When Moral Compasses Stop Pointing True North

A battle rages in Natrona County over the NCSD Board of Trustee’s failure to condemn two books, “Gender Queer” and “Trans Body” that have been characterized as pornographic, yet defended by the school librarian. Removal of these books is still hotly debated. Some parents who still have a functioning moral compass have called for removal of both books. Most surprising to some, are the number of defenders of keeping those books in the library. Not surprisingly, the LGBTQ/ Transgender adherents and other ardent supporters of the two sexually graphic books, appear to have a vested interest in corrupting student’s minds as early as the third grade. Children must be protected from pornography, not exposed to it under the guise of education.

One of the school board candidates, Jenifer Hopkins, remarked, “The sexualization of children should never be a part of education.” If parents insist on graphic pornographic exposure for their offsprings, let them order it on-line. They can read the works of Marquis de Sade at home as bedtime stories. Pornography is always destructive, in any form. There is no redeeming quality. Somewhere down the road its venomous bite will poison someone exposed to it. Denial won’t alter this postmortem.

Since 1957, courts have sought to shield and protect minors from exposure to pornographic and obscene images, in any form. Now, nationwide many school districts ignore the court’s precedents, and openly defy community standards. Utah legislators are attempting to halt any books containing “pornographic or indecent” content from Utah schools, both in libraries and in the classroom.

There are fifteen candidates vying for four vacant seats on the Board of Trustees, who’ve conveniently handed the hot potato to a committee, to investigate the books, and make a recommendation to the Trustees. Moms for Liberty are leading the charge to remove the books. Liberty’s Place 4 U WY supports these mothers, who’ve for months exposed the pornographic books, confronted the Trustees at every turn, and led the charge to keep the issue in the forefront of the public. Thankfully, the Mom’s Moral Compass still point True North. This November 8th election will be a watershed event.

Nearly twenty three years ago, in an interview with Fox News’ James Rosen, conservative pioneer, William F. Buckley, editor of National Review, who wrote columns in Playboy Magazine for nearly four decades, was asked why he wrote for that magazine, he quipped, “It was the fastest way to communicate with my seventeen year old son.” What compelled Buckley to write for Hefner’s magazine, that Buckley found abhorrent? Buckley’s explanation that the best writers in the world published in the magazine that fell woefully short of the “moral smell test” in appealing to others who opposed everything the Playboy philosophy advocated. It took too long for Buckley to realize his sense of influence was over estimated in Playboy. Unfortunately, he gave them undeserved respect and cover.

Evangelicals and informed co-belligerents have long inveighed no one should’ve been surprised that Hugh Hefner’s empire grew from his 1953, $8,000 investment, given the growing, insatiable appetite for sleaze, masquerading as art. Sadly, it wasn’t moral outrage that ultimately toppled his publishing empire-it was competition from Penthouse and the unending stream of pornographic filth, readily available on the internet, rendering Hefner’s glossy pornographic magazine passe’.

Portraying himself as urbane and sophisticated, in a silk smoking jacket, pipe-n-hand, Hefner surrounded himself with provocatively clad “Bunnies” for generations. Though he disputed his opposition to “monogamous marriage,” according to his biography, he went through three marriages and five partners. While there was an unbridled appetite for airbrushed nude women photos to the American male, there was a corresponding appetite for legions of women who voluntarily lined up to “bare it all” before the camera. In 2022, former admiring “Bunnies” confessed he was a creepy slime-ball, and abusive. Anyone surprised?

Many scholars trace the rise of modern sexual revolution to Alfred Kinsey, who founded the Institute for Sex Research in 1947, at Indiana University. Although Freud cracked the door to freeing society of sexual prohibitions, Kinsey kicked it wide open, ending what he labeled “sexual puritanism.” Researchers Lict and Kiefer documented that unrestrained sexual freedom existed in Greece and Rome. Historically, it was the Christian, Jewish and Muslim societies that rejected such conduct.

Although Hefner’s an easy and vulnerable target, it’s apparent that other people and forces glamorized the “liberated single women” who’d come to symbolize the sexually uninhibited woman to flaunt their sexual prowess, freely enjoying casual sexual encounters. Feminist pioneers like eugenicist Margaret Sanger, Betty Friedan and Helen Gurley Brown, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine, and author of the landmark 1962, book, “Sex and the Single Girl,” advanced Kinsey’s and Hefner’s revolution. Both were contemporaries in the sexual revolution, advancing the popularization of sleaze as the new norm.

Kinsey identified himself as “religious” as a youth. After completing his doctorate at Harvard, later he claimed to “be an atheist,” though not surprisingly, given his early penchant for Darwinism and Sanger’s eugenics. He became a proselytizer that abnormal sexual behavior was common. His statistical conclusions on their face appeared unrealistic-claiming that 67-98% of men had premarital sex, and half the men had one homosexual experience, and 26% had extramarital affairs. The implications were clear-premarital sex, homosexuality and adultery are “normal.” Furthermore, Kinsey reported, the outmoded “puritanical sexual morality” is unnatural. Ignoring longstanding, Biblical underpinnings, Hefner and Kinsey crusaded for a solipsistic philosophy of what “should be, not what is.” Now we see where that road has taken us. Original sin was vacated from his writings. The signposts were there and dismissed for generations.

Back in Natrona County, Moms for Liberty understand that sleaze by any other name, is still sleaze. Whether it’s neatly wrapped in a package, adorned with a fancy educational bow, doesn’t change its toxic nature. Once one’s Moral Compass no longer points True North, we’re all impacted. Moral outrage can’t be gauged by which entity has the most votes, influence, power or shrillest voice. The loss of absolutes predictably lead to a moral wasteland that’s East of Eden. What do you think?

Mike Pyatt’s a Natrona County resident. His email’s mikepyatt44@gmail.com