This is a bad time to be a kid in America. We've got war, terrorism, priests
who prey on young people, and powerful cardinals who cover up sexual
assaults against children. We've got moral relativism in the public schools,
hooligan entertainers as role models, and parents trying to be friends with their
kids. As Alice Cooper might say: "Welcome to My Nightmare."

Slurring four-letter words in front of his own teenagers, Ozzy Osbourne rides
the ratings wave to a multi-million dollar contract on MTV. "The Osbournes"
have replaced the Nelsons of four decades ago. Only the Osbournes don't
offer you cake when you enter the house -- they offer you some off-color language
and a sea of tattoos. Ozzie Nelson would have a heart attack if he knew Ozzy
Osbourne had replaced him as the uber-dad.

What are children to make of all this? Well, those with responsible parents
will most likely make it through OK. But the millions of American children
with little supervision are now being exposed to a menu of adult behavior
that is stunning in its irresponsibility.

The University of Minnesota is publishing a book that puts forth that
not all sexual contact between an adult and a child is necessarily bad. Dr.
Joycelyn Elders, the former surgeon general of the United States, has endorsed
the book. I scolded Dr. Elders on my TV program.

Professor Harris Mirkin of the University of Missouri wrote an article
for the Journal of Homosexuality that suggests the United Sates might
consider adopting the liberal attitudes of Denmark in thinking about child sex.
Denmark has one of the most permissive attitudes in the world about
children engaging in sex with adults. According to Interpol, that socialistic
paradise is one of the main distributors of worldwide Internet child pornography
because there is little stigma to producing it and law enforcement is incredibly lax.

The Missouri legislature was so outraged by Professor Mirkin's article
that it voted to cut $100,000 in funding from the university. In response,
the faculty senate passed a resolution supporting Mirkin's "right to hold
unpopular views." The general counsel of the American Council on Education,
Sheldon Steinbach, said this about Mirkin: "The appropriate place to
debate the legitimacy of a professor's thought is the marketplace of ideas.
Today's heresy often becomes tomorrow's orthodoxy."

How profound. Let's all hope adult-child sex becomes more acceptable,
right, Mr. Steinbach? How PC. I wonder if that faculty senate would be passing
a resolution if Mirkin had championed the Nazi cause. I wonder if old
Sheldon Steinbach would be shopping in "the marketplace of ideas" if the Supreme
Court banned abortion. Somehow I doubt it.

This is America, so we have to accept the opinions of destructive people
because, constitutionally, they have a right to spout them. But we don't
have to be quiet about it. Pinhead professors and adults who seek to harm
kids must be challenged at every step -- and scorned for their lack of
judgment and character.

And make no mistake about it. Seeking a more libertine attitude toward
adult-child sex is dangerous for kids. It makes it easier for perverts
to rationalize their behavior.

So this is not a great time for kids in America. I feel for them. We adults have let them down. On many different levels, children are not being protected from harm in this country. And in the marketplace of ideas, that is one tragic development.

Intellivu presents commentary by

Bill O'Reilly