Among my many varied RSS feeds is that of Baptist Press. The Press recently covered remarks by Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, to the Convention’s national gathering.
[Land] recalled a 2002 luncheon meeting with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, in which Ashcroft asked Land, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Prison Fellowship’s Chuck Colson what they considered to be the most critical issue facing America. Land said he told Ashcroft that his concern for human life had been eclipsed by the fact that the “spiritual and moral wasteland of pornography” was destroying the lives of countless men and boys in America.
Land placed the prevalence of pornography alongside abortion, the same-sex marriage movement, and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism as the four primary threats to our nation.
We are reminded again today of the powerful hold that pornography and perversion can take on any of us. Judge Alex Kozinski is a well-regarded judge and prominent conservative jurist. He also had an extensive collection of obscenity on his personal website. In the days ahead, an investigation will take place pursuant to the governing rules, and much will be written about judicial ethics and conflicts of interest and the tension between judging and having a personal life.
The much more pressing conversation, and the one I doubt we’ll have, is to focus on the dangerous and pervasive presence of pornography in our society. This story again shows that success and mastery of your profession does not equal self-mastery to refuse temptation. It also again proves the enormous impact of the internet on the prevalence of porn. To steal a phrase, this is every man’s battle, and we all struggle with it, and we often give in to it.
Ultimately, it is up to every person to take responsibility for him or herself, to “just say no.” But our culture and our government can take actions to make it easier by reducing the prevalence of the temptation. Forget the destroyed careers of politicians – think of the destroyed marriages and families. All of us, individually and as a society, need to get serious about this stuff.
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1. The stuff on his personal website was obscene, but not pornographic. It was the kind of stuff that a perverted friend (dirty old uncle) would forward via e-mail.
2. He’s handling the crisis well and his career won’t be anything close to over.
Really, he is a hypocrite. I am surprised how you have spun something so obvious and clear into a good thing. The man was preaching higher moral standards when he has none himself. Sounds very Republican to me.
Your source believes that the gay-marriage movement is one of the top four threats to the American way of life and yet you give them any credence at all?
Do they not teach critical thinking and threat prioritization at that school you attend?
Here’s the next surprise waiting out in the real world for you. Lots and lots of men you respect have dirty pictures in their sock drawer or glove box or stairwell. They are no worse for it just because you might find out and your approbation would cause them little pain.
1. The newspaper headlines characterized it all as porn. Perhaps it is closer to dirty old uncle stuff – the Judge characterized his motive as finding it “funny.” Okay. I wonder how Mrs. K. would characterize it.
2. He probably won’t have to resign, there aren’t grounds for impeachment, we’ll see if anything comes of it, but you’re right, probably not. But from now on, this will always be out there, part of his Wikipedia bio from now into eternity.
3. Every person struggles and stumbles. Does that mean that every person should give up both the corporate and the personal fight for virtue? Absolutely not. If everyone who had ever sinned was barred from speaking on public policy issues from a moral perspective…
4. Richard Land is the public policy voice of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. He has degrees from Princeton and Oxford.
5. I don’t disagree that many men have dirty picture stashes. We’ve all done, and do, and will do, things we’re not proud of (see Romans 7:15-25). I do disagree that they’re no worse off for it.
Here’s a good (but somewhat biased) summary of the whole story:
http://volokh.com/posts/1213378597.shtml
Daniel, I have no problem with a person making a mistake and you defending them. But ask yourself this: If this was a liberal thinker or even a Democrat, would I choose these words to describe what I thought of the matter? I am willing to bet a lot of money you would be all over a liberal or Democrat that had done the same thing. You would accuse them of threatening the moral fabric of society. You would demand immediate action to punish the liberal or Democrat and you would do this without realizing the total hypocrisy of your words. Now, what do you say to that?
First off, let’s make clear that I’m not defending Kozinski. I’m not saying he should or shouldn’t resign, or even that he should or shouldn’t remove himself from the obscenity trial. Those are interesting questions, but not ones that I concern myself with here. I do note, however, that at least one prominent conservative organization has called on the judge to resign (here).
I note also that I did not get up on Eliot Spitzer just as I did not comment on Richard Vitter. If I had commented, it would be along the lines outlined in my comment point 3 above – namely, we should be careful with the hypocrite label, because we all stumble and fall at times.
This post was prompted by the interesting juxtaposition of Richard Land’s comments and the Kozinski story both crossing my RSS reader the same day. Read nothing more into it than another in a series of posts on this blog for our society to get serious about creating a culture conducive to virtue.
Daniel, we all may “stumble and fall” from time to time, but not all of us rail against immorality while at the same time engaging in the same kind of behavior we’re railing against.
He’s a hypocrite, and I hope his career is over.
Zach W,
Could you please cite one time where Judge Kozinski rails against immorality? I can totally understand this charge with Spitzer, but not Kozinski.
Careful – I think you’re inadvertently exciting and enticing the demographic that really likes it when straight, uptight, guilty-feeling College Republican boys talk about sex.