I keep pounding the drum that America has a responsibility, among the community of nations, to be the first nation in history to be honest in its professed love of children, to be honest in accepting the fact that our children are, in fact, our most precious resource and our only hope of the future. It was for this reason that nearly twelve years ago I began to work on a Constitutional Amendment to protect children from child molesters:
Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution
An adult convicted of the molestation of a child will be sentenced to prison for a term of not less than ten years.
If the child dies as a result of the molestation the person(s) convicted of the crime will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A child as defined by this article shall be one who has not attained their sixteenth birthday.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
While the proposed amendment languishes without support from any in Congress or even the churches how can America, in all honesty, avoid the stench of hypocrisy by intruding into the affairs of other nations on the basis of human rights and ignore the most fundamental and inviolable human right of all, the right of a child to be raised in protected innocence? Dr. Jess Diamond says we must ban violence. What a revolutionary idea! And we all agree. But where and how to start has been the bane of humanity.
I did not come up with the truly revolutionary idea of this amendment overnight; quite the contrary. It took many years following false trails, many years as a parent, a teacher and administrator, a pastor, a worker in social services, so many attempts and struggles with so many ideas before the amendment even suggested itself.
It took decades of work and experience in many areas, it took fighting for needed reforms in education and politics, it took the writing of reams of material addressing widely diverse subjects, the writing of theses, a doctoral dissertation and six, lengthy books to provide the foundation for the answer to the two, most prominent questions I faced every where I went in respect to the ills of America: “What can I do and how can I do it?”
Even at that I had to deal with the very points people like governor Glendening and others have brought up. Yet, in spite of the many obstacles, I finally had to admit to myself that nothing short of the amendment can accomplish the purpose.
I am without any illusions concerning the enormity of the task. Nor do I minimize the legitimate questions well-meaning opponents of the amendment bring up to me. I am also aware that these have not had the years of mulling the problem over in their minds that I have had, that they have not been personally involved with children in all the circumstances that I have. Yet even the most obtuse would agree that there can be no more noble monument to any nation than to take this step, the first in history, to take such a stand for the sake of the future of America and the human race.
Woman is the antithesis to war. Women hear the cry of children much more than do men. Women do not bear children to sacrifice them on the altars of the violence of men. But men do not listen to women. So it is that I appeal to the Momma Bears to take their rightful place of working for passage of the amendment, to finally make their voices heard against the violence of men.
Revolutionary? Yes; in every need and sense of the word. A New Thing is needed worldwide, a new thing that promises with hope of success a banning of violence. Only then will humanity be able to reach out to the stars and devote its energy to the colonizing of space, but to take the violence of humanity with it? Unconscionable!
Violence must be supplanted by devoting the need of men for challenge and risk-taking, pioneering and exploration, of proving manhood to reaching out to the stars. And you ladies are to be the inspiration for meeting such a challenge.
This is why I say, categorically and without contradiction that the compatibility of differences between men and women, rather than competition and combativeness, must become our goal. And men and women must recognize, accept and work together on the basis of each being of equal value!
Tired and gazing into the distance, scores of destitute girls have arrived in Bombay too traumatized to reveal what happened to them before their mysterious mass deportation from Saudi Arabia. Police and social workers fear the girls are the victims of a child prostitution or labor ring. Some say the 76 girls, ranging in age from 6 to 15 were abandoned by their own families. Tattoos of flowers and fish skeletons found on the hands of most of the girls may have been used as identification marks by someone who controlled them in Saudi Arabia. This was a recent article buried in the pages of a metropolitan newspaper. What were these children doing in Saudi Arabia? How did they get there? How many died? Children too traumatized to even answer such questions. Who cares?
I have a lot of trouble finding people who care. It isn't a subject that most of my friends will even discuss. Very seldom does any friend even ask, “Say, Sam, how's it going with the amendment?” Social denial. People don't really want to know about child abuse. It is a dark and shameful thing, the stuff of nightmares for those who do care, for parents who must constantly be on guard against becoming a Kanka, Klass, Russo or other parent who has had a child stolen, tortured and murdered by free-roaming, predatory beasts in the form of men!
Elementary schools: a natural for such predators as teachers. A former Lamont, California elementary teacher, one Thomas Hamley, recently admitted he molested his two adopted sons. His admission came on his being accused of molesting two school children.
The Boy Scouts: another natural environment for predators. Social workers: Another natural environment for them. The churches and so on. And all the while it becomes increasingly difficult, by perverted laws that cater to perversion, to even question the backgrounds of applicants for positions in such institutions. And some, like Social Services, actively recruit homosexuals for its ranks!
I sometimes like Clarence Paige's commentary. But he failed miserably in respect to Judge Bork's book “Slouching Towards Gomorrah”. I wasn't too surprised at Clarence's hit piece. I know him well enough not to be surprised and I understand while in no way excusing his prejudice. It remains inexcusable. But why would he write such a distorted hit piece about Judge Bork and his book? Because Mr. Paige actually believes in untrammeled personal freedom without concomitant responsibility at the expense of our future as a nation; is he really a judge Scheindlin without the judicial robe?
Far better, and far more objective, is the view of Mona Charen who rightly says that Judge Bork has done us an inestimable service by calling attention to the corruption in the laws and arrogant courts that cater to a perverse minority at the expense of the majority, elitist laws and courts that act as though there were no absolutes of morality and decency. Most certainly Judge Bork uses Gomorrah as an appropriate analogy. And few would disagree that revolution is the answer.
But the revolution that is needed is a revolution against violence, one that requires children to be raised in protected innocence. It requires men and women accepting and treating each other as of equal value. It requires encouraging the compatibility of differences between men and women rather than competition and combativeness. It requires the peoples of the world banning violence and raising a generation of children able to fulfill the highest potential of the human race.
Such a generation will produce the poets, composers, artists, philosophers and scientists able to reach the stars. Such a generation will bridge the gap between the hard and social sciences. Such a generation will be able to make the computation of Love divided by Hate equals Ambivalence and make sense of it for the purpose of confronting and banishing hatred and ambivalence toward evil.
But the violence in the world by Emerson's Musket Worshipers together with Americans committing intellectual and moral suicide via King Sports and Queen Entertainment is not conducive to philosophical, critical thought or anything like an appreciation of art and poetry.
Thoreau well said: “I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. ... We quarter our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance.”
The proposed amendment isn’t going to go away so long as I am alive. It cries out for action, but it must be action by those who have not quartered gross bodies on their poor souls, till the former eat up all the latter’s substance.
