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Let us prey
What should we make of the arrest of a former ACLU official on child-porn charges?
Date published: 3/4/2007
But, oh God, who knowest the weakness and corruption of our nature, and the manifold temptations which we daily meet with; We humbly beseech thee to have compassion on our infirmities, and to give us the constant assistance of thy Holy Spirit.
--"Prayer for Grace," The Book of Common Prayer (1928)
IN EACH OF US there is a seed. Sometimes we carry it unawares, living and dying ignorant of its potential for destruction. At other times, dreadfully sprouting, it bends toward a dark light, thrives in an inward soil foully fertilized, burgeons into a riot of evil that chokes out lives, relationships, futures. The modern age, so rich in freedom and technology, is, not coincidentally, also a jungle of flytraps hungry for something larger than flies--something the size of Charles Rust-Tierney.
Mr. Rust-Tierney, 51, president of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union from 2002 to 2005, is soon to be arraigned on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. But that description of his alleged offense is overly antiseptic.
Police, who arrested him Feb. 23, say that Mr. Rust-Tierney subscribed to child-porn Web sites, downloading, among other diversions, a movie featuring three prepubescent girls--Wikipedia identifies them as Tibetan--who while bound and weeping are brutally raped by their adult co-stars. This fare is the flatmate of the "snuff" film, in which actual murder follows a victim's sexual degradation.
However vile his transgressions--and Mr. Rust-Tierney deserves a presumption of innocence--the accused is in one sense unlike the wayward Catholic priest or evangelical preacher who decries sexual sin in his hiatus between choirboys or call girls. Far from being a moralist, Mr. Rust-Tierney, as president of the Virginia ACLU, argued publicly during the late 1990s against installing smut filters in the computers of Loudoun County public libraries. Perhaps he might now agree that his policy foes had a deeper appreciation of the practical hazards of cyberspace than he then understood.
Read more stories about Caroline
Date published: 3/4/2007
Most recent reader comments:
hey guys
(posted by
, Sep. 25, 2007 2:41 pm)
read the forward. I thought this was an elegant and thought-provoking editorial.
The Point Is?
(posted by
mrtweedy
, Sep. 25, 2007 2:41 pm)
The editorial rails, yet admits its own publication is guilty. I, too, fail to see the monumental newsworthiness of this case. As I recall, some FBI agent was just convicted of some child sex crime - how much press real estate did that story occupy? Not much, as I recall. The charges are horrible, but this fellow was not in a position of power and influence over minors, as was Mark Foley and the "Rev." Ted Haggard. And does anyone rely on O'Reilly for real news - he himself admits he's an act.
Bloviating and pompous
(posted by
UsefulIdiot
, Sep. 25, 2007 2:41 pm)
What is the point of this bloviating? Most people agree that child porn is bad and bad apples can be found anywhere. I suspect the writer has it in the for the ACLU because he doesn't agree with its positions. The ACLU has done some good; they represented a Catholic inmate who objected to the overly evangelical bent of govt.funded prison programs. Considering the current administration's involvement with torture and indefinite detention, watchdogs like the ACLU are more necessary than ever.
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