As parents of young girls, which of us has not reached for the camera when we find our daughters covered in suds in the tub on bath night, frolicking naked in the back yard kiddie pool, or lying buns-up on the living room floor watching something on television.
The bare-bottom pictures of youth have been a parent's cherished momento since the day the first camera was invented. But now, thanks to an overzealous government and an absolute paranoia about child pornography, parents who snap pictures of their unclothed children risk losing their kids, going to jail and a tarnished reputation.
An Arizona couple faced such a nightmare last year when they snapped a few pictures of their three daughters crammed into a tub during a family vacation to California. When Lisa and Anthony Demaree returned home, dad took the camera's memory stick into a Walmart in Peroria, Ariz., to get 144 vacation images turned into photographs.
The images included eight pictures of the girls -- ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5 -- that showed a "portion or outline of genitalia."
So the worker called the cops which called social services which removed the children from their home for a MONTH while an "investigation" was conducted. During the course of that investigation, police officers and agents from the Arizona Attorney General's Office contacted the parents' friends, family and co-workers suggesting that the couple had "sexually abused" their daughters by taking pornographic pictures of them.
The only child abuse in this case was perpetrated by the State of Arizona and the City of Peoria for subjecting children to the anguish of being removed from their parents and not allowed to see them for days at a time simply because the family wanted to preserve a precious memory of three little girls taking a bath.
Since when has "nude" become an automatic "lewd?" There is a gulf of difference between a playful picture of little girls in the tub and genuine child abuse at the hands of real pedophiles. You would think the average police office would know that difference, especially if he has children of his own.
The parents have hired a lawyer and filed several suits seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages. Let's hope the jury of Anthony Demaree's peers include a few DODOs who can help the State of Arizona, City of Peoria and Walmart see who the real dodos are in this case -- and award the girls enough money to cover their entire college educations and then some.