Lighted Candle Society - April Newsletter

the LIGHTED CANDLE The Lighted Candle Family of Websites: BY JOHN L. HARMER, A P R I L 2 0 0 8 COURTING THE BEST IN EACH OF US TO HELP BRING EVIL TO COURT Newsletter www.LightedCandle.org z Annual Award Dinner - May 6th z The LIGHTED CANDLE SOCIETY will hold its annual “Guardian Of The Light” award dinner on the evening of Tuesday, 6 May, 2008. The event will take place on the 23rd floor of the Wells Fargo Bank Building at the corner of Third South and Main Street, in Salt Lake City. (Please check the back page of this newsletter for more details.) As Chairman of the Lighted Candle Society I am delighted to announce that the trustees of the Lighted Candle Society have selected four outstanding individuals to be the recipients www.LightedCandle.org www.FamilyFragments.com www.HerStoryLives.com of our “Guardian Of The Light” awards for 2008. The four individuals selected to receive the award are Mrs. Jannalyn Holt, of Kaysville, Mrs. Shelly Devries, of Sandy, Mrs. Cindy Moreno, of, Springville, and Dr. Michael Ballam, of Logan. Items we’re tracking with: Whistleblower gets a pink slip Its tough enough for people who work and volunteer at schools having to deal with the flurry of child pornography making the rounds on teenager cellphones... but the PC police wreak further havoc on our culture by sticking it to the adults who stand up to perverts. WND reports in an exclusive piece on a local California woman who was recently fired from her job at the library for reporting the virtual peccadilloes of a patron with a predilection for child pornography. The offender was using a library computer to visit obscene child porn sites on multiple occasions. Now, if the librarian had maliciously thrown the 23-volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary at the man (which is the instant reaction we would have), one would understand the firing. But no... her crime? Calling the police on the perp. We'll have more on this soon. Each of these individuals has given years of dedicated service to protecting and enhancing the moral climate of the state of Utah. Through their efforts citizens young and old have had the benefit of living in communities where decency, dignity, and virtue have been protected and extolled. Jannalyn Shelly, and Cindy created, nurtured to maturity, and intensified the effectiveness of a state wide organization known as ‘Communities for Decency.’ Dr. Michael Ballam, Pd.D, is nationally and internationally recognized for his many marvelous performances on the opera stage. He has spent thousands of hours working with teachers and students throughout the country to teach them to understand and appreciate the value of classical music. The dinner on May 6th will also highlight a report that will be projected on screens around the auditorium of the activities of the Lighted Candle Society during the past year. This report will include segments of the Lighted Candle Society’s successful confrontation with the largest producer of pornographic motion pictures in the world, the gathering of forty thousand signatures protesting the advocacy of consensual and extra-marital sex on the “Oprah” show, the final creation after eighteen months of effort of a protocol for the study of the human brain using fMRI technology, and the development of the litigation strategy by the Lighted Candle Society to be used shortly in the states of Georgia, Massachusetts, and Utah. All of these initiatives have been able to go forward because of the generous financial support of people across the nation. Our primary source of income for our activities throughout the An unforgettable evening! - see page 4 2 calendar year comes from our annual dinner. We are grateful that a number of generous individuals and corporations will be sponsoring a full table of ten people at the dinner. However, we will not be successful with the event unless we can sell at least another two hundred and fifty individual tickets. Please carefully consider how the Lighted Candle Society is fighting to preserve the dignity and the virtue of the nation’s culture. If we are to continue this battle we must have the support of many people. CHILDREN CREATING PORNOGRAPHY FOR CHILDREN! In 2005 the Lighted Candle Society first warned parents that the new technology in cell phones had made it possible to access pornographic sources over the cell phone. We urged parents to make certain that if they provided cell phones to their children they have the phone programmed so that it could only access certain numbers. All too soon our worst fears were realized as we received reports from around the country from parents who discovered that their children were using the cell phones provided to them by their parents to access pornographic web sites. The irony of the situation is that these phones were provided by the parents to assure the safety of their children from sexual predators. In the last sixty days a new tragedy has unfolded that originated with cell phones being used by junior high and high school students. In four states, Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, and Utah, law enforcement officials uncovered situations in which children were creating their own pornography and then circulating it to others by use of their cell phones. Using cell phone cameras the students would make photos of their private parts, or in some instances of actual sexual conduct, and then circulate these photos to others via their cell phones. These photographs constituted virtual child pornography, the creation and circulation of which constitutes a felony under both federal and state law. Law enforcement officials found themselves in the dilemma that the creation and circulation of these photographs constituted felonies being committed by students from eleven to sixteen years of age. As they moved to identify and apprehend the offenders, and to confiscate the cell phones upon which the pornographic images were found, the school officials and law enforcement officers were also given a first hand lesson in selective morality. When confronted with the evidence of their children’s behavior some of the parents were irate that school officials and juvenile probation officials had filed criminal charges because of the fact that their son or daughter was guilty of committing a felony. Let’s take a moment to think this through. According to some parents these are just children engaged in juvenile conduct not intended to harm anyone. Never mind the fact that some of these images were undoubtedly shown to students who had never seen such images before. Whether they wanted it to happen or not, the minute that the student who had not been involved in any way has a cell phone thrust before his or her eyes with one of these images on the screen, that image is indelibly implanted within his or her brain. For the rest of their lives that image will be as clear and visible in the eye of their minds as it was in the first two tenths of one second that it took for that image to go through their eyes into their brain. They are the innocent victims of an assault that will most likely 3 have emotional and behavioral consequences for years to come. Youths and adolescents are inveterate copyists. Once the news of what happened in these four states was broadcast across the nation it was only a matter or hours before the same conduct was being copied by hundreds if not thousands of students. That means that the number of innocent victims who would have obscene images thrust before their eyes would also increase by the thousands. We have consistently reported in this newsletter that parents need to expect that their school age children will inadvertently come across pornography. We have posted on our web site various programs that parents can follow to make certain that their children are prepared for this intrusion into their lives. We have urged parents, teachers, ecclesiastical leaders and counselors to obtain training from qualified experts regarding how to minimize the harm that comes to such children from these inescapable exposures to pornography. For our part the Lighted Candle Society urges school officials, law enforcement officials, and juvenile probation officials to make certain that within their jurisdiction the law will be enforced. This is not a matter of innocent childish behavior that will soon be forgotten. We experience national outrage when a student enters the classroom with a loaded gun and kills or wounds innocent children. Why is not that same outrage evident when students come upon the school ground and willfully traumatize an otherwise innocent child with images that will forever remain vivid and unforgotten. We plead with parents to be unyielding in making certain that their son or daughter are prepared to turn and run the minute they see this type of venomous material being thrust upon them. Guardian of the Light Award Dinner MAY 6th, 2008 WHERE?: The Wells Fargo Building 23rd floor at Third South and Main street in Salt Lake City. JOHN HARMER - CHAIRMAN, LIGHTED CANDLE SOCIETY 4 CONTACT US Mailing Address: 36 North State Street Salt Lake City, UT 84103 (801) 363-2483 TIME: Reception at 6:00 p.m. Dinner at 7:00 p.m Email: info@lightedcandle.org Websites: www.LightedCandle.org www.FamilyFragments.com www.HerStoryLives.com COST: Tickets are $150.00 per person. A table of ten may be sponsored for $2,000.00. Sponsors will be listed in our printed program.. CONTACT US: 801-363-2483 or write to us at 36 North State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103 If you would like to receive our newsletter by email please send us your name and email address to: rachael@lightedcandle.org