of them. Will it be long before the secular first amendment crowd decries we should be allowed to view child pornography with the same excessive vengeance as adult porn is viewed today? After all, is the argument really that different? Or how about beasteality? After witnessing the road we've been on for the last 30 years, I have little doubt others will be arguing the merits of first amendment right to view dogs and people in sex acts together 20 years from now. Some might even marry them, and claim we're denying them equal rights to be against such a natural normal way of life.
As a side note, I find it interesting how this same crowd is displaying little or no fear regarding legislation which would prevent free speech as it relates to political thoughts and ideas. e.g. McCain/Feingold.
You and I could probably spend an afternoon arguing about the definition of secularists until our fingers were raw. In the end, we wouldn't agree, nor come to a consensus. However, I believe I can recognize the radical ones, just as you probably believe you can recognize the radical fundamentalist from the rest. Whenever you deal with people, individuals will always differ slightly in their beliefs and approaches. So, I won't go down the link here, link there definition trail.
Secular humanists want to exclude God from every public arena in our country. And replace it with a worshipping of the earth, government, or material goods. While elevating the "seperation of church and state' into immutable dogma. Had today's climate of intolerance for ideas, derived from religious sources, been prevalent in the 1960's. Martin Luther Kings's movement would never have descended the steps of the church and made it into the streets of America. |
