A.G. beefs up fight against child porn
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is making the protection of children from exploitation over the Internet a top priority in the Justice Department, saying it’s time to “deliver a wakeup call about the true nature and scope of this criminal activity – the depth of the depravity and the harm being inflicted upon innocent children.”
During a news conference at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., April 20, Gonzales cited a study that indicates one child in every five is solicited online and said the television program “Dateline” estimated that, at any given time, 50,000 predators are on the Internet prowling for children.
“I think many people still don’t appreciate the scope, the nature and the import of this criminal activity and the threat it poses to our kids,” Gonzales said. “To educate people about this threat, I am going to describe some of the criminal evidence we have seized. It is graphic, but if we do not talk candidly, then it is easy for people to turn away and worry about other matters.”
After describing some of the photos, Gonzales said viewing them “was shocking and it makes my stomach turn.” Most of the child pornography pictures the Justice Department encounters these days depict actual sexual abuse of real children, Gonzales said, and each image literally documents a crime scene.
President Bush, Gonzales said, is “absolutely committed to this cause” of fighting the exploitation of children with renewed vengeance. Bush has said that anyone who targets a child for harm will be a primary target of law enforcement, and during his tenure as president, funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children program has more than doubled to over $14 million in 2006.
Gonzales recently announced Project Safe Childhood, an initiative aimed at combating the online exploitation and victimization of children by making law enforcement at all levels more coordinated, better trained and more involved in fighting the rapidly growing problem.
Supreme Court allows ‘Jesus poster’
The U.S. Supreme Court decided April 24 to let stand a ruling by a federal court of appeals that said public schools cannot censor the religious viewpoints of students in class assignments.
The case began nearly seven years ago when a kindergarten student in central New York State drew a poster depicting children holding hands circling the globe while picking up garbage and recycling trash, in response to his teacher’s request to draw his understanding of ways to save the environment. Also on the poster was a drawing of Jesus with one knee to the ground and two hands stretched toward the sky, though Jesus was not labeled, according to Liberty Counsel, which represented the child in the case.
The poster was displayed in the school cafeteria for half a day while students and parents strolled through to examine the artwork, but school officials folded the poster in half to censor Jesus from the picture and avoid accusations of church-state violations.
In October 2005, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 in favor of the child’s right to express his religious views on a school poster. The school district then asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, but the justices refused.
“We are pleased the Supreme Court allowed this decision to stand,” Mathew Staver, president and general counsel for Liberty Counsel, said in a statement. “The school district sent a terrible message to the student that his faith is not welcome, when officials persisted in censoring his artwork.
“At the pinnacle of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment, which enshrines our first liberty,” he added. “It’s about time that school officials learn a simple lesson: Private religious speech, when expressed on public property, is constitutionally protected.”
More Americans are reading the Bible
Forty-seven percent of American adults read the Bible during a typical week other than when they are at church, according to a study by The Barna Group released in April.
Researchers found a significant increase in religious activity related to five of seven core religious behaviors, and Bible reading led the pack. Barna said only 31 percent of Americans were reading the Bible in 1995, but numbers started increasing in 2004.
Church attendance increased from 37 percent in 1996 to 47 percent in 2006, Barna said, and involvement in small, church-related groups has reached a new high of 23 percent this year. A decade ago, only 17 percent of adults participated in small groups.
Church volunteerism increased to 27 percent, while adult Sunday school attendance has risen to 24 percent from the 17 percent recorded in 1995, Barna said.
Prayer and evangelism were the two categories that did not show a change over recent years. Eighty-four percent of Americans said they had prayed in the past week, and six out of 10 Christians claimed to have shared their faith during a given time span.
“It is typical for us to see one or maybe two measures surge forward in a given year, only to stabilize or perhaps retreat to prior levels in subsequent years,” George Barna, president of The Barna Group, said. “The intriguing possibility is that with most of our key behavioral measures showing increases at the same time, there is the possibility that this may herald a holistic, lasting commitment to engagement with God and the Christian faith.”