|
Someone to Protect Me 5/28/2003 Jan LaRue's journey from childhood abuse led to faith in Christ and a new mission
For nearly 12 years, CWA’s Chief Counsel Jan LaRue has used her training as a lawyer to fight the growing evil of pornography in our culture. Her calling results from the pain of personal experience. In this interview with Family Voice editor Pamela Pearson Wong, Jan tells how she came to faith in Jesus Christ—and how He has healed her.
You have spent the last 12 years working as a lawyer to curtail pornography in our culture. How did you become involved in this issue?
I’ve found that most anti-pornography activists have been personally touched by this evil. In my case, by the time I was eight years old, four men had molested me. Today, of course, I know that most child molesters use porn to fuel their desires before acting out on children.
The first time this happened to me was when I was only four or five, when I went to a movie with my parents. My mother sat in the middle, between my dad and me. A man came into the theater. The place was nearly empty, yet he sat right next to me and I thought, Something is wrong here. With my parents sitting right next to me in the darkened room, he kept putting his hand up my legs.
After we left, I told my parents and they were very upset. Yet that is the brazenness of a pedophile.
When I was five years old, the father of my babysitter molested me. Then, after my parents divorced and my mother remarried, my step uncle molested me repeatedly and violently, while his three sons held me down. He threatened to kill me if I told anyone, so I stayed silent. Finally, during that same time, my principal tried to molest me while driving me home when I’d missed the school bus. I jumped out of the car while it was still moving in order to get away.
What impact did the abuse have upon your life?
As a teenager, I didn’t realize that I was acting out as a sexually molested child. I had a drinking problem by the time I was 15 and became sexually promiscuous.
I quit high school in my senior year. The dean of girls tried to talk me out of quitting. She told me I could get a full scholarship at any university. I was just a very unhappy 17-year-old (I wasn’t a Christian), and I said “no.” But I loved school and learning.
What happened next?
I became engaged, learned that I was pregnant, and made a selfish, foolish, unnecessary decision to have an abortion. It was illegal at the time, but it wasn’t by a “back-alley butcher.” It was a highly respected doctor. They told me it was just a blob of tissue , but afterward I was told the baby was a little boy, and the pain in my heart overshadowed the pain in my body.
Not long after, we married and had a little girl, but the marriage ended in divorce.
Then I met my husband, Gene, and we put his, mine and our children together. I had five children under the age of 8 by the time I was 21! We had a very nice home, but I was still an unhappy person with a big hole in my heart.
What changed in your life to fill that void?
When I was 28, my best friend shared the Gospel with me, and Gene and I started going to church with her. We were saved on Easter Sunday—a great day to be raised from the dead!
How did Christ change you?
At 8 years old I was angry enough to think about killing the men who abused me. I carried that pain inside me and tried to assuage it with alcohol. A lot of sexually abused kids get into drugs, become promiscuous, become abusers. When a woman carries around all that anger, hatred and bitterness, she tends to take it out on herself and her family—rarely the person who hurt her.
The day I received Christ, I felt all of that anger and pain go away. I tell women that Christ can relieve them of that if they accept His forgiveness and let go.
When did you decide to become a lawyer?
Ever since I was a little kid, I have had this overwhelming sense of justice. I can’t stand to see somebody treated unjustly or victimized. Maybe it was because of what happened to me. Where was somebody to protect me? Where was the law? But becoming a lawyer just seemed to be a dream that faded into the background.
The Scriptures say that if you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart and, at age 42, after my children were grown and gone to college, I got the opportunity to go to Simon Greenleaf School of Law (now Trinity International University School of Law), a Christian law school in Orange County, California.
Since you didn't finish high school, how did you qualify to attend law school?
I passed a college equivalency exam administered by the California Bar Association and received credit for two years of college, which allowed me to start law school. My husband and children pushed me out the door, I prayed about it and passed the test. After the first year, I had to pass a bar exam before getting credit for subsequent law school study. The Bar sent a letter saying that, out of 2100 people, I had gotten one of the top 14 grades! That was the Lord. I completed law school, took the bar exam and passed it the first time.
