Kids n' Klergy
The furor over Myspace is the window dressing around a very real problem, "how do you protect the kids in cyberspace?" As a father of five, I'm naturally concerned, although my kids are grown. Something must be pretty bad for kids out there on the 'Net, right? Not a week goes by without some politician trying to save the kiddies from something.
The implication, I guess, is that there's something inherently dangerous about the Internet. Look at today's whipping horse, Myspace, for instance. They've just changed their policies making it harder for adults to talk to teenagers according to the New York Times. They've done this under threat of Congressional action targeting them because they make it easier for kids to talk to creepy adults.
There are certainly cases where children "hook up" with adults on the Internet and something bad happens to them in the real world. But this happens at shopping malls, schools and most certainly at churches, so what's the difference?
Speaking of the church, here's a question: have more kids been molested by priests or by internet stalkers? For an interesting discussion of just how many children have been hurt by the clergy, see here.
I can't prove this at the moment, but just for a second, if I'm right if I guess that the answer to the preceding question is "clergy", then shouldn't we apply the same sort of internet regulatory craziness to contact with the priesthood? Clearly a kid has a higher statistical chance of being attacked by a man (or woman) of the cloth than they do by any one person out of the half billion Internet users.
Unless of course, the Internet user happened to be a priest:)
Write your congressman. Protect the kids by restricting their time in church.
Posted on June 22, 2006
