And when it comes right down to it, those who actually have been found guilty of grooming and pedophilia, have been those who live a conservative, patriarchal lifestyle. It is they that are accusing others.
I agree that we have to call out this hate. We've all seen the news about the constant number of cis men, including "religious" men, who rape and molest women and children. It's way past time to concentrate on the crimes and stop making blanket statements about the LGBTQ+ community and trying to shift the blame. When I was 12 years old, our local Catholic priest invited the entire grade (small Catholic school) to his parents' house. We were a middle-class neighborhood but his family had money. It was a big house with a swimming pool and a slide. We were all awe-struck. A few weeks later I was invited by this priest, along with two other girls in my class, to go out to dinner and then to see an opera. I had never been in a restaurant (we could order anything we liked) and had no opportunity to go to the opera so I said I'd like to go. Afterwards, he made certain that I sat in the back seat behind him, and he dropped off the other two girls first. When he pulled up in front of my house, he turned around in his seat, put his hand behind my head and gave me a long passionate kiss. I never told anyone because back in the day (I'm 70 years olds) this wasn't something you would talk about. But I still remember it vividly even though on a scale of other things that have happened to me this is lower on the awful list. He waited a few weeks and then called my mom to invite me out again. I made up some excuse and said no; he left me alone after that. I found out years later that the Catholic Church moved him out to various rural parishes and pushed rumors that he was "troubled" and drank too much. He was a very experienced and practiced groomer who was allowed to prey on young girls for a very long time. This has to stop. I think when the right pushes the LGBTQ+ community, teachers and others as groomers, reporters and commentators need to push back immediately. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are the victims of sexual assault at alarmingly high numbers, not the perpetrators.
Fascinating that Biden or Pelosi are drinking children's blood to stay young and at the same time are senile? At the least shouldn't the headlines be "Proof that eating glands doesn't work?"
This is where the world of "alternative facts" has brought us. Teachers teaching actual facts are accused of "indoctrination" if the accuser happens to have an "alternative" opinion. Next up: teach about Einstein and it becomes indoctrination that a Jew contradicted the Bible version of creation (forget that it is the Jewish "bible" involved here.) We are moving beyond "a sincere religious belief" as a constitutional right to discriminate into such as belief as a way to attack education itself.
And it is classic that it begins by attacks on a minority. Such attacks are outrageous enough. Will it widen to attacks on anyone who disagrees with the alternativator's own beliefs? Don't forget that Florida attacked a "woke' math textbook.
Yes, we must fight it. The question is how? WHY have so many come to believe that all teachers are "perverted groomers?" After all, wouldn't someone who thinks that a drag queen story hour or a discussion of having two dads appeals to a prurient interest likely feel.... well, a (probably suppressed) prurient interest themselves. Pretty soon it will be "better not teach about peninsulas in geography because you know what they look like." Florida in particular.
I agree that we must stand up like Senator McMorrow. I despair that we will do anything to change the minds of those who love to think and bray about "perversion" but at least one hopes it will convince those who somehow still feel "neutral" about this issue.
Not quite sure why, but the McMorrow story reminded me of a personal experience. It was back in the 70's and I was a server at a suburban family restaurant. I was "out" by the standards of the day but not particularly flamboyant about it. One of the line cooks was openly homophobic and made some nasty comment directed towards me. My response was that I was only attracted to intelligent men so he had nothing to worry about. The chef and rest of the kitchen staff thought that was hysterical and treated me like gold the rest of the time I worked there. I guess the moral of the story is that none of us, straight or gay, can afford to let things like this, minor though they may seem at the time, pass without response.
Mar 23, 2023Liked by The Big Picture, George Takei
My childhood priest was indicted for child molestation. He was never charged because the statute of limitations had run out, but this word doesn’t work on me.
Thank you for highlighting this important issue. The racist cowards of the GQP should be deeply ashamed, but they've shown themselves to be so deeply flawed and scummy that they are beyond shame.
Thanks for this. This has definitely brought back memories of the bad old days of the 80s for me, when queerness was equated to child predation, "because we can't procreate".
