THE EDITOR, Sir:
PERMIT ME to express my rising discontent and dismay at the existing moral decay in our society. Jamaica, land we love, has become a hotbed of gambling and promiscuity.
At any time of day that one watches television or listens to radio, one is bombarded with overt or thinly-veiled messages of instant gratification through quick money or easy sex.
How can we wonder when our children (as young as nine and 10) take the messages seriously and act out the scenarios we place before them?
The massage parlours openly advertise for young attractive girls to pander to the lusts of our "dirty old and young men" and the so-called decent citizens among us sit by under the guise of minding our own business, and the idea of not violating people's freedom to choose.
Hypocrites that we are, we keep a law on our statute books which states that the age of consent is 16 years, yet we argue that seeking to uphold that law and to demand from the young that they do not willingly expose themselves to the violators of that law is an invasion of their privacy.
We wring our hands and wash them in innocence by proposing the distribution of condoms rather than the education of our young in the benefits of abstinence and the dangers of unbridled sex.
True, there are some organisations spreading the good news but their voices are muted by the strident tones of the promiscuity peddlers among us.
It is time the decent, law-abiding ones among us who have the good of this country at heart speak out against the dirt, grime and crime in our society. Let us hail the legitimacy of hard work, ambition and moral rectitude.
I am, etc,
MERTEL THOMPSON (DR)
kaygen10@hotmail.com
Port Maria
Via Go-Jamaica
