You know, I like NewsLanc, I appreciate what they do, but I have to rip into this one full force.

I do so as a dad, the parent of two kids, a boy and a girl. I don’t necessarily think Steven Spiese, the well-known actor convicted now of accessing child pornography, should be doing years in jail, as the Era editorial being criticized stipulated.

But neither is it quite correct to characterize what Spiese did as a victimless crime.

Spiese has been found guilty of fantasizing child abuse. Nothing in his life has suggested any action harmful to children whatsoever. Witness after witness testified that his relationship with children as teacher and volunteer have been exemplary. …

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 A person should be held culpable for what he or she does; not for what he or she fantasizes. If thought is a crime, then we as a society have become even worse than those who conducted the Salem witch trials.

All of this is to completely gloss over the fact that the material Spiese was caught viewing, and subsequently admitted a fondness for, were images of what undeniably is a crime: The sexual abuse of children.

Indeed, we were told by the article last week that in some of the videos Spiese had or watched, the children being molested, being abused, were screaming or crying.

Frankly, what kind of person gets off on a child being hurt, a child screaming and crying?

But were it just a matter of fantasizing privately over such things, that would be one thing. Yet when it morphs into actively seeking out such material - ultimately creating a market for such material - it is quite another.

Shall we legalize and legitimize “snuff films” as well? Certainly the degree of harm is not comparable, but if we’re aguing - hey, we’re only watching the stuff and thinking about it - isn’t the argument the exact same thing?

The kids in those videos that Spiese and so many others enjoy are indeed victims, and some of them will grow up scarred for life by the things they have experienced, the things that were filmed. If this is a matter of conjuring up in your mind images which are societally and legally taboo, no - we haven’t reached that level of “thought crime” yet, though maybe we’re headed in that direction.

But please, please, please, let us not pretend that what happened here is the same thing. Because the involvement of images means the involvement of exploitation, of cruelty - of a crime. Anyone who does that to a child - there aren’t laws cruel enough to punish that. Anyone who creates the market for those who would commit the crime share in that burden; and it’s very appropriate, then, that they share in the punishment.