“Hawaii man’s opinions on sex keep him from becoming teacher,” states a recent headline from the Associated Press. Already one is inclined to sympathize with Mark Oyama, a University of Hawaii graduate student of secondary education who was denied certification to teach in public schools. After all, nobody wants to see graduate students punished for mere “opinions.”

But instead of “Hawaii man’s opinions on sex,” the author of the above headline should have written “Hawaii man’s promotion of child sex abuse.”

After his rejection from the certification program, Oyama sued the University. A court ruling in favor of the University states that the decision to deny Oyama’s certification was “directly related to defined and established professional standards.”

Oyama stated that “it would be fine” for “a 12-year old girl” to have a “consensual” relationship with her teacher, that “the age of consent should be either 0, or whatever age a child is when puberty begins,” and that “real life child predation should be legal.”

The Associated Press article quotes the ruling, but goes on to refer to “views condoning adults having sex with minors,” and “sexual relationships between adults and children,” before paraphrasing Oyama’s lawyer:

The ruling is troubling because it allows the university to censor someone’s opinions that aren’t acted upon, said Oyama’s attorney, Eric Seitz, describing his client as a socially awkward nerd.

… Oyama, a graduate of prestigious Honolulu prep school Iolani, wanted to help fill Hawaii’s shortage of public school teachers, especially in science and math, Seitz said. Now, he’s working in his father’s electronics business, Seitz said.

All of this language serves to paint a sympathetic picture of Oyama, rather than to highlight the danger he could pose to children.

The words “abuse,” “molestation,” “pedophilia” and “sexual assault” do not appear in the article. Nor do words like “threat” or “endanger.” The words “troubling,” “outrageous,” “failed” and “violations,” however, appear throughout the piece, each quoted in reference to the University’s alleged mistreatment of Oyama.

George Orwell once penned an essay entitled “Politics and the English Language,” arguing that “the decay of language” was largely to blame for the political misadventures of the 20^th century. He decried “decadent” language, which consisted of strings of ready-made, politically correct phrases and acted as a barricade against any real, incisive criticism.

Embarrassingly, conservatives and Christians are not immune to the pitfalls of “decadent language.” We should not too quickly forget, for example, how many conservatives defended corruption in the Church during the Catholic sex abuse scandal. We even used our own ready-made phrases, such as “secular attack” and “anti-Catholic media” to deflect the criticism that some bishops unfortunately had earned.

“If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy,” wrote Orwell. “You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself.” He concluded:

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase … into the dustbin where it belongs.

Surely “opinions on sex” and “views condoning adults having sex with minors” are two such phrases, giving as they do an appearance of solidity to the pure wind of casting outspoken advocacy of child abuse as a sacred right akin to that of religious liberty. May we never be so accommodating to our own wolves in sheep’s clothing as Mark Oyama’s lawyer is to him.