Sexual abuse of boys at Penn State

N. writes:

I don’t know if you have been following the ghastly scandal at Penn State or not. [LA replies: I’ve read a couple of stories on it, but haven’t gone into it deeply.] It appears that a football coach some years ago was witnessed raping a 10 year old boy in the campus showers, but it was covered up. Now the scandal has broken open, and Joe Paterno, revered head coach of the PSU football team, has stepped down. [LA replies: evidently Paterno himself was told about one of the incidents of rape by someone who had witnessed it, and he didn’t do anything about it. So it sounds very much like the notorious incidents in the Catholic Church in which a bishop knew that a priest was into hanky panky with young boys, and didn’t discipline him.]

Last night, a serious riot broke out in the town where the university is located, with cars overturned, fires set, etc. as the PSU students protested—the loss of Joe Paterno. That’s right, they were protesting the coach resigning in the wake of a disgraceful scandal. They were NOT protesting the sodomizing of 10 year old boys, NOT protesting the multi-year cover-up of sexual abuse of those boys, NOT protesting anything real.

They were rioting over their football team. Now, I recall doing and saying some pretty stupid things years ago as an undergraduate. But just how stupid, and depraved, does one have to be to riot over the head coach of a football program being fired because of a scandal that is just as bad as anything that we’ve seen in the Roman Catholic Church in the last 20 years?

I know, I know—bread and circuses, and keep them both coming. It is depressing. I’d like to make each and every one of those boneheaded students sit down and read the report and have to answer questions on it.

Here is the indictment. If you choose to read it, I suggest that it not be right before sleeping or eating. It will likely make you very, very angry.

THIS is what sexual predation looks like.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 10, 2011 03:46 PM | Send