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- LETTERS, Page 8Violent Youth
-
- The warped behavior of some of our youth is predictable
- (BEHAVIOR, June 12). We've been extolling sex and violence
- instead of love for 20 years or more. When we took away the
- taboos, we ended up with depravity, disease and death. Young
- people got the message.
-
- Carol Whitney Westborough, Mass.
-
- Your teens-gone-wild article seems to blame the ills of
- young society on music, peer pressure and movies. Any mentally
- healthy teenager should be able to listen to music without
- taking the lyrics literally, resist persuasive peers, and watch
- horror movies to be scared, not to research ways of killing
- people. My friends and I listen to punk music and watch horror
- flicks weekly, but we are still morally concerned, alcohol- and
- drug-free citizens.
-
- Brenda Aske Matthews, N.C.
-
- What hypocrisy! You publish a picture of a scantily clad
- Grace Jones in the arms of head-chomping Ozzy Osbourne (PEOPLE,
- June 12), whom you describe with a snicker as undecided "whether
- to squeeze or bite." In the same issue, you report that 52% of
- adults surveyed believe rock-music lyrics glorifying sex and
- violence are mainly to blame for teen violence in America.
- Parents dealing with confused, violent, suicidal teenagers don't
- find Ozzy very amusing!
-
- Gene Kathryn Johnson Paris, Texas
-
- School boards have been influenced to adopt teaching
- materials on sexuality that promote promiscuity, immature sexual
- behavior and disregard for the dignity of human life. When young
- people are taught in school that human life can be tossed away
- through abortion, that having "safe sex" with countless partners
- is "normal," no wonder we see the proliferation of dreadful sex
- crimes. Our youths are eager to be challenged to a more
- responsible adolescence and young adulthood: just as we teach
- them to "just say no" to drugs and to shun alcohol abuse, so we
- can call them to be responsible about God's great gift of human
- sexuality.
-
- (The Most Rev.) Roger Mahony Archbishop of Los Angeles
- Los Angeles
-