I wrote last week that there was a time when American adults, even those actively engaged in some form of sexual debauchery, sought to protect children from exposure to it. We may identify that as hypocrisy (that is, do as I say and not as I do), and it may not have resulted in perfect protection, but there was nonetheless a cultural sense of some form of sacrifice for the recognized good of our children. Unfortunately, the attitude that pervades now is one of self-centered entitlement. Access to pornography and various forms of sexual debauchery are demanded and expected with no regard to the damage exposure brings to children at an early age. The attitude has shifted from “erring” on the side of protecting our vulnerable young to one of demanding access as a right in spite of the havoc it wreaks.
Such is the category of the demands that the ACLU placed on school districts across the nation last year. No, the ACLU is not demanding unfettered access to hard-core pornography sites in our nation’s public schools. But what they are demanding demonstrates clearly that they are not concerned with any resulting unintentional consequences. They would much rather err on the side of a self-centered few than on the side of protecting the vulnerable.
In classic bullying fashion, ACLU attorneys have crashed into public school administrations and school boards with an ultimatum to meet their demands or face a lawsuit. They would place firmly in their crosshairs the relatively small, strapped resources of an individual school district and assault them with their massive national resources. Instead of using their precious resources to provide the best education possible for their students and the best benefits for their teachers, large sums of money would be tied up in litigation. This is synonymous to the old gang style extortion racket of selling protection “insurance” to stores so that their thug gang members would not destroy the stores. There are even laws on the books to prevent larger chains from going into communities and undercutting every local businesses’ prices because the larger chain can absorb the loss through sales in their other stores around the nation. Unconcerned about stated dangers and consequences, the ACLU engages in an adult version of the school yard bullying tactic.
Contesting this bullying style demand is the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). In their own letter to the Gwinnett County Public Schools, warns that “disabling the LGBT filter will make sexually inappropriate material available to students.” I note that the ADF letter does not attempt to make any threats of litigation against the school district. ADF merely demonstrates the risks inherent in disabling the filter as demanded by the ACLU and offers some possible solutions consistent with the law and good judgment.
At no point does the ADF attempt to suggest or imply that the school district cannot provide age appropriate LGBT educational material to their students if they believe that to be in their best interest. In fact, when one reads the ADF letter, it is noted that they acknowledge that the filter, as it is currently configured, also restricts access to legitimate sites that provide educational resource alternatives to LGBT lifestyles. ADF makes no demands that these sites be made accessible; rather, they are, once again, demonstrating the fallout present and danger inherent in altering or removing the filter as demanded by the ACLU. They are, in effect, saying that if we must err in this or a similar situation, let us, as a culture and society, err on the side of good judgment and defense of, to the best possible extent, the vulnerable among us.
