But as repugnant as this man was and is, we are better off considering the hypocrisy of the media and of our culture around this issue. We almost relish scandals like this, because we can point fingers at the accused, and feel all cozy and warm because we would never do such a thing, and we’re good and normal, and moral. But look around you for a few moments. There has been a concerted campaign to destroy childhood in North America and Western Europe for more than 30 years now. We are told, even ordered, to take kids out of the house at the earliest age possible, and then to educate and socialize them in daycares. Because, we are told, the last thing we want is a child raised at home by parents – that would be abnormal and unnatural.
As soon as the children leave daycare they’re in schools, where our politicians are imposing ever more blatantly sexual and extreme curricula, blurring the lines between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. Then there is big business pouncing on every new economic opportunity, and selling clothes to little girls who cannot even spell the word “pervert” that make them look like miniature prostitutes. Dumbed down, numbed down parents – or one parent more often than not – think it cute that their five-year-old looks like Lady Ga Ga, and hey, what’s wrong with loud make-up on a toddler, or heels and a tiny skirt on a child who still believes in Santa? The media is even worse, and emasculates boys, condemns them for their masculinity, glorifies sexual ambivalence, and tells anybody who will listen that nothing is right or wrong, but whatever makes you feel good is good in itself.
A lecturer at a Toronto university who worked as a male prostitute wrote that so-called “inter-generational sex” was fine and interesting, and was championed by his class of students when he was fired; he was then employed by numerous magazines and nominated for all sorts of awards. Just recently, a conference in Baltimore attended by a number of high-ranking academics argued that we need to legitimize pedophilia and decried the stigma attached to it. It goes on and on.
Then of course we find our well-known alleged perpetrator at Penn State, and we all congratulate ourselves that we’re doing fine. But we are not. One man caught does not a systemic problem solve. Children are easy to love, childhood is more difficult to preserve, and we have become an extremely lazy society. Sexuality is supposed to be private, relationship is meant to mean something, kids are meant to be kids.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less about Mr. Sandusky, but he will disappear, and the problem will continue.
If we destroy the lives of children in the womb, it is easy to destroy their well-being when they are just a few years older. Life has ceased to mean very much, and childhood even less. Those of us who complain that all is not perfect in our wealthy, materialistic, hedonistic culture are dismissed as dinosaurs and bigots. But there is nothing prehistoric about caring for the small and vulnerable, and nothing small-minded about compassion and empathy.
The new battles will not be on beachheads, in fields, in the sky, or on the seas, but in the classrooms and the homes, where we fight with all our might to make sure that children are not the new victims of a great campaign of hatred and lust.
Michael Coren can be booked for speeches at mcoren@sympatico.ca. His latest book is Why Catholics Are Right (McClelland & Stewart).