Neil Bourgoin had one good point in his “Vanishing morals” letter (May 6), but I will get to that in a bit. First, he states that the ’60s and ’70s were the beginning of the “vanishing morals,” caused by the proliferation of liberalism in this country. That was an eye-opener to me, having grown up in that era, since I never realized that immorality gravitated toward liberalism but not conservatism.
I think that most historians would agree that the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s were generations that embraced conservatism. One must wonder, then, why there was clergy sexual abuse during that time. After all, most people would consider churches and religion, in general, to be very conservative in their doctrine. And why kids in reformatory schools in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s suffered years of abuse and some even disappeared without a trace. Why wives were slapped around by their husbands and, if the police showed up at all, apologized for having “interrupted” a private matter. Are not all those perfect examples of “conservative (im)moralism”?
Now back to Bourgoin’s good point. He wrote: “The biggest threat to mankind is his inability to distinguish good from evil.” Evil has existed from the beginning of time, but always kept just under the covers (pardon the pun). Most people never had to deal with acknowledging it until our generation had the “morals” to demand accountability from our government, police and houses of worship and, thereby, exposed them for their hypocrisy.
Yvon Bourgault, Jay
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