Rick Santorum Gets It; Kennedy and Kerry Don’t

This was a news item a few days ago:
‘Massachusetts Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry lambasted Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum yesterday for writing that the Catholic Church's pedophile scandal was centered in Boston in part because of the city's morally permissive culture.’

As one who has experienced the grief and horror of having a child abused, not by a priest, but by a neighbor, I can tell you that it is worse than murder. At least when someone is murdered, they can’t be hurt anymore. Even if they live through it, a sexually abused child lives a life of misery, and this misery is spread to every member of their family and to their children and, often, to their children’s children.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a counterculture revolution in this country, where doing anything that felt right was OK. People’s moral compass was shifted from a Judeo-Christian structure to an inner voice of moral relevancy. This new way of thinking was championed by liberal activists who equate it with a new concept of freedom. If you object, as Judge Bork and former Senator Moynihan (“defining deviancy down”) tried to do, you are ridiculed and labeled a Nazi.

As a citizen of Florida, I can tell you that almost every day this year there has been a horrendous new case of child abuse and murder in that state alone. Child abuse has become an epidemic in this country since moral relevancy gained the upper hand. I know that there are other factors at work, but Senator Santorum is basically right, and Senators Kennedy and Kerry are tragically wrong.