I saw this on the local news. A billboard on I95 features the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery” with the “Not” crossed out, next to a picture of former porn star and Charlie Sheen’s girlfriend Bree Olson, with a finger to her lips.
According to MyFoxPhilly, the billboard advertises ArrangementFinders.com, a Toronto-based Internet dating site that sets up what it calls “Mutually Beneficial Arrangements” between middle aged men looking for a hot date, and 20-something women looking for a man with a few bucks in his pocket.
I almost never take I95 anymore precisely because of this. On I95 there’s all sorts of billboards for strip clubs and X-rated video stores. You can’t even take the main roadway with children anymore. So this doesn’t really come as a surprise to me.
The only good news is that 3rd graders at St. George Catholic School in the neighborhood near the sign are protesting.
“I say, take it down, because that is very offensive,” third grader Donald “Dusty” Grauber told Fox 29s Bruce Gordon at the St. George Catholic School, not far from the billboard…
Third grade teacher Rita Ann Ezzai asked her kids, “How can you raise the standards in your own community?” as she led them in a letter writing campaign to push for removal of the billboard.
The kids at the school are learning about the 10 Commandments this week, and, with “Number Six” under assault, the 8- and 9-year olds are asking their state representative, John Taylor, to pressure the company.
“I don’t really think it’s okay at all,” said Molly Curran of the billboard, “because it’s kind of like telling kids and adults and everyone that it’s okay to commit adultery.”
Classmate Olivia Higgins-Cassel agrees, “because little kids are just learning about the Ten Commandments and it’s telling them when you grow up it’s okay to cheat on your husband or wife.”
Miss Ezzai knows it’s an uphill battle, free speech and all, but believes you’re never too young to fight for your neighborhood.
“These children have a right to live in a community that is safe, that is morally up to our standards,” Ezzai told Gordon, “and we don’t want it here. And we want them to know that it’s not welcome in our community and we would like it taken down.”
February 1, 2013 at 2:19 pm
Good for them!
February 1, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Free speech though will trump this. Besides, if they get this billboard removed because it's "offensive" what happens when some liberal gets the same idea. "offensive" is a liberal tactic to get you to shut up.
There needs to be a way where free speech is honored, yet crud like this can't be posted.
February 1, 2013 at 6:12 pm
Good for them. Mrs Ezzai is teaching them the spiritual acts of mercy, too. msgr Pope posted this morning about a culture stuck in adolescence, like ours. I think this corruption goes along with it.
February 3, 2013 at 3:55 am
I'm disgusted. At the parents. and the school.
3rd graders shouldn't have clue about this subject.
What in world do those parents and the school think they are doing having their children get involved in a discussion involving adultery and all that it entails?
February 3, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Only truth has free speech. Adultery and pornography are lies about the human person. This is soulnapping and scandal.
February 3, 2013 at 3:43 pm
love the girls: You do not have any idea about what is love, respect, and freedom, or the difference between virtue and vice. It is the duty of the state to protect innocence and virginity in its citizens because this is the standard of Justice, another virtue the state must provide. If the virtue of Justice had not been violated by declaring pornography, the violation of the human soul, free speech by the Supreme Court, the human soul would be protected from the vice, and the Supreme Court might be doing its job. Since the removal of the soul of Christ from the public square by the atheist, the human being’s soul has been in immortal jeopardy. First the human being’s soul was declared non-existent and the court agreed. Then, the court went about scraping the will of God, the human soul from the womb. The people, scandalized and propagandized, began murdering our constitutional posterity in the womb. This is a complete failure of the Supreme Court to deliver Justice and protect the virtues. Even now, you believe the court delivered Justice and you will fight to protect the lie, the perjury, the miscarriage of Justice and damn our innocent children’s souls to the pits of hell. The government did not create the human soul, nor did the government create unalienable rights, nor did the government create freedom, free will, or intellect, that is, reason. GOD DOES. (The Supreme Court does not have the authentic authority to remove God from the immortal soul)
February 3, 2013 at 6:32 pm
@Love the girls: Aeh? Third graders know exactly what adultery is, or they should. They may not know all the physiological details, but why shouldn't they know "it's when you have sex with someone you aren't married to, when you're married to someone else"?
Or do you actually think third graders shouldn't even know about sex, as such, at all?
February 3, 2013 at 10:11 pm
love the girls, Sophia's Favorite: "What in world do those parents and the school think they are doing having their children get involved in a discussion involving adultery and all that it entails?" Having been open to the court, the school and the public, the issue of adultery may be decussed, in fact, it must be discussed. Pornographers did it and now they are shrieking. There is always shrieking at an exorcism.