{"id":8277,"date":"2016-06-13T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=8277"},"modified":"2016-06-12T13:52:12","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T17:52:12","slug":"why-sexual-assault-isnt-going-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2016\/06\/why-sexual-assault-isnt-going-away.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Sexual Assault Isn’t Going Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u00a0are unaware of the news story<\/a> about\u00a0the\u00a0Stanford athlete, Brock Turner,\u00a0convicted of sexual assault, you need to read what happened . The victim wrote a compelling statement d<\/a>escribing\u00a0the impact of the assault. Every student, parent and grandparent should read what she read aloud in the courtroom to her perpetrator. This will help you understand the trauma involved in sexual assault. She needs our prayers, as does the perpetrator.<\/p>\n

Nothing excuses sexual assault. Nothing! But I have to ask, how did we get\u00a0to the point where college age men become so calloused to violence toward women?<\/p>\n

Do we really believe that moral failure, which is the root of the problem,\u00a0is not a reflection of changing influences in our\u00a0culture? Don’t get me wrong. Young Turner is fully responsible for his actions. His behavior was unconscionable, but is there any cultural culpability\u00a0that needs\u00a0to be addressed in order to prevent sexual assault from happening in the future?<\/p>\n

These days, college students are coddled with “safe spaces” where no offense is to ever occur. When a student is offended, micro aggression charges fly with impunity. Thus, if\u00a0a professor\u00a0attempts to correct disrespectful or\u00a0inappropriate behavior, micro aggression is now the defense. These professors\u00a0are then vilified as intolerant and even fired. The voices of common sense and accountability are being silenced and eliminated because we don’t want to offend anyone. College, which used to be the place where students learned debate, critical thinking, and wisdom from their professors is now a one-sided diatribe of political correctness run amuck. The result is a lack of challenge to immoral thinking and basic values.<\/p>\n

The notion of tolerance has been grossly distorted.\u00a0\u00a0In order to be tolerant, you have to have disagreement. The point of tolerance is to disagree with civility and respect. You “tolerate” a difference of opinion. \u00a0Yet tolerance has become a one-sided concept–you agree with me or I will label you a bigot and a hater. You label\u00a0my behavior and I will find a way to discredit you–just look at our presidential campaign if you want incessant examples. Someone\u00a0decides which side of the argument is correct, and anything other than that will be attacked–the very essence of intolerance. Consequently, rudeness and disrespect run\u00a0rampant.<\/p>\n

Now let’s add the confusing and perverted messages related to sexuality promoted on college campuses. Universities\u00a0support such outrageous events like Sex Week<\/a> in which\u00a0everything from sadomasochistic porn, demonstration of sex toys, lectures on how to have a threesome and live nudity in classrooms are\u00a0promoted. This is a\u00a0week in which women are objectified, reduced to objects and treated like sex toys. Pornography, which is reinforced and rampant on our campuses, activates the part of the brain that sees\u00a0a person as a tool, an object. It creates unrealistic expectations regarding sex and is self-gratifying.\u00a0\u00a0Then we are surprised that hormonal boys see women as objects for their pleasure? Again, not an excuse, but perhaps we need to address how this thinking gets molded.<\/p>\n

And the biggest lie of all is telling women that if you willfully decide to participate in your own sexual objectification, this is\u00a0empowering. Why is this allowed on campuses?\u00a0Where are the feminists and protestors? Who in their right mind believes this is sex\u00a0education? Objectification of women, pornographic training in a vacuum of morality–sex and lust apart from intimacy– and we think this doesn’t impact the way our students think when it comes to doing the right thing and treating each other\u00a0as valuable? We think that by asking someone if they consent to a casual hook up on a campus,\u00a0this will solve the problem of assault. We see no connection of\u00a0the perversion of sex as only a physical act for someone’s self-gratification and sexual violence. \u00a0We eradicate the connection between sex and intimacy,\u00a0\u00a0feed the perversion and\u00a0call that normal.<\/p>\n

And why do universities turn a blind eye to rampant illegal drug use and underage drinking since both\u00a0are most often involved in sexual assault? We have decades of experience with\u00a0unbridled substance use that characterizes our college campuses. Ask any college town emergency room doctor how many cases of alcohol poisoning and overdose he or she sees. But let’s just go with the solution of legalizing more drugs and push\u00a0the message that drugs do not impact judgment or impair a person, and are harmless.\u00a0Let’s continue to ignore the damage to the developing brains of undergraduates and view illegal substance abuse as a “right of passage”on campuses.<\/p>\n

And finally, as long as I am ranting,\u00a0let’s never be allowed to discuss the politically incorrect view that taking God out of culture results in the removal of the\u00a0development of a moral compass in peoples’ lives.\u00a0\u00a0We can’t present the position\u00a0that left to our own devices, we are sinners, not good people who don’t get better without God; we are depraved and sinful people in need of redemption. We have to go off campus to say this because it may\u00a0offend someone and violate\u00a0the wrongly interpreted separation of church and state argument. It also\u00a0flies in the face of secular humanism, the allowed religion<\/span> on college campuses. Christianity is taught to be oppressive, bad, an illusion, only for the weak. Yet, look at the fall-out of excluding\u00a0God from the public square.<\/p>\n

A relationship with God\u00a0gives people the\u00a0power to stop doing bad things, to look\u00a0at a drunk and unconscious woman and say, “I won’t take advantage of her. I won’t do horrific things to her. I need self-control. I won’t excuse drinking as a right to defile her. I won’t treat her as an object, as she is made in the image of God.”<\/p>\n

God help us!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u00a0are unaware of the news story about\u00a0the\u00a0Stanford athlete, Brock Turner,\u00a0convicted of sexual assault, you need to read what happened . The victim wrote a compelling statement describing\u00a0the impact of the assault. Every student, parent and grandparent should read what she read aloud in the courtroom to her perpetrator. 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