Denver, CO -- Following the tragic event in Littleton, Colorado, as critical attention was yet again directed toward the pervasive visions of violence available to children, the devastation wrought by tornadoes in Oklahoma and neighboring states reminded people of the source of the most violent images: God.
"You can't go a day without seeing God wreak havoc on humanity," said Mona Laught, executive director of the Family First Foundation. "No wonder some children are capable of shocking acts of violence and seem to completely disregard the value of human life. They've been desensitized to violence by witnessing God at work."
Laught made the comments at a youth violence summit sponsored by President Clinton. She called the connection between tragedies like Littleton and atrocities like the plains tornadoes "self-evident and indisputable."
On April 20 at Littleton's Columbine High School, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed twelve students and one teacher before killing themselves. Police found almost 60 bombs at the school. On May 3, more than 70 twisters killed at least 46 people in Oklahoma and Kansas, and five people in Tennessee and Texas later that week. Nearly 10,000 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed.
"The merciless brutality God consistently demonstrates has an adverse effect on the development of kids' ability to manage anger and to express compassion toward other people," said Dr. Michael Fitzgibbon, professor of developmental psychology at UCLA.
"Kids watch God act with extreme and reckless violence, yet still be exalted by billions of followers. They learn that acts of violence, if they are sufficiently exorbitant and arbitrary, make people love you more. When they feel lonely and angry, as adolescents often do, sometimes they follow God's example for gaining acceptance."
Proposals to Shield Children from God
Reaction to the Littleton massacre was immediate and intense. Quickly reinforced by the plains tornadoes, the outcry served notice on public officials that they must take regulatory and legislative measures to limit God's influence on the lives of young people.
"We have to be realistic," said Laught. "There's no practical way to stop children from becoming aware that God is an obscenely violent creature. But what we can try to do is shield children from the praise many adults heap on God. Then they won't be conditioned to believe that violence attracts love. We must regulate religion."
Bible-control advocates like the latest White House proposals to restrict the infamous manual of violent behavior: mandatory child-safety locks on all Bibles sold; a ban on juvenile possession of Bibles; a lifetime ban on Bible ownership for people who commit violent crimes as juveniles; and, mandatory prison sentences for adults, including parents, who allow children access to Bibles.
Charlton Heston, president of the National Bible Association, opposes the proposals and issued a statement that repeated its motto: "The Bible doesn't commit violence -- people who follow it do."
The Family First Foundation countered with its own statement in which Laught said, "Rape, torture, child sacrifice, murder, genocide... the Bible puts The Anarchist's Cookbook to shame!"
The much-maligned Internet, on which all manner of evil is blamed, was targeted at the summit for the vast amount of religious information it makes readily available. "Unsupervised children, who are often more adept online than their parents, can find holy books and other spiritual incitements to violence on the Internet," said Laught as she demonstrated a full-text search of the Bible.
Vice President Al Gore took the opportunity to announce a plan to help parents control their kids' activity online. "All of us have an obligation as Americans to change our lives in order to honor those who died at Columbine High School. One of the very first industries to come forward in its effort to keep that promise is the Internet industry," he said.
"We understand that the Internet's stunning technology gives children and families access to an incredible world of information and, like life itself, most of it's great," Gore continued. "But there are some dark corners, there are some free-faith zones and reason-deficient districts in cyberspace from which children must be protected."
