Sex in the Cemetery: I just don't understand

It has been widely reported that now former South Carolina Assistant Attorney General Roland Corning, 66, was caught by Columbia police at the Elmwood Cemetery Monday afternoon with an 18 year old female Platinum Plus employee. For whatever reason, the investigating officer found reason to note that Corning had Viagra and sex toys in his car with him. Political bloggers have had a field day with the incident, as have people commenting on various news websites. In all fairness, it should be made clear that no charges were filed against Corning or the young woman.

While others are drooling with delight over the political aspects of the incident, the thing that stands out to VUI is that law enforcement said there is a problem with people doing drugs and having sex in the cemetery. From conversations with others, it appears that drug use and sex in cemeteries is not limited to Columbia. It is a growing problem around the state.

It makes one wonder just what in the Hell are people thinking these days? For years now, rest stops and public parks have become the venues of select parts of our society’s fulfillment of sexual gratifications. It was bad enough that you could not stop and use the rest stop bathroom without wondering if someone would be enjoying themselves in the stall next to you after they shared a foot tap. It was bad enough that one could not take a walk in the park without wondering if more intimate sounds of nature would be heard. Now, going to visit grandpa’s grave could make you the unwilling participant in a peep show or have a confrontation with a crack head.

The pure inconsideration and indecency of it all is an outrage. While VUI does not judge folks on their sexual lives, nor really cares about such, when people bring their sex lives to a cemetery, we have a big problem with that. People’s mamas are buried in those cemeteries. Fallen soldiers are buried there. It is the ultimate disrespect to the dead and to their families for people to use their resting places as a personal playground.

I learned how the respect a cemetery early in life. Maybe it is old fashioned to some, but when I was a child and my family visited some relative’s grave, we were respectful. No shouting or carrying on was allowed. No walking on a grave just to walk over it was allowed. If a flower was knocked over, you sat it up. It was instilled in me that the buried were people who lived once and that I someday would join them and I would want people to respect my resting place or remembrance.

I guess that is why I have thought that people who vandalize graves are depraved. But, that depravity can be understood on some level, if someone robs the grave for money or has a grudge against the deceased. Such is not acceptable, but it is understood better than people going to a graveyard to get their freak on. Even most convicts have more respect for a cemetery than that.

Time moves on and old cultural norms pass. I have learned that comes with getting older. It is frankly good and well that some Southern culture has passed on, but I always hoped we could hold on to better parts of it. I know that I grew up in a small southern town and those things like respect for the dead and their families are quaint to some. But, I just cannot understand how anyone with any sense of self respect and decency can be turned on by getting it on in a cemetery where somebody’s mama or grandma is buried, or where fallen soldiers are honored.