All I could think of as I read through this horrendous report was, this group is pointing a finger at themselves: " "demonic" and the result of "massive evil." The eternal question: does evil recognize itself as evil and rejoice in it, or does it interpret its evil as the good, and the actual good as evil? Whatever, it's beginning to appear that this is not only a social/political/psychological/moral problem, but a truly spiritual one. Also, totally agree that the lack of action on gun violence proves this has nothing to do with protecting children.
Time is long past that those accused should stand up, point at the accuser, and shout "LIAR!" at the top of their lungs. Make THEM backpedal. Make THEM defensive!
Well, a pedophile is someone who is wired to be sexual with children, the big point being that pedophilia (someone attracted to children 12 and under) is a mental health issue that can be overcome in around 95% of people facing consequences for the behavior; smart psychiatry especially between the 1970's-'90's developed effective treatment texts that prison sex offender treatment programs have in their libraries, but even with those programs, it is mostly an experience where the convicts are simply degraded every day, made to believe that's just how they are and there's no overcoming the monster inside of them, rather than the opportunity to learn lessons in order to be better people when they get back out in society. But to be more to the point in this conversation, the homosexual lifestyle is not an excuse to abuse children, because the question in terms of statistics is, how many convicted sex offenders are actually gay people...? One of the basic facts about sexual abuse is that what we learn and experience about what life is like between the ages of 5-10 is what we take into adulthood unless we have some effective opportunity to learn what we experienced is wrong so we don't have to live with that; we can be who we really want to be as a good human being. But only a small percentage of people have that opportunity until they face consequences for bad behavior and the experience of prison time offers the chance to understand why they face the consequences and how not to be that person anymore so they can in fact live a good life and overcome what happened to them so they can pass better experience on to others. But our authorities just wait for bad things to happen so they can publicly punish people (and not just sex offenders!) to get votes from scared, angry people. If we truly worked to solve the causes of bad sociality in our world, we wouldn't have so many of these problems to deal with in the first place...like gun violence, theft and robbery, and yes, terrorism...
Thanks for this. It is beyond hypocritical when they claim they want to protect children from “ groomers” and do nothing to protect them from guns.
And when it comes right down to it, those who actually have been found guilty of grooming and pedophilia, have been those who live a conservative, patriarchal lifestyle. It is they that are accusing others.
I agree that we have to call out this hate. We've all seen the news about the constant number of cis men, including "religious" men, who rape and molest women and children. It's way past time to concentrate on the crimes and stop making blanket statements about the LGBTQ+ community and trying to shift the blame. When I was 12 years old, our local Catholic priest invited the entire grade (small Catholic school) to his parents' house. We were a middle-class neighborhood but his family had money. It was a big house with a swimming pool and a slide. We were all awe-struck. A few weeks later I was invited by this priest, along with two other girls in my class, to go out to dinner and then to see an opera. I had never been in a restaurant (we could order anything we liked) and had no opportunity to go to the opera so I said I'd like to go. Afterwards, he made certain that I sat in the back seat behind him, and he dropped off the other two girls first. When he pulled up in front of my house, he turned around in his seat, put his hand behind my head and gave me a long passionate kiss. I never told anyone because back in the day (I'm 70 years olds) this wasn't something you would talk about. But I still remember it vividly even though on a scale of other things that have happened to me this is lower on the awful list. He waited a few weeks and then called my mom to invite me out again. I made up some excuse and said no; he left me alone after that. I found out years later that the Catholic Church moved him out to various rural parishes and pushed rumors that he was "troubled" and drank too much. He was a very experienced and practiced groomer who was allowed to prey on young girls for a very long time. This has to stop. I think when the right pushes the LGBTQ+ community, teachers and others as groomers, reporters and commentators need to push back immediately. Members of the LGBTQ+ community are the victims of sexual assault at alarmingly high numbers, not the perpetrators.
Fascinating that Biden or Pelosi are drinking children's blood to stay young and at the same time are senile? At the least shouldn't the headlines be "Proof that eating glands doesn't work?"
