Other LanguagesMalia Zimmerman of the Hawaii Reporter writes about teachers joining the online petition campaign against Backpage.com:
Now teachers across the nation are joining at least 60,000 others on Change.org in a related campaign that has attracted support from parents and grandparents in all 50 states.
“I am a high school teacher and know what this does to the lives of impressionable young people,” said Brooklyn teacher and father Martin Haber. “It's not hip or cool, it’s a betrayal of our youth. I have an 18-year old daughter who noticed the graphic nature of Backpage.com the other day. She asked, ‘How is it even legal?’”
“I am a retired teacher and child care worker,” said California resident William Boosinger. “I spent most of my career trying to heal children who had been violated in this foul manner. It’s time to shut down this web site.”
They are asking for more people to long onto Change.org to join the campaign to pressure law enforcement to step up its efforts and for the company to stop publishing the ads.
In the article, the Aloha State's Attorney General makes a nice turn of phrase regarding Backpage.com:
Hawaii Attorney General David Louie called the site a "beacon for human traffickers.”
Meanwhile, Religion World says atheists have joined churches speaking out against the trafficking site:
Atheists, agnostics, and other non-religious people are joining a faith-based coalition’s popular campaign on Change.org calling on Village Voice Media to stop selling child sex trafficking ads on online classified site Backpage.com.
“I am an atheist, and I have a very well developed moral sense, and by almost anyone’s definition this is immoral,” said Jim Greenamyer of Arlington, Virginia, when asked why he was supporting an interfaith clergy coalition’s campaign on Change.org to stop sex trafficking on Backpage.com. “I am offended and dismayed that the Village Voice, a paper of which I previously had a high opinion, has declined to this extent.”
-Dan Sytman-