The Washington Post has been under fire in recent weeks for "normalizing" or downplaying pedophilia, leading critics to declare the paper is officially "part of the depravity" of American culture.
The Post dismissed parent's concerns about a book featuring oral sex between 10-year-old boys ending up in schools, and just weeks before had given a play that normalizes sexual predators a glowing review, raising eyebrows of conservatives across the nation.
Child Protection League chair Julie Quist believes "children are the central targets of the raging culture war" currently taking place in America. As a result, content that would have been unthinkable when famed Post editor Ben Bradlee ran the once-prestigious paper in its heyday is now landing in the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" publication alongside legitimate news.
"The Washington Post has become a part of the pipeline. We're bringing these transformational changes to our culture so that they have become part of the depravity," Quist told Fox News Digital.
"They're minimizing, they're normalizing the concept of… adults having sex with children," she continued. "It's a deliberate attempt to shift sympathy, sympathy from the victim of violence against children to the perpetrator. So that's very intentional."
In November, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper was roasted by conservatives for publishing a glowing review of a "play about pedophiles" that critics believe downplayed sexual abuse and attempted to normalize pedophilia. The controversial piece by Washington Post chief drama critic Peter Marks, "‘Downstate’ is a play about pedophiles. It’s also brilliant," quickly generated widespread backlash.
"Take a deep breath and try to ruminate calmly on the position playwright Bruce Norris takes in his scintillating new play, ‘Downstate’: that the punishments inflicted on some pedophiles are so harsh and unrelenting as to be inhumane. Are you still reading? It’s almost impossible to broad-brush the perspective at the heart of this impeccably acted drama without sounding as if one is advocating some extraordinary level of consideration for individuals who have committed unspeakable crimes," Marks wrote.
"And yet Norris proposes a variation on this proposition at off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons: He is questioning what degree of compassion should society fairly hold out to those who have served their time for sexual abuse, assault or rape," Marks continued before explaining that the play about four sexual predators living together in a group home is "one of the best theater evenings of the year."
The Post drama critic noted "the predators who’ve completed their prison terms are depicted not as monsters but rather as complicated, troubled souls," and wrote that the audience will learn what each pedophile has done. He also wrote that the "most disagreeable character" is one of the victims of pedophilia.
In his piece, Marks "thrills over breaking one more sexual taboo," according to Quist, who believes the review helps normalize behavior that society has long considered despicable.
"It's a primary tenet of the culture war to break through taboos, especially sexual taboos," she said. "The whole idea is to break down the culture that we have and the boundaries that have been established, especially to protect children."
Independent Women’s Forum senior fellow Beverly Halberg said it "used to be common ground for Americans to agree that pedophilia is wrong," regardless of political affiliation or other ideology. But the left seems to want to express sympathy for everyone, including sexual predators.
"What we saw in this play, and also the write up from The Washington Post on the play, is showing sympathy, not to those who are just attracted to minors, which is concerning on its on its face value, but actually showing sympathy to those who are convicted of committing heinous crimes against children," Halberg told Fox News Digital.
"We have seen a trend among liberal outlets, Washington Post being one of those, to celebrate things that many of us think are wrong towards children," Halberg said. "Whether that is the drag hour story times, or the dancing that we see the drag queens perform among children. And I think this is just an extension of it, and it's an extension to normalize behavior that many of us find reprehensible. The Washington Post specifically has been very sympathetic towards this."
The Washington Post came under fire again in December when it published a piece knocking parents for speaking out against a novel describing oral sex between two ten-year-old boys, despite the book's author admitting he never intended for his work to be placed in school libraries.
The education piece published online Dec. 22 discussed the controversy of "Lawn Boy," a novel by Jonathan Evison. Several passages from the book, described by Post reporter Hannah Natanson, depict a pair of ten-year-old boys who "meet in the bushes after a church youth-group gathering, touch each other’s penis, and progress to oral sex."
In an interview with the Post, Evison said his book was not meant to be included in school libraries and was surprised to hear that the American Library Association gave "Lawn Boy" an award in 2019 for books written for adults that have "special appeal to young adults."
However, the Post education piece headlined, "A mom wrongly said the book showed pedophilia. School libraries banned it," declared that "misinformation" from parents made it the second-most contested book of 2022.
The Post scribe specifically focused on two parents, Brandi Burkman and Stacy Langton, who spoke out at their local school board meetings against the book, and incorrectly claimed that the book depicted sex between an adult male and a young boy. Essentially, the Post defended oral sex between two ten-year-old boys because it’s technically not pedophilia.
Langton, speaking with Fox News Digital, has acknowledged she was wrong about her pedophilia claim and said that the passages of "Lawn Boy" describing the sexual encounter were confusing, as the tense of the passages consistently shifts between an adult male in the present and his sexual experience as a child.
Quist isn’t a fan of "Lawn Boy," either, and agrees that it has no business being anywhere near school-aged children. Much like the play "Downstate," she feels "Lawn Boy" normalizes depravity and doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that the Washington Post has glorified both.
"The thrill of it, is to take what we consider boundaries, normal boundaries of our culture that have existed to protect children and to keep their innocence, and just shove it in people's faces," Quist said. "This is a campaign to desensitize the public horror against violating the innocence of children. And The Washington Post has become a player in that campaign, a very aggressive player, and it's dangerous to children.
The Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hallberg feels Americans, as a society, need to call out the Post and any other outlet that normalize should-be-frowned-upon behavior.
"There are line we can’t cross," she said.
BONDAGE TEDDY BEARS ARE PART OF MEDIA CULTURE ODDLY TOLERANT OF SEXUALIZING KIDS
DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall believes media organizations such as the Post help signify cultural norms by the topics they cover and the way they cover them.
"WaPo's sympathetic approach to a play about sexual predators indicates a vacuous moral stance, and demonstrates a disconnect to the norms shared by the wide majority of Americans and civilized people worldwide. Further, any discussion of what book content belongs in elementary schools should be based on the actual content and its contribution, or lack thereof, to real educational objectives," McCall told Fox News Digital.
"To nit-pick protesting parents over what constitutes pedophilia is simply a way to demonize and minimize those parents. "The Post’s approach comes off as shoddy, activist journalism that avoids the key issues at stake," McCall continued. "The WaPo articles would seem to be decided efforts to frame this topic in ways that fit the news organization's moral framework, such as it is."
McCall feels "it would be difficult to dismiss this sort of coverage as mere coincidence," and echoed Quist’s theory that liberal elites want to normalize depravity.
"This doesn't seem to be WaPo reflecting the moral values of the citizenry as much as WaPo trying to redefine societal standards," he said.
Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.
