Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Even law professors at religious universities are not immune to the poison

An article in Sunday's New York Times talks about the ongoing challenge of reforming child pornography laws to respond to the phenomenon of "sexting", which is needed to avoid the kinds of travesties where teens get classified as sex offenders for life for sending naked pictures of themselves to a boyfriend or girlfriend.

They quoted a number of law professors from various universities on the topic, the majority of whom agreed that reform is needed and most calling for decriminalization of teen sexting. A typical example comes from Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, who they quoted as saying, "No one disputes that sexting can have very bad consequences, and no parent wants kids sending out naked images. But if you’ve got thousands of kids engaging in this, are you going to criminalize all of them?" Word.

But two of the law professors that were quoted felt that it should still be classified as felony child pornography -- admittedly, only as a symbolic gesture, though they would rely on the disrection of prosecutors (hardy-har-har) to avoid the disaster of teens being branded for life just for being teens. And who were these two proponents of such draconian laws?

Mary Leary of Catholic University, and Jesse Weins of Dakota Wesleyan University. The only two law professors they interviewed who hailed from religious universities.

Perhaps they think that texting pictures of naked teens should be a privilege reserved only for the clergy...

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