When an institution moves to cover-up its corruption, it’s guilty. It may not be criminal in some cases, but making apologies for people we like, even though they are guilty of horrible crimes, should give us pause. If we ardently defend an organization we know is guilty, then all we do is give shield to crimes we know are wrong. We choose to ignore logic and evidence and, often times, justice, in maintaining the belief structure we have become so comfortable in.
I, briefly, fell into this camp when it was discovered that Cardinal Law in the Boston Diocese moved priests around the diocese, priest who had been accused of child molestation. In doing this, the Arch-diocese of Boston had violated the rule of law in the state of Massachusetts, re-victimized the victims of abuse, and violated the spiritual contract as shepherds of God’s flock. But at the time I was worried about losing so many priests, and briefly defended the actions of the Arch-Diocese.
The more I thought about the actions, the more I realized that these priests were guilty of abusing their office as well as the children trusted to their care. I was disgusted by their actions, and even more so by the bureaucratic cover-up perpetrated by people in the bishop’s office who knew about these abuses, but decided to cover them up rather than report them to the proper authorities. When you assist in hiding a fugitive from justice, you become an accessory after the fact. When the Church was sued by the victims, I was sad, but hoped the victims were afforded some kind of justice. The Church admitted wrongdoing, and now we have protections in place to help prevent such abuse.
With the ACORN scandal, we’re seeing a similar type of protectionism. On tape we find ACORN employees helping a prostitute plot to evade taxes, helping her pimp find housing for a brother, and gain assistance in importing underage illegal immigrants for a prostitution ring. I find that as disgusting as the Church sex-abuse scandal. But we see the leadership of ACORN out and about, deflecting the questions of wrongdoing, and instead accusing the filmmakers of racism, even going so far as to sue one of them. The employees in the videos (who were clearly breaking the law, as opposed to the Church scandal, when the evidence was more circumstantial) were fired, and ACORN’s leadership played dumb. In the meantime, loyal soldiers from Media Matters, MSNBC, DailyKOS, HuffingtonPost, and other loyal liberal organizations have done their best to try and kill the story and ignore what is happening at ACORN (as ACORN has brought in a lot of “votes” for their leftist political leanings through registrations). In essence, these people are providing cover for ACORN, hoping the crimes committed here are forgotten, and ACORN can keep on doing what its doing to help the DNC.
Finally, the Roman Polanski arrest in Switzerland for extradition has riled up many people in Hollywood. It’s clear Polanski gave a 13-year old girl alcohol and Quaaludes, got her naked and in a hot tub, then proceeded to rape and sodomize her. Polanski didn’t dispute the accounts of the story back at his trial, but instead arranged to plead to a lesser offense. But before he could plead guilty, he fled the country, living in self-imposed exile for many years.
Polanski is now facing a return to the United States. He sure to face jail time. But many leftists are very angry about the arrest. They think all should be forgiven. Polanski’s crimes are horrendous. But Whoopi Goldberg thinks it wasn’t “rape-rape”. Harvey Weinstein thinks we should drop the charges out of “compassion”. There are other apologists out there, outraged that Polanski be made to suffer for his crime committed decades enough. This absolution granted by the Hollywood elite is the same kind of blinders-on view of life I had when ignoring the Church scandal. By arguing for forgiveness to this scofflaw and minimalizing the impact of his crime, they are acting as judicial surrogates, arguing that the good Polanski has done outweighs the bad he has done.
As a father, I’m horrified by any organization that continues to hide criminals. The Catholic Church has taken steps to clean up its act. But ACORN and the Hollywood Elitists who have unilaterally forgiven Polanski on our behalf do nothing but propagate the problem. Child abuse doesn’t just hurt the child– it hurts the family with an enduring pain.
The most disturbing element of all three of these stories is who gets a pass and who doesn’t. Organized religion, a boogeyman of leftist idealism (which is odd, as the Catholic ideas of Social Justice drove many liberal ideas), must be brought low. However, ACORN, Polanski and their Defenders all get a pass, or they get praise on all the good works they have done, all to mitigate the seriousness of their crime.
There is no difference here. All three committed terrible acts, and each should be held to the same standard.
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