I had a clear sense that I was to work in an organization like CWA. I didn’t have that opportunity, so I practiced law with one of my professors and two other Christian attorneys doing criminal and juvenile defense. I donated my time in religious liberty or and pro-life cases. Later, I worked for organizations devoted to the pro-life and pornography issues.
Are we making progress in the fight against pornography?
Every time we take a step forward in the courts, we take 10 back. The Supreme Court’s decision in the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) case will be announced by the end of June. I was in the Court for the oral argument, which went well for our side. A win in this case will mean that public libraries that accept federal subsidies for Internet access must use technology to block access as much as possible to illegal pornography. The ACLU and the American Library Association want the Court to declare CIPA unconstitutional. We joined in an amicus brief in defense of the law.
Last April, the Court legalized “virtual” (or computer-generated) child pornography. How is that possible?
The justices engaged in wild speculation that the law was too broad, that it would reach mainstream movies, Renaissance paintings, Romeo and Juliet, etc., that are protected by the First Amendment. The Court’s job is to make sure it doesn’t. The justices can rule as a matter of law where a law may and may not apply. They failed to do that.
The media have said, “This is a shocking decision from a conservative Court.” I beg to differ. This isn’t a conservative Court. There are three conservatives, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas; four liberals, Souter, Stephens, Ginsberg and Breyer; and O’Connor and Kennedy as the centrists, who vote more often with the liberal wing.
How about the Justice Department’s role?
We lost so much ground under Bill Clinton. Obscenity prosecutions dropped 80 percent.
When obscenity laws aren’t enforced and pornography proliferates, the public gets the notion that if it’s available, it’s legal. Jury pools become desensitized. We have a lot of ground to make up.
President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft both promised to make obscenity enforcement, and not just child pornography, a priority. To our knowledge, there have been only six federal prosecutions of obscenity since 2001 and none has been against a major company. From June 2002 through April 2003, 22,697 complaints about online obscenity were filed at a Web site, obscenitycrimes.org. Each complaint was reviewed by experts in pornography law and then forwarded to the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney’s office in the district where the complaint originated. We’re urging people to write to their U.S. Attorney and ask what is being done about the complaints the office has received. Our Web site provides all the
information needed
So obviously we can’t depend solely on the courts to decrease pornography in our country.
We have to change minds and hearts. It’s a multi-prong attack. We need vigorous enforcement of laws. If the Department of Justice consistently indicts major porn companies, it would send shock waves through that industry. Since Bush took office, pornographers have been trembling in their boots waiting for the hammer to drop. We need good court decisions and an educated public. We need to show the public at every opportunity that this is harmful material; it’s not a victimless crime. And we need good treatment for addicts.
How can parents protect their children?
My book, Protecting Your Child in an X-Rated World, has practical helps for parents to teach children about sex from God’s point of view. Pornography violates that. Parents need to know how pervasive pornography is: sex-ed materials in public schools, dial-a-porn, the Internet, magazines, comic books, videos. Hard-core comic books are available right next to Superman in some stores, even though they’re marked “adults only.” If children don’t learn about good sex from their parents, they’ll learn about bad sex somewhere else—like I did.
How can ordinary people make an impact on this issue?
It’s easy to become overwhelmed by thinking, “I have to clean up my whole town.” Instead, take on a project. Write a letter to your U.S. Attorney, to a sponsor of an offensive television show or a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission about broadcast indecency. If a store displays magazines with offensive titles or photos, or even Playboy or Hustler, without opaque covers, that violates the law in most states. Get the store to comply, or help pass a law that requires such a covering.
So one person can make a difference?
One person with the Lord can make a big difference.
This article first appeared in CWA's bimonthly publication Family Voice, which is now produced in a newsletter format. For three trial issues, or to receive one year ofFamily Voice for a $20.00 donation, call 1-800-323-2200.
|
|
|
Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
Feedback / Questions? || Problem with this page? || Archives
