18 December 2001

Christmastime – the season of peace and goodwill – has already been marred by murder and mayhem here in New Zealand. Yet our film censor has given an R18 rating to a violent French movie featuring rape, torture and murder of the most brutal kind and made it available to film societies and media courses.

For decades civil libertarians have insisted on unrestricted freedom of expression, allowing a whole generation to grow up viewing on-screen violence and sex. What once was considered indecent and immoral, degrading and abhorrent is now accepted as normal viewing, to the detriment of all New Zealanders.

The logical results of this permissive policy are particularly apparent this year: a jogger deliberately run down, subjected to appalling sexual torture, then finally killed by a young male; a teenage hitchhiker stabbed then allegedly drowned in a ditch by another young male; a toddler dying after alleged sexual abuse by a young relative.

How much longer will we allow pornography and brutality in the guise of “artistic expression” to warp our children’s morals and emotions, bringing degradation and death to innocent people? How much longer can we deny that our Christian heritage was the firm foundation for the stable, family-oriented society of fifty years ago? Without Christian principles governing our nation’s policies, protecting the innocence of our children, the dreadful toll of rape and murder will continue to escalate.

Christian Heritage supports the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards and the Children’s Commissioner, Roger McClay, in their commendable bid to ban Baise-Moi.

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