Child murder...revisited

Anyone who needs reason to fear for the collective sanity of the world needs only to look at the JonBenet Ramsey case, and the renewed furor over it.

Ten years after the murder, some sick puppy comes from out of left field and “confesses.” Or maybe he doesn’t confess; depends on who you listen to. Though it’s clear he is seriously deranged, hearsay evidence makes me believe that he had nothing to do with it, that he is nothing more than a delusional pedophile who either craves the spotlight and has no other way to attract it than to confess to a heinous crime or has, somewhere deep in the recesses of his twisted mind, constructed a horrible fantasy he now believes.

If any good can come from this, it is that a spotlight has been focused on the incredible incompetence of the authorities charged with the job of solving the case and bringing a murderer to justice. After ten years, the best they can do is go after John Mark Karr, even though the weakness of their case is apparent even to casual observers.

But the reawakening of interest in the Ramsey case has also brought back one of the less-discussed but, to me, most horrific aspects of the case. Regardless of who was responsible for the actual crime, the little girl’s parents were, in a way, aiders and abettors.

It was the parents, after all, who transformed a six year-old child into a junior sex object by involving her in the depraved world of junior beauty contests. The makeup, the clothes and the attitudes involved make this scene a playground for perverts. There should be absolutely no hint of artificial sexuality in a child’s life; the Ramsey parents, for whatever reason, ignored this rule of civilized behavior, and their daughter, transformed into a flirtatious adult in a child’s body, paid the ultimate price.

This in no way excuses, or even mitigates, the crime of murder. But, knowing that the world is full of perverts and not only ignoring but consciously catering to their sick impulses is, in itself, a crime.

You think I’m being too harsh? Explain to me what the attraction of these beauty contest is, then. Tell me what is attractive in a non-sexual way about children made to look like adults, encouraged to act like parodies of sexually aware adults.

You think I am unfairly maligning those involved with these pageants? Ask yourself why adults would want to be involved with sexualizing children. Look at the photos taken of JonBenet Ramsey in life and tell me I’m wrong. Look at the photos of any of the little girls involved in these grotesque displays and tell me I’m wrong.

The parents have certainly suffered for this, whether they understand what they have done or not. I’m not suggesting that anything further be done to the father, and the mother is dead.

But I do hope – even though I fear it’s a futile hope – that if any good can come out of the death of this child, that all parents will be more aware of all the threats their children face in this world, and will take steps to protect them as parents must.

Putting them in environments crawling with the dregs of humanity – no matter how “normal” the people involved may seem in public – is putting them at unnecessary risk. It is sending them out into the world as little targets.

At a minimum, it deprives children of the childhood, which is a crime in itself. We know what happens in the worst case.

Children have enough of a rough go in modern life as it is. Making it worse for them by unnecessarily exposing them to evil, by actively pushing them into an environment where they become potential victims, is simply unacceptable.