It's pretty much an open secret that Texas has become a fathers rights haven in recent years. So it's really not suprising that a custodial father of three daughters felt it was perfectly within his rights to get "liquored up" one night and show two of his daughters pornography on his computer. Word got out, but the Dallas district attorney decided "his hands were tied." There's an effort to get the issue reviewed by the Texas legislature, but there is concern that the "state is trying to dictate what parents can teach their children." Never mind that showing pornography to children is a well-known "grooming" activity among pedophiles.
One piece of good news: The mother of the three girls got custody back. She's trying to get Texas law changed.
http://watchdogblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/10/texas-law-you-can-show-porn-to.html
Texas law: It's OK to show porn to your kids
11:02 AM Wed, Oct 28, 2009
Brooks Egerton
Texas has no shortage of amazing criminal justice stories. Here's the latest to hit my radar screen: State law says it's OK to show pornography to children -- as long as they're your children and the stuff is otherwise legal (no kiddie porn, in other words).
Now a Panhandle prosecutor wants the Texas attorney general's office to check his reading of the penal code section on showing harmful material to minors. An AG's spokesman said the matter is under review and declined further comment.
Randall County District Attorney James Farren's request grew out of a divorced Dallas-area woman's experience. Her three grade-school-aged daughters were living with their dad earlier this year when he allegedly got liquored up late one night and showed two of them porn on his computer. They later told a counselor, who alerted authorities. Amarillo police investigated, found the girls believable and sought advice from the DA's office before proceeding.
Farren concluded that that his hands were tied. No search warrant ever got issued, so there's been no independent look at evidence.
"We have to convince the Legislature to review this issue," Farren told me.
State Sen. Bob Deuell, a Republican from Greenville, said he will push for change in the next legislative session.
"It's not going to be an easy issue," he warned. Why? There will be talk that the state is trying to dictate what parents can teach their children.
Such concerns influenced the writing of the law in 1973, said former state Sen. Tati Santiesteban. The El Paso Democrat, who still practices criminal defense law, said he chaired the subcommittee that did the writing.
"Our discussion was about the invasion of privacy into the home" and "being a parent and wanting to teach my child about sex," he told me. "Who in the hell is the government to come and tell me what I can show to my children?"
Sexual material that parents show their children needs to have a legitimate educational purpose, said Deuell, who's a family practice physician.
The little girls were shown images of three-way encounters, among other things, their mom said. Their father, she added, told them not to tell others what they'd seen or "I will never trust you again."
Her conclusion: "If it's sexual education, you don't do it secretively."
Showing porn to kids is a common "grooming" practice of pedophiles, said Wynne Shaw, clinical supervisor at the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center. It can desensitize victims, making them less likely to resist further advances.
"We consider it abusive just the same as any contact type of abuse," Shaw said.
The mom recently regained custody of the girls and is working with the Rockwall-based Lillian Smith Family Violence Foundation to get the law changed.
"This is not the Texas everybody knows," she said.
The girls' dad didn't respond to my request for comment.