Risky Business

Children at Risk: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Family

This book was written by: Dr. James Dobson and Gary L. Bauer, who both long for a return to the 1950s, a simpler time when sluts were shamed, gays were in the closet, and only other white people were threatening us with nukes.

What is in this book: Proof of a vast conspiracy to warp our children and subvert our values. "Perpetual and pernicious exposure to rock music is responsible, at least in part, for many of the social problems now occurring among the young, including the high suicide rate, the reported willingness of young men to rape women if given an opportunity, and the moral undermining of the next generation"(p.71). But rock music is only the first step. "Rock concerts subject masses of emotionally needy kids to deafening noises, eerie lights, wild behavior, and godless philosophies. Like an elephant during the night of fire, an adolescent begins to lose his grip on reality"(p.6). These impressionable youths then become easy targets for fiends who want to "teach students that gay and lesbian lifestyles are no less moral than heterosexual relationships, and that they typically involve long-term monogamous commitments"(p.64). It's part of their terrifying mission to "seek equivalent legal status of families for homosexual and lesbian partners"(p.65). Some of the more dangerous elements will even recruit these children in their efforts to "oppose with vengeance any effort to teach, or even mention, creation as an explanation for the earth's beginnings"(p.66). After seeing these diabolical influences collaborate in an organized war on family values, "Can there be any doubt that the American Civil Liberties Union, National Organization of Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League, People for the American Way, political liberals, and others have joined forces to drive for final victory?"(p.118)

What is not in this book: Shrewd legal analysis. The authors assert that "The Dred Scott case excluded Blacks from the protection granted by the Declaration. The Roe v. Wade case did the same for our unborn children"(p.153). However, other journalists have noted that this comparison is problematic, partly due to the fact that no fetuses are willing to testify in congress or venture back into the womb to rescue their oppressed brethren. The book also describes a religion-based sex ed program where "The state superintendent's office ruled that the district violated state regulations because their material acknowledged only the traditional family, gave limited information on contraception, was written from the pro-life perspective, and was presented strictly within the context of marriage. It is difficult to believe that those time honored concepts should be declared illegal today"(p.56). This is like saying that the government hates tacos because it closed a Mexican restaurant for health code violations.

Would you recommend this book to Thomas Edison? Yes. "Stability in society is dependent on the healthy expression of our sexual nature. If this energy within us is siphoned off in the pursuit of pleasure; if it is squandered in non-exclusive relationships; if it is perverted in same sex activities, then the culture is deprived of the working, saving, sacrificing, caring, building, growing, reproducing units known as families"(p.59). Hopefully, we could convince him to build some kind of sex battery, or possibly a sex generator, to conserve or replenish this energy. The fate of society depends on it! Without drastic protective measures, the internet will lead us down a dark path from which we may never return. "Fewer people realize how incredibly addictive pornography is to most boys during early adolescence. One exposure at just the right moment can capture a susceptible young man on the verge of manhood. He then begins a masturbatory habit that feeds on ever more explicit and violent material"(p. 9, emphasis in original).

Would you recommend this book to advocates of non-traditional marriage? Only if I thought it could turn them from their ruinous course of action. "Studies show that the absence of the father expresses itself in male children in two very different ways; it is linked to increased aggressiveness on one hand, and greater manifestations of effeminacy on the other"(p.183). This can only lead to children ending up as gays, rapists, or gay rapists. Of course, "some opinion leaders point to broken homes, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and homosexual 'couples,' not as reasons for alarm, but rather as evidence of healthy family diversity and pluralism"(p.114). This advocacy has led society far from the way things used to be done.

"In 1960, out-of-wedlock pregnancy was a matter of shame. When it happened, couples often did a quaint thing—they got married, so that the child would have a name and the influence of the father. Girls who 'slept around' were often ostracized by their fellow students. A pregnant teenager was sent away to have the child rather than risk the censure of the community."(p.115)

And therein lies the tragedy of this normalization. Allowing any unwed teenager—be she a knocked-up slut or a victim of incest or rape—to hang around and flaunt her biology ends up harming not only the girl, but also the community that is forced to exclude and revile her.

What was interesting about this book? Its detailed map of the political landscape as influenced by lobbyist groups. "Today, there are few political and social movements as aggressive, powerful, or successful as 'gay rights' advocates. Homosexuality is no longer considered a dysfunction but rather an orientation or a 'sexual preference.' If you oppose homosexuality or condemn it from a moral perspective, you risk being labeled "homophobic"—a 'sickness' described as fear or loathing of homosexuality"(p.116). Fortunately, no one has developed programs to cure the sickness of homophobia that even come close to duplicating the methods or successes of the programs that cure homosexuality.

_{Children at Risk: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Family by Dr. James Dobson and Gary L. Bauer (Word Publishing, 1990, ISBN: 0-8499-1280-6)}