Community values are not written in stone. As the years go by, things that were taken for granted get challenged and some things are perceived quite differently than they were decades ago.

One case in point is the fireworks anarchy that has been allowed to reign in Seaside. Last year saw several fireworks related injuries, including a lost finger. That has led to the decision to enforce fireworks laws for the first time this year.

The change could attributed to our new police chiefs resolve, but it could also be attributed to the community, which has seen the mayhem turn the beach into something resembling a war zone.

Whereas 40 years ago it may have been unthinkable that free Americans could be prohibited from shooting off Roman candles, today it is commonplace. Only the disparate collection of state and tribal laws governing fireworks allow the burning projectiles to enter our state at all.

Another much sadder state of affairs has to do with disparate laws from around the country. Disgraced Seaside Police Officer Tom Cain had a relationship with a teenaged girl that would be legal in some states.

Here in Oregon the standard is higher, and has resulted in a charge of misdemeanor sex abuse.

Worse than that charge, according to the values of the Oregon Revised Statutes, is the attempt by Cain to influence his young victims testimony and the fact that he conducted his affair while on the job.

According to my values, a man in his 30s having sex with a teenaged girl is the greater offense. But that surely wouldnt have been the viewpoint of my grandparents.

Even though your parents and grandparents may have married young, and even though they lived happy productive lives, times have changed. No longer is the young man who has just established his farm looking for a 15 year-old to start a family with. The remarkable lives and accomplishments of our ancestors are not tarnished by a value system created 100 years later. But those who look to the past, or to states such as South Carolina and Missouri, are missing the point. Its our values that eventually determine the law.

In Oregon, we as a community, have determined people like Tom Cain are perverts. The penalty is still much less for that than it should be, but, thankfully, Cains position of authority has landed him in deep trouble.

It doesnt matter if the young woman thinks shes in love with Cain. It doesnt matter if Cain thinks he loves the young woman. What matters is the disgraceful difference in age plus the fact that she was a child at the time their affair began.

Its too bad that Cain faces tougher penalties for crimes other than his sexual abuse of a teenager, but it looks as if justice will be served by the multiple charges faced by Cain. Lets hope that the values of other young men are informed by Cains disgrace, for something that is legal in 25 other states, and dead wrong in each and every one of them.