And just to make sure that temptation is ever more accessible, the adversary is busy extending his coverage, as they say in the industry, to cell phones, video games, and MP3 players. The compromise available at the click of a mouse-including what can happen in a chat room’s virtual encounter-is no respecter of persons, male or female, young or old, married or single. Remember that those young wives said their husbands’ infidelity began with an attraction to pornography, but immoral activity is not just a man’s problem, and husbands aren’t the only ones offending. Tragically, the same computer and Internet service that allows me to do my family history and prepare those names for temple work could, without filters and controls, allow my children or grandchildren access to a global cesspool of perceptions that could blast a crater in their brains forever. The darker sides of the movie, television, and music industry step further and further into offensive language and sexual misconduct. Most days we all find ourselves assaulted by immoral messages of some kind flooding in on us from every angle. Perhaps it was the father in me or maybe the grandfather, but the tears in those young women’s eyes brought tears to mine and Sister Holland’s, and the questions they asked left me asking, “Why is there so much moral decay around us, and why are so many individuals and families, including some in the Church, falling victim to it, being tragically scarred by it?”īut, of course, I knew at least part of the answer to my own question.
With that stark introduction to my message today-one it is challenging for me to give-I feel much like Jacob of old, who said, “It grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech … before … many … whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate.” 1 But bold we need to be. In a conversation we hadn’t expected, we soon learned through their tears that all three of these women were recently divorced, that in each case their husbands had been unfaithful to them, and in each case the seeds of alienation and transgression had begun with an attraction to pornography. They identified themselves as members of the Church, which wasn’t too surprising because those not of our faith usually don’t rush up to us in airports. As Sister Holland and I recently disembarked at a distant airport, three beautiful young women getting off the same flight hurried up to greet us.
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