A surveillance camera caught a law enforcement officer having sex while on duty. There are obvious moral and legal issues but that’s not the focus of my commentary.

I learned about this case through a friend’s post on Facebook. I then found it on local and national news websites. The national news described the act in vivid detail and had links to still pictures from the surveillance video. While no nudity is revealed, there is still no question to the activity of the two people in the photograph.

Each local news broadcast showed the pictures. One broadcast had a warning to parents and said they purposefully waited until the late news to show the pictures.

Yet this one minute, fifty-two second television news story showed the pictures six times (four at full screen) for over fifty percent of the segment.

If that wasn’t enough, the reporter printed the pictures and took them to various people in town to get their reaction for the story.

My personal battle against viewing pornography led me years ago to quit watching local or national television news. As I watched these news segments, I realized I was reacting as I would when I would start viewing pornography.

I turned away but who knows

• How many porn addicts were led to a relapse?
• How many young boys thus got their first exposure to pornography?
• How many young girls are learning what sex is through this story?

This is just the latest reason among many that our personal disciplines of “bouncing our eyes” and “capturing our thoughts” must be constant and always active.

Let me encourage you that the more you exercise these disciplines the stronger they become. My “battle” during this news story was an easy victory after years of strengthening these disciplines. However, I can never rest because the battle still came in a way I least expected it.

(Specific citations withheld due to the explicit nature of the articles.)