By Shafer Parker

Most people seem kind and friendly when you first meet them. But then I’m reminded of the refrain you always hear when a man, or occasionally a woman, is revealed as a serial killer or a rapist—or serial killer-rapist. “He was so nice,” the neighbours invariably say. And they tell how he shovelled an old lady’s sidewalk just last winter, or how much fun he seemed to have playing with his kids in the back yard. The murderer’s surface friendliness often leaves such a strong impression in people’s minds that they refuse to believe the police are telling the truth.

O. J. Simpson’s nice-guy persona was so strong that he even fooled a jury into declaring him not guilty of the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, an unfortunate soul who apparently just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Succeeding events, including a civil suit that O. J. lost, have removed any lingering doubts that the football hall-of-famer was guilty. But for a long while many people were not prepared to admit that in real life the jovial athlete-turned-actor was a vicious wife-beater and stone-cold killer.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has learned to mask its inner awfulness even better than O. J. On the surface the nation’s broadcaster claims continued loyalty to its founding purposes, which were in part, to offer an alternative to American programming, to “reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences,” to “reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada” and to “contribute” to Canadians a “shared national consciousness and identity.” CBC continues to give lip service to these founding purposes with such on-air slogans as: “Television to Call Our Own”, “Canada Lives Here,” and, more recently, “Yours to Celebrate.”

Which brings us to the point. Apparently, the CBC wants Canadians to celebrate its new role as corrupter of the morals of children and youth. On a popular app called “Snapchat” Mother Corp, as she was affectionately known in more innocent times, has taken to encouraging the nation’s youth to indulge in forms of sexuality that were hardly imagined, even at the height of the sexual revolution.

I’ll tell you more about that in a moment, but first, a word about Snapchat. It’s a multi-media messaging app for phones—incidentally the first such app to be designed for phone use from its beginning. But what sets Snapchat apart is how pictures and messages are only available for a short time before they disappear forever. It also encourages users to develop life “stories” of 24 hours of chronological content, for others to read as the day passes.

Snapchat is addictive for the demographic between ages 13 and 24. As one mother reported to me, her son, who fits into the lower end of Snapchat’s age spectrum, never uses Facebook or Instagram. But he is constantly on Snapchat. He’s not alone. Last year Snapchat had 187 million daily active users (it’s still growing), more than 400 million Snapchat stories are created per day, and individual users averaged sending over 34 messages a day. With a user base of that size, who knows who’s influencing whom, or what kind of influence is impacting our kids? And remember, you can’t track anything on Snapchat because it all disappears—by design.

It’s the interactive tabloid section where the CBC exposes its true intentions (pun intended). Called “Discover,” the tabloid section allows brands to show “ad-supported, short form content.” And thanks to Keean Bexte at TheRebel.media, we now know a lot (too much?) about the CBC’s short form content aimed out our youth. Here are some of the headlines Bexte found.

• ”True or False: People Who Get High Have More Sex?“ This is exactly what it seems to be. Our tax-funded broadcaster is openly encouraging teens to smoke pot (or something stronger) before having sex.

• “Disabled People Are Hot” This is just as disgusting, but not because it involves disabled people. It is disgusting because the received wisdom of the day is that people are not to be objectivised as sex objects. I agree. But if we’re not to objectivise anyone else, on what basis does the CBC justify encouraging us to fantasize about the disabled.

• “Why Some People Are Leaving Monogamy Behind” This is as bad as you might think; it is little more than hook-up culture on steroids, encouraging young boys to accept that they, and their girlfriends, should think about having multiple partners while remaining, in some sense, together.

• “Living with Your Partner's Lover” More of the same, a pornified hook-up culture taken to its logical extreme.

• “Nature Porn” This is the heartwarming story of how a female eagle and a male eagle mated, laid some eggs and started a family. But after the eggs hatched it appeared the male eagle didn’t get the memo on dad taking his turn to feed the babies. Mom was overworked, until another male entered the scene and began helping with the catching of the fish and the feeding. Suddenly, in the words of the CBC, the unhappy couple became a happy “throuple,” after which all was well. CBC plainly implied that part of the throuple’s joy stemmed from the female having sex with both males. Then Mother Corp transitioned to talking about the same phenomenon in human terms, suggesting that a human throuple might also be happier. It discusses non-monogamous dating, and defends against charges that a female with two partners is "cheating" by terming it "ethical non-monogamy," where "everyone knows about other partners and are treated respectfully." A banner at the bottom of the screen invites viewers to "meet more non-monogamous daters."

Two more variations on the same theme

• “Why Are Some People Leaving Monogamy Behind?”

• “It's Not for Everyone, but People in Polyamorous Relationships Say It Has Opened Them up to a Different Way of Dating”
  

Never forget, all of this is promulgated and packaged by your friendly tax-supported national broadcaster. But what to do? Well, it seems to me we should first determine where thinking people ought to stand. Is there a good reason to oppose what the CBC is advocating? Yes, there is. Unrestrained promiscuity is not how humanity works. Everything we know about human biology, psychology and sociology tells us that sexual indulgence leads to pain and, too often, early death. With few exceptions, those who enter libertine lifestyles end up burned out and bitter, and sometimes suicidal.

If the CBC really wanted to benefit Canadians it would advocate self-control before marriage (always between a man and a woman), and faithfulness within marriage. In a fallen world not every marriage works well, but marriage always works better than any of the alternatives posed by the CBC, as numerous studies have shown. And marriages that include a vital religious faith are consistently shown to be the happiest lifestyles of all. I know that many readers are conditioned to reflexively reject what I’ve just said, but as someone once put it, “facts are stubborn things”, and these are the facts. There’s a reason why this kind of marriage is referred to as “traditional.” It’s the kind that has survived, and enabled people to survive, for thousands of years. Humanity learned long ago that this kind of marriage, this kind of sexuality leads to the best kind of life. And I haven’t even mentioned that this is the kind of sexuality our Creator has promised to bless.

In responding to the CBC’s subtle temptations aimed at our youth, prayer must also be a priority. If you have teenagers at home, you need to pray about how you will approach this issue with them. If they have cell phones, they almost certainly have Snapchat. So pray for wisdom. It may not be necessary to eliminate the app. But you can make sure the CBC is gone. For more information on how to unfollow the CBC from Snapchat watch the video by Keean Bexte .), and follow his instructions. You might also pray for your own role in speaking to others about what’s going on. Sometimes parents are embarrassed to take a stand against their children’s behaviour until they hear that other parents are already speaking up.

If you want to address the powers directly, you can contact the CBC Ombudsman. It likely won’t change anything immediately, but if enough complaints are received it will make the matter harder to ignore. You can also go to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission website crtc.gc.ca and click on one of the several ways they offer for public input.

Of most importance is the need to speak to your MP. You may not think your voice means much today, but governments change, and sometimes change occurs inside governments. By God’s grace you may get a sympathetic hearing. It seems to me this is not something to be ignored. Without strenuous opposition the CBC will only get worse, not better. So, in the name of all that’s holy, speak up for our youth and their future.