Christopher Anderson explains that marriage equality is a level playing field, not a slippery slope.
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In the years leading up to last week’s watershed Supreme Court decision in Obergerfell v Hodges, legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states, and now in the days since a dark, dangerous, and toxic backlash has been heard. Many people are declaring that there is now nothing standing in the way of the legalization of child rape.
Chances are somewhere on your timeline one or more of these stories has popped up either from someone who earnestly believes this rubbish, or from someone who wants to make fun of it. Regardless, the fact that this argument from the lunatic fringe has not yet been successfully defeated and silenced shows just how far we still have to go to inform, educate, and bring forth a more tolerant society.
Let me make this as clear as I can. Tolerance of homosexuality will not lead to tolerance of child rape.
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Let me make this as clear as I can. Tolerance of homosexuality will not lead to tolerance of child rape.
How do I know? I was raped by a man when I was a child. I am the Executive Director of MaleSurvivor a national non-profit organization that provides hope, healing, and support to male victims of sexual abuse and our allies. I am far more educated on the issue of sexual abuse than any of these toxic people spouting misinformed bigotry. Therefore let me again be absolutely clear:
Allowing two men or two women to marry one another does not make it more likely that children will be raped.
And yet from many corners we have heard professional athletes to politicians to religious figures proclaim that last week’s decision is a descent onto the “slippery slope” that will eventually legalize child rape*. Again, let me be clear. Anyone who believes victory on gay marriage is opening up a route to legalizing pedophilia is wrong.
You are wrong on the facts:
- Ensuring more adults have their civil right to marry and to love one another recognized by the government does not create a legal precedent for legalizing child sexual abuse.
- The majority of people who sexually abuse children are not gay. This is a finding that has been independently reached in many studies. This paper published in the official Journal of the American Association of Pediatrics has perhaps one of the strongest findings: In the remaining 269 cases, two offenders were identified as being gay or lesbian. In 82% of cases (222/269), the alleged offender was a heterosexual partner of a close relative of the child. Using the data from our study, the 95% confidence limits, of the risk children would identify recognizably homosexual adults as the potential abuser, are from 0% to 3.1%. Conclusions. The children in the group studied were unlikely to have been molested by identifiably gay or lesbian people. Jenny, Carole, Thomas A. Roesler, and Kimberly L. Poyer. “Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals?.” Pediatrics 94.1 (1994): 41-44 [Emphasis mine]
You are wrong on the logic
- Consensual LEGAL adult sexual behavior that can be shown lead to long term emotional and medical health does not encourage people to engage in criminal, abusive, and predatory acts of sexual violence that can clearly be shown to cause lasting harm to survivors.
- While sex and physical intimacy are often a very important part of any marriage, people do not get married solely in order to have sex.
- It is also abundantly clear that people who want to rape children will do so without concern for law.
Lastly, you are morally wrong.
- If you are trying to link gay rights to child rape, you are saying that the man who raped me is in no way different from the many, many gay men and women who have loved, supported, encouraged, and help me.
- You are telling me, and millions of other survivors of child sexual abuse that you know better than us (and the broad consensus of mental health and criminal justice researchers for the record) who the persons that pose the greatest risk to harm children are.
- By intentionally spreading lies and fear-mongering you are coopting my story—my life—to support a narrative that protects child rapists by misinforming people that persons who identify GBLTQQI are more likely to harm children than child rapists.
One final point that should settle this discussion permanently, and that I encourage you to use with anyone who tries to spread this lie. As a good friend pointed out on Facebook earlier—gay marriage does not legalize same sex child rape any more than straight marriage legalized opposite sex child rape.
* I am intentionally using the term child rape because pedophilia is a clinical diagnostic term that is far too often misused and misunderstood. This is not in any way meant to be an expression of support for tolerance of pedophilia. I think all our conversations about the rape of children would be greatly simplified if we stopped using the word. Also—pedophilia is, in my opinion, the worst word in the English language and may itself encourage tolerance of child rape by sanitizing the concept and applying a word form -phile that in most other contexts describes positive ideas (e.g. Anglophile, audiophile, bibliophile … etc.).
Photo—Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr
Rob, I need to push back here. I am not at all denying that there are sick people who are trying to advocate for normalization of child rape. However, recognizing the civil rights of consensual adults to marry does not legitimize or open up avenues for normalizing the rape of children. Period. There will always be people on the fringes who advocate for these ideas. It’s important to see them for what they are – delusional fools and toxic persons who have relinquished all claim to legitimacy. We are on the same side when it comes to ensuring that children… Read more »
I just can’t stop shaking my head over how so many people are trying to make the connection between gay marriage and sexually abusing children. The world is mad and sad. I’m so sorry for what you went through as a child and wish you the best of luck in fighting against it happening to even one more innocent victim.
There are reasons for that connection Beth. The Journal of Homosexuality recently published a special double-issue entitled, “Male Intergenerational Intimacy,” containing many articles portraying sex between men and minor boys as loving relationships. One article said parents should look upon the pedophile who loves their son “not as a rival or competitor, not as a theft of their property, but as a partner in the boy’s upbringing, someone to be welcomed into their home.” In 1995 the homosexual magazine “Guide” said, “We can be proud that the gay movement has been home to the few voices who have had the… Read more »
Rob, Thank you for you comment. With all due respect, I feel you are mistaking my point. I am saying that gay marriage is a civil rights issue and has nothing at all to do with child rape. There is no such thing as a civil right to molest a child. It is as absurd as suggesting that there is a civil right to rape any person. I have read that article in the past, and I am well aware that there are a small group of researchers and activists who are seeking to “normalize” child abuse, and people who… Read more »
I understand that and appreciate that Chris. I however see that the sinister forces of the pedo lobby do not see that they are any different from LGBT and ought to realize similar victories. WE tend to sell the farm when we strive to be politically neutral. No battle is ever won or advanced by neutral effort. Again, we’ll agree to disagree…as for so many years now. 🙂
A good article that summarizes the dynamic at work here (IMO), Chris.
I TULY hope there are organizations to step-up and defeat this momentum.
http://www.greeleygazette.com/press/?p=11517
I have noticed however Chris, that NAMBLA and the like are riding a wave of acceptance right behind the LGBT activists and their victories. They are clearly seeing default acceptance via the general public’s misunderstanding of gays. For most of the general public, the myths surrounding Child Sexual Abuse are perceived truths. So for them to make the leap of general acceptance of gay marriage equals peadophilia being at least less taboo, is not … such a leap. I for one see inherent and explicit dangers in battle to fully normalize same-gender adoption. And in reality, I’m not so sure… Read more »