Chris Lange, FISM News
A State University of New York at Fredonia professor is under investigation by the school after now viral videos emerged of him defending pedophilia.
One of the clips shows Professor Stephen Kershnar, who teaches libertarian philosophy and applied ethics at SUNY, responding to a question posed by an unseen individual asking whether he thinks child-adult sexual relationships are unethical, to which Kershnar responded:
It’s not obvious to me that it’s in fact wrong. I think this is a mistake. And I think exploring that – why it’s a mistake will tell us not only things about adult/sex and statutory rape and also fundamental principles of morality.”
🚨🚨🚨 Professor says an adult wanting to have sex with a kid is accepted as being wrong but “it’s not obvious to me that it is in fact wrong” pic.twitter.com/ygC5nuHDNa
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) February 2, 2022
Late Tuesday, SUNY Fredonia President Stephen Kolison tweeted a statement condemning the video and calling the views espoused by Kirshner as “reprehensible”:
A message from SUNY Fredonia President Stephen H. Kolison pic.twitter.com/EDZCHCE7ch
— SUNY Fredonia (@FredoniaU) February 2, 2022
Similar videos of Kershnar attempting to normalize pedophilia were also discovered, including one filmed during a Dec. 2020 podcast of “Unregistered with Thaddeus Russell,” and a YouTube video posted Jan. 30 under a “Brain in a Vat” account titled “Sexual Taboos.”
In one of the videos, Kershner questions the acceptance of a “threshold” of age when it comes to sexual relationships.
“Let’s say there’s a threshold. I’m making this number up, but let’s say it’s at age 8. Still, that tells you that some adult sex is permissible,” he said. “Second, the notion that it’s wrong even with a 1-year-old is not quite obvious to me.”
“You might think that, well, maybe there’s something distinct about sex that they can’t really understand it. It’s not clear to me that what they’re not getting at is consent,” Kershnar goes on. “I suspect that what they want to say is that they’re willing participants, they’re voluntary participants. They have some understanding of what is going on.” Kershnar continues to suggest that consent is not equitable with willingness.
He later draws a shocking comparison between pedophilia and children engaging in sports and other activities such as preparing for bar and bat mitzvahs.
“There’s a lot of activities that children engage in that they don’t understand all that well. For example, when you first show up to participate in a judo tournament or when you prepare for your bar mitzvah. You have a rough idea, but it’s not clear how much you fully understand it,” he said, adding. “[T]hey haven’t consented. Perhaps that’s so, but that’s a different claim from them being unwilling.”
Kershnar graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in 1991 and has been working for SUNY for more than 23 years, according to a Fox News report that includes the following bio taken from Kershnar’s LinkedIn page:
“Kershnar has written one hundred articles and book chapters on such diverse topics as abortion, adult-child sex, hell, most valuable player, pornography, punishment, sexual fantasies, slavery, and torture.”
Kershnar’s abhorrent comments reflect an alarming and growing trend in which academia, the media, and even governmental agencies are engaging in and attempting to normalize pedophilia.
FISM previously reported that USA Today issued a series of tweets, since deleted from their account, defending child predation. In November, Old Dominion University Professor Allyn Walker sought to normalize sexual assaults on children by referring to adult perpetrators as “minor-attracted persons.” FISM also reported on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s efforts to cover up reports that at least 10 employees and contractors committed sex crimes against children as young as two-years old over the past 14 years.
Jesus Christ issued a strong warning against such vile acts against innocent children in Matthew 18:6:
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Additionally, 2 Timothy 3:3 warns of becoming a “lover of pleasure” rather than a “lover of God”:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
For believers, these shocking reports should not merely cause righteous indignation, but should also press us to be active members of our communities, government, and institutions; actively fighting against the darkness. We are called to be salt and light; agents of change in our culture, calling a lost world to repentance.
As it says in Acts 17:30-31:
So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”