A trusted former coach is arrested and charged with sexually assaulting at least eight young boys, top administration officials are charged with a cover-up, and a head coach with a stellar reputation is fired. The scandal at Penn State, which has engulfed not only a trusted, even venerated, football program, but an entire community, has rightly dominated the news for weeks. Shock, disappointment, disgust and sadness are apparent every time the subject is addressed.

However, this thought keeps recurring to me: Why does this still surprise us? Why are we shocked? So many in our nation — our courts, our politicians, our citizens — accept that it is legal to kill an unborn child if the mother so chooses. What is so shocking about covering up the abuse of a born child? Outrageous questions indeed. The harm of a child is indeed heinous. Adults are supposed to protect children, help them, cherish them.

As I was listening to a discussion about the Penn State scandal on a Focus on the Family podcast, the host, Jim Daly, shared an incident that happened to him when he was 10 years old. He was alone on a bus trip to visit his biological father and a man on the bus attempted to lure him and another boy to abuse them. When the bus driver observed the man trying to hold the boy’s hand, he pulled the bus over and made the passenger get off the bus. The driver didn’t wait until the next stop or give the man a warning. He immediately took action to protect a child.

If only someone had acted so decisively at Penn State. It has been revealed as this scandal unfolds that at Penn State many people looked the other way, rationalized what they saw, and trusted man instead of truth. We cannot dismiss this as some sort of macho football problem.

How many times have we experienced the same reactions when we talk about life issues? Whether we are asking a friend to vote for a pro-life candidate, or sharing at church, or volunteering at a fair booth to educate our community about the humanity of the unborn child, we see it — denial, rationalization, anger.

As I ponder these things, a verse shared during the Focus on the Family discussion keeps coming to mind. James 4:17 says, “If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” It is a high standard, but the power of living this out in our daily lives is obvious, isn’t it?

2012 is an election year and the good I know I must do is to work every day to recruit, support and elect pro-life candidates. Can you help me? Don’t just accept your friends, neighbors and fellow church members unknowingly voting for a candidate who is pro-abortion. Don’t be discouraged into inaction by a candidate who is not perfect or a race difficult to win. Voting pro-life is a good we all ought to do.