The following commentary, which does not necessarily reflect the views of The Spokesman-Review’s editorial board, appeared Tuesday in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade pupil, Vili Fualaau, with whom she had two children, are fast becoming media darlings, making a bizarre story even more so with notoriety neither deserve.

Last week, within hours after Letourneau completed her 7 1/2 -year prison term for raping Fualaau, the young man filed a Superior Court motion seeking to vacate a no-contact order. It was granted Friday by a King County Superior Court judge.

Now they’re free to pick up where they left off – older, but clearly no wiser if they do.

National television shows want interviews. Other media follow their every move. And we wonder why?

Letourneau was a 34-year-old elementary school teacher at a Burien school and the married mother of four when she began having sex with Fualaau in 1996. He was 12.

When Letourneau was arrested in 1997, she was already pregnant with their first child. A judge sentenced her to six months in jail for second-degree child rape, and ordered her to stay away from the boy. A month after she was released, Letourneau was caught having sex with Fualaau in her car.

Obviously she didn’t learn after six months in prison, and the second offense sent her to prison for 7 1/2 years, and during that time she gave birth to Fualaau’s second child.

And now they’re sought out for interviews.

What do you suppose the reaction would be by the public and media if this case involved a 34-year-old man twice impregnating a 12-year-old girl, whether consensual or not? He would no doubt be considered to be a good candidate for at least chemical castration in the minds of many. And it’s doubtful you would see either pursued by talk shows.

So what is this morbid fascination with Letourneau, now 42, and Fualaau, now 21, unemployed and working on a GED?

She’s a registered sex offender and will never teach again, and shouldn’t. Their two kids, in the meantime, were raised by his mother. As is so often the case in such bizarre instances, it’s the kids who pay the price and deserve better.

Count us among those who couldn’t care less whether the two of them hit it off now that the judge has lifted the no-contact order that was part of her sentence.

Since it’s apparently too late for Ms. Letourneau to come to her senses, let’s hope the media feeding frenzy runs its course soon.