When will we ever learn?--

When will we ever learn?

Today, November 18, 2007, in the Manhattan Mercury, two articles appeared that remind us of what we have gained by insisting on denying God, Jesus Christ, the church, and the Bible. In the name of "personal rights" and "personal freedom" we have in essence taken away the rights of the most helpless of our society—our children.

For example—abortion. Exactly who benefits from abortion? Of course, the person who feels children will be an intrusion into their personal space. We cannot have anything interfere with our personal space. Therefore, the answer is killing the problem before it gets big enough to be a problem.

Cohabitation is extremely popular in American culture. There are millions of couples who are living together without the benefit of marriage. When breakup comes, it is much easier for one person to pack his/her bags and leave. No lawyers, no court costs, just leave. The article in the Mercury tells the underbelly of cohabitation—the danger to children.

There have been 900,000 reports of child abuse in 2005. It is not certain how many of these took place in cohabitation situations. However, some of the serious deaths we have read about took place in home where the man in the house was neither the father of the children nor the husband of the woman. Studies show the following:

"Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents. . . ." Do we need to saw WOW?

"Children living in stepfamilies or with single parents are higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological parents or adoptive parents."

"Girls whose parents divorce are at significantly higher risk of sexual assault, whether they live with their mother or their father."

Twenty-nine percent of families are now one-parent families. In 1977 that figure was 17 percent. Stepparents or live-in boyfriends have no commitment to the children and may be more prone to take out their frustrations on the woman's children.

The second article in the Mercury that reflects our society's lack of concern for children comes from the realm of the public library. As a child in Leadville, Colorado, I was privileged to be able to go to a Carnegie Public Library. Carnegie who was very wealthy went across the country establishing libraries in small communities. I was one recipient of such a library.

Now the library system protects child pornographers based on freedom of expression. Pornographers know that they can go to the public library, publish their material on the net, and never are caught because the libraries regularly cleanse their hard drives. When the police request a little help with catching the pornographers, the libraries respond, "We are concerned about privacy and freedom." Martin Garner, the president of the Colorado library association, said, "The question is what is the balance—giving law enforcement every tool they can think of to solve crimes and still be a place where people can exercise their rights in a free society without fear that it is going to be tracked." In short, it is more important to protect pornographers from the police than protect children from pornographers.

When we abandoned the Bible as our standard of lifestyle, we opened the door to such behavior. It will not get better until we return to a moral stance on a biblical basis.