This is where the world of "alternative facts" has brought us. Teachers teaching actual facts are accused of "indoctrination" if the accuser happens to have an "alternative" opinion. Next up: teach about Einstein and it becomes indoctrination that a Jew contradicted the Bible version of creation (forget that it is the Jewish "bible" involved here.) We are moving beyond "a sincere religious belief" as a constitutional right to discriminate into such as belief as a way to attack education itself.
And it is classic that it begins by attacks on a minority. Such attacks are outrageous enough. Will it widen to attacks on anyone who disagrees with the alternativator's own beliefs? Don't forget that Florida attacked a "woke' math textbook.
Yes, we must fight it. The question is how? WHY have so many come to believe that all teachers are "perverted groomers?" After all, wouldn't someone who thinks that a drag queen story hour or a discussion of having two dads appeals to a prurient interest likely feel.... well, a (probably suppressed) prurient interest themselves. Pretty soon it will be "better not teach about peninsulas in geography because you know what they look like." Florida in particular.
I agree that we must stand up like Senator McMorrow. I despair that we will do anything to change the minds of those who love to think and bray about "perversion" but at least one hopes it will convince those who somehow still feel "neutral" about this issue.
Not quite sure why, but the McMorrow story reminded me of a personal experience. It was back in the 70's and I was a server at a suburban family restaurant. I was "out" by the standards of the day but not particularly flamboyant about it. One of the line cooks was openly homophobic and made some nasty comment directed towards me. My response was that I was only attracted to intelligent men so he had nothing to worry about. The chef and rest of the kitchen staff thought that was hysterical and treated me like gold the rest of the time I worked there. I guess the moral of the story is that none of us, straight or gay, can afford to let things like this, minor though they may seem at the time, pass without response.
Well written! We must keep exposing their mean, evil ways using words that hurt & are not truthful!
My childhood priest was indicted for child molestation. He was never charged because the statute of limitations had run out, but this word doesn’t work on me.
Thank you for highlighting this important issue. The racist cowards of the GQP should be deeply ashamed, but they've shown themselves to be so deeply flawed and scummy that they are beyond shame.
Thanks for this. This has definitely brought back memories of the bad old days of the 80s for me, when queerness was equated to child predation, "because we can't procreate".
All I could think of as I read through this horrendous report was, this group is pointing a finger at themselves: " "demonic" and the result of "massive evil." The eternal question: does evil recognize itself as evil and rejoice in it, or does it interpret its evil as the good, and the actual good as evil? Whatever, it's beginning to appear that this is not only a social/political/psychological/moral problem, but a truly spiritual one. Also, totally agree that the lack of action on gun violence proves this has nothing to do with protecting children.
Time is long past that those accused should stand up, point at the accuser, and shout "LIAR!" at the top of their lungs. Make THEM backpedal. Make THEM defensive!
Well, a pedophile is someone who is wired to be sexual with children, the big point being that pedophilia (someone attracted to children 12 and under) is a mental health issue that can be overcome in around 95% of people facing consequences for the behavior; smart psychiatry especially between the 1970's-'90's developed effective treatment texts that prison sex offender treatment programs have in their libraries, but even with those programs, it is mostly an experience where the convicts are simply degraded every day, made to believe that's just how they are and there's no overcoming the monster inside of them, rather than the opportunity to learn lessons in order to be better people when they get back out in society. But to be more to the point in this conversation, the homosexual lifestyle is not an excuse to abuse children, because the question in terms of statistics is, how many convicted sex offenders are actually gay people...? One of the basic facts about sexual abuse is that what we learn and experience about what life is like between the ages of 5-10 is what we take into adulthood unless we have some effective opportunity to learn what we experienced is wrong so we don't have to live with that; we can be who we really want to be as a good human being. But only a small percentage of people have that opportunity until they face consequences for bad behavior and the experience of prison time offers the chance to understand why they face the consequences and how not to be that person anymore so they can in fact live a good life and overcome what happened to them so they can pass better experience on to others. But our authorities just wait for bad things to happen so they can publicly punish people (and not just sex offenders!) to get votes from scared, angry people. If we truly worked to solve the causes of bad sociality in our world, we wouldn't have so many of these problems to deal with in the first place...like gun violence, theft and robbery, and yes, terrorism...