Larry Nassar could have been stopped

By: American Decency Staff

 

As a Michigan State University graduate, I have some standing to comment upon the great travesty of events that have taken place over these years from East Lansing, Michigan involving Larry Nassar, former USA Gymnastics team doctor and an osteopathic physician at M.S.U. 

My purposes here are not to get into the heart wrenching details surrounding Nassar’s criminality but rather to offer a few words of perspective regarding the impact of pornography, as child pornography is a part of Larry Nassar’s criminality.

 In 1992, then-Governor of Michigan John Engler signed an anti-obscenity bill into law.  I know.  I was there at the signing.  

The organization that I headed from 1988-1999, American Family Association of Michigan, was a key player in the passage of that important legislation.  It was a long-fought battle with much opposition from organizations that I would never have guessed would oppose legislation restricting the sale and distribution of pornography (particularly the American Library Association).         .

I traveled throughout the state over a several year period of time (1988-1991) to different hearings listening to the testimonies of those who described their personal experience with the addictive, destructive nature of pornography. 

My file cabinet is filled with the history of this major fight that numbers of us engaged in before finally seeing this legislation become Michigan law.  Our hope and desire was to restrict the sale and distribution of pornography and at the same time to warn and exhort others to understand that pornography is NOT A VICTIMLESS CRIME. 

A “hat tip” to people like Alan Sears, former head of Alliance Defending Freedom, who assisted us back in those days giving valuable support as he drafted that key legislation.  Former State Rep. Tim Walberg, too, was an anchor in the fight.

Along the way, we saw and heard from many who came out and defended pornography and obscenity as harmless.

I didn’t have to be convinced of the harmful nature of pornography.  By the grace of God, I escaped long ago.  But, I knew and I never will forget the power and pull of pornography. 

In my years heading an anti-pornography (pro-decency) organization, first through the AFA and then later as the founder and president of American Decency Association (1999 – present), I heard many sad personal accounts of the degrading and destructive nature of pornography. 

One Wednesday evening I was at a Baptist Church in Jackson, Michigan showing Dr. James Dobson’s anti-pornography movie (Dobson had served on the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography in 1984~), “The Winnable War.”

A young teen came up to me at the back of the room, and said:  “I don’t like that movie.”  She had seen the title of the movie on the arcade and had stopped by to see what it was about.  I asked why?

She said, “because my dad used pornography.  He would show stuff and ask me to watch it with him and wanted me to think it was okay.  He acted out on me.  I told the police, and they believed him, not me. 

Later he acted out again on me and my younger sister saw him and reported to the police.  They caught him with me.  He ultimately was indicted and spent time in prison.”

As I was hearing these accounts, I saw it as God’s showing me the tangible warnings of the ugliness of pornography.  He used it to urge me on into getting involved in vigorously opposing pornography and encouraging people to”pursue holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.” 

Now, here we are today and really, every day.  There are people out there whose hearts are bleeding, because one way or another they are being degraded, hurt, damaged, acted out on by someone with the stimulant of the demonic trash: pornography. 

Permit me to say these words in closing: If you are caught in the web of pornography in one way or another, you need to prayerfully seek help; that, of course,  includes whether you are a user, an abuser, someone being acted out upon, a mother or father or grandfather that knows of something going on.  DON’T REMAIN SILENT!  PLEASE.

Larry Nassar didn’t stop with pornography.  He could have been stopped and helped long ago.  But, he wasn’t, because people who knew better remained silent.   Need to talk?  Email me at bjohnson@americandecency.org

 

 

 

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