It’s Up to Parents
By Gina Loudon
Lobbyists decorate (or desecrate, depending on your perspective) the
halls of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, advocating for everything
from alternative fuels to acupuncture to ice cream 
cones
to mules. One would be hard pressed
to find an issue that someone is not paid to promote in those hallowed halls.
After 14 years of observation, I have found an un-lobbied issue, and
sadly, it may be the silver bullet piercing the very fiber of our culture…and
the issue, child pornography, is not going away.
I
have discovered that most parents, and even grandparents, are shocked when I
relate the following facts to them:
(1)
There are 22,000 hard core child porn ‘users’ in Missouri. This pornography includes photos and videos
of the physical violation of children under the age of 14.
(2)
25% of all Internet searches are porn related.
(3)
The #1 tool used by children to view porn is NOT computers but cell phones,
iPods, and hand-held games.
(5)
Porn is so ubiquitous that the average age of a child’s first exposure to
pornography is now five years old. Two years ago, that age was eight.
Perhaps
the scariest part is that parents are largely unaware and somewhat unsure of what
to do when they are made aware.
There
is some good news. My husband, Senator
John Loudon, created and enacted for Missourians, the country’s first ever
state Cyber Crimes Grant Program that has led to the arrest of hundreds of these
predators. His assistant, former Senator
Mike Reid, has been instrumental in the promotion of the program, which hires
detectives to pose online as children (think Dateline NBC) to catch these predators. This year, the year of John’s retirement from
14 years in the Missouri Legislature, John and Mike secured 2 years of funding
for the continuation of this critical program.
Recently, law enforcement in Maryland Heights, MO arrested their 52nd
predator since the establishment of the program.
Additionally,
they drafted and passed legislation that gets the State of Missouri out from
under the court ruling that requires the State to replicate and distribute
child porn ‘evidence’ back to the accused perpetrator. This prevents the child from being re-victimized
when the evidence was returned to the perpetrator under the prior law.
As
a civically interested parent, I am compelled to stop this nightmare that
destroys the purity of our children. We
can tell ourselves that our children are safe because we homeschool and/or
church our children, but while most of us do everything possible to make the
family computer safe, how many of us are protecting the cell phones our
children use? Are the parents of your
child’s playmates as diligent as you?
The alarming reality is that the abused children of today grow up to be
the offenders of tomorrow. We must stop
this continuously expanding cycle.
Much
is being done. Last year we launched the
newest chapter of the National Coalition for the Protection of Families and
Children in St. Louis, and many are ‘on the ground’ and working. Lois Linton, Missouri State President of
Eagle Forum for many years, is chairing a group of mothers and grandmothers
called “i-care” that will work on the neighbor-to-neighbor level with women who
have been hurt by pornography or who are helping loved ones in the porn
addiction battle. The first meeting of
i-care will be June 24th at 7 p.m. at Pillar in the Valley in Chesterfield, MO. Concerned Women for America, through the
smart and savvy leadership of Bev Ehlen, is trying to fill in the gap and lobby
in Jefferson City on this issue.
However, the nagging problem with cyber porn and cyber crime is that
unless parents are actively engaged in the protection of their children, all
the laws and detectives in the world cannot protect them.
Because
the public education component of this battle is so critical, I have decided to
host a citizens advisory forum for Missouri’s 7th Senatorial District (which
encompasses Ballwin, Ellisville, Clarkson Valley, Chesterfield, Town &
Country, Creve Coeur, Maryland Heights, Bridgton, Hazelwood, Florissant, and
the Village of Champ, MO) to see how we can work together to continue the work
started by my husband and Mike Reid. Our
planning meeting is coming soon and we will announce the date of the town hall
meeting in the next issue of the MetroVoice.
I
am calling on every responsible adult who is concerned about the threat being
imposed on our children to take part in this town hall meeting to become informed
and learn where they fit into the picture of protecting our children. The bottom line is this: we can pass laws,
give tools to detectives, support law enforcement, and influence the political
process; but unless we educate and admonish parents, we are facing the crisis
of this century. Our children await our
action.
For
more information, contact Mike Reid with Senator Loudon’s office at (573)751-9763,
Dr. Gina Loudon at (314) 625-6756, or read your next issue of the MetroVoice for details on the upcoming
citizens’ advisory forum.
