painfully.
Posted on 12/07/2009 4:09:08 AM PST by Kaslin
Over the course of the last few weeks, I have received several requests for an update on the Frank Lombard case. Lombard is the (now former) Duke administrator who was accused last summer of attempting to allow, and even arrange for, strangers he met on the internet to rape his adopted child.
A few days ago, WRAL, a Raleigh-based news station, released an update on the case. That update is worth re-printing here, along with my commentary, both for what the update says and what it does not say:
“A former Duke University employee has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of sexual exploitation of a minor, authorities said Tuesday.”
Here, the “sexual exploitation of a minor” is not described in any great detail. That is good because the sexual exploitation Lombard inflicted upon his own child is simply too graphic to reprint fully. I have read all of the documentation in this case. It contains descriptions of conduct, which can only be described as sub-human.
“Frank M. Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail in Durham, will enter the plea in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 17, authorities said. He likely will face 15 years in prison, authorities said.”
It is interesting that the first demographic mentioned is age, as opposed to race or sexual orientation. As I proceed with my commentary it may be worthwhile to ask, once again, a question I will ask now: Is Frank Lombard’s age the most relevant demographic variable in relation to the charges to which he agreed to plead guilty?
“Authorities on Tuesday filed a criminal information in the case, indicating that they were negotiating a plea and didn't want to pursue an indictment against Lombard. According to the filing, Lombard coerced a minor, identified only as ‘M.L.,’ into engaging in sexual conduct so that Lombard could transmit a live video of it over the Internet.”
And now we have another mention of the “minor” followed by the assertion that the criminal information only identifies the minor as “M.L.” But WRAL knows precisely what the “L” in “M.L.” means. It means Lombard. It is his adopted black son.
But to acknowledge that “M.L” is the son, not daughter, of Frank Lombard is to acknowledge that Lombard is gay. And the Gods of Diversity frown upon the notion that males can be victims of rape and that the perpetrators can be homosexual men.
And to acknowledge the race of the victim is to suggest that homosexuals might be capable of committing hate crimes, even if they do not play Lacrosse. Hate crimes legislation is supposed to protect, not prosecute, gay men.
And, finally, there should be no mention (yet) that his son was adopted. The public, when confronted with such information, might use it to form dangerous opinions – such as the opinion that gay men should not be adopting little boys.
According to the news media, the general public is not capable of processing all of this information. People in the news media are the only ones who can be trusted with all of the benefits (and responsibilities) that attach to the full disclosure of information.
“Lombard was arrested in June after authorities said Washington police caught him in a sting operation soliciting an adult to have sex with his adopted 5-year-old child.”
This is certainly odd. WRAL finally mentions that Frank Lombard’s child was adopted. But they fail to mention his sex or his race. In fact, the way this paragraph is worded, it is not entirely clear that the incident leading to his arrest is the incident leading to the information – or that it led to any formal criminal charges.
So let me clarify this very sloppy portion of the WRAL release. The child coerced into engaging in sexual conduct on a webcam was Frank Lombard’s adopted black son. Lombard performed oral sex on every portion of the little boy’s body that was capable of expelling human waste.
I hope this clarifies any ambiguity. I will withhold further details.
“Duke fired Lombard in July from his position as associate director of the university's Center for Health Policy.”
I think we can now see why WRAL has withheld certain relevant information. Lombard was a high-level administrator in the area of health policy. To reveal his sexual orientation would raise certain questions, which might violate someone’s right to feel comfortable at all times. For example, “Are certain sexual practices both detrimental to individual health and prevalent in the gay community?” And, “Could such practices, if widely adopted (no pun intended), be detrimental to the public health?” Finally, “Is a homosexual man the best candidate available to help run a Center for Public Health and teach a course about AIDS at Duke University?”
According to the people at WRAL, and many at Duke University, Frank Lombard is no ordinary white racist. Nor is he an ordinary white rapist. He is gay and entitled to special treatment in the court of public opinion. To refuse to treat him differently would promote hatred and discrimination.
And that would send a dangerous message to small children. Above all else, we must protect small children from danger.
I cannot but help thinking that Rome and Greece also encouraged homosexuality and the breakdown of the family prior to their fall.
Did the other professors take out a nice full-page ad aagainst him (like they did to the FALSELY accused Duke Lacrosse players?)
Where are the 88 members of the Duke faculty who signed an open letter against the falsely-charged lacrosse players, lambasting their lifestyle, values, gender, and everything else?
Why are they silent now?
(I can guess...)
I think you’re stretching there, chief. The times are different and people’s attitudes are, thankfully, different. To say that homosexuality caused the fall of Greece or Rome is like saying that, I don’t know, breathing caused their decline.
Human sexuality is a strange thing and while there may be negative social effects to homosexuality (particularly regarding the status of women?) being too widespread, I think it would be silly to try to use our lens on their civilizations.
Heck, homosexuality was well-known in Tokugawa era Japan—that era lasted for a few hundred years until it was forcibly opened by the West, to which it responded reasonably well (for awhile.)
In my opinion, the homosexuals should have never been released from the insane asylums in the first . They were kept there for a good reason, and the world was a better place because of it.
For that matter, where is the NEWSWEEK cover about gays who adopt children and then go bad?
(NEWSWEEK put the mug shots of two lacrosse players on the cover, two weeks after all lacrosse players had been cleared by DNA testing. But the story was “fake but accurate” and too good for NEWSWEEK to throw away.
(As Newsweek’s editor Evan Thomas said afterwards, “We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong.”)
Here the facts are correct, but the narrative is not PC; so—no story...
Well Chief perhaps you should consider before throwing condescending insults.
The fall of those empires was largely from within. Their society broke down. Largely to due laziness, corruption, and focus on having a good time.
Homosexuality was part of that as it goes along with a break down in the family structure.
Isn’t the reason the Post Office stopped letters to Santa/North Pole because NAMBLA types were ‘volunteering’ their time to answer the letters and getting little Jimmy’s name and address?
Talk about a hate crime...
SZQ
I didn’t realize that calling you “chief” was a condescending insult. Seriously?
As for the way those societies broke down, the Greeks were defeated militarily but it was to Greece that Romans send their young to be educated and to be schooled in philosophy long after Greece was subject to Roman rule.
Homosexuality wasn’t a “part” of that breakdown, it was a part of Greek (or most of it) society and a large part of Roman practice, as well.
Understand what I mean by that term is homosexual PRACTICES not an “identity” as homosexual. THAT identity may be a modern innovation.
It is true that it was not masculine among the Romans to be the “submissive” in that behavior but it wasn’t unmanly or “homo” to bed a male. Mark Antony was well-known for his conquests, female AND male. He was, perhaps, not a paragon of self-restraint but that could have been earned as a reputation even for merely indulging in women.
I don’t argue that a certain amount of licentiousness can be harmful to a society but this is relative scale, whether we like it or not. Rome was just fine with brutal games, raw sexuality, collective punishment, slavery and a strangely functioning legal system for centuries. Greece, if anything, was more civilized and also flourished with its share of evils.
Homosexual behavior was very, VERY much low on the list of social breakdowns.
ping
Political correctness continues to damage and kill people around the world, especially in America. Not to worry, the paramount concern is protecting the special classes, regardless of the consequences.
Keep in mind that a “great” city-state like Sparta was built on abolition of private property for citizens (at least for a time, and beyond any ostentation,) slavery and killing slaves as initiation. To say nothing of the homosexuality practiced (pederasty, actually.)
Perhaps Christian morals helped lift the world to a higher moral plane but we do ourselves a disservice by seeing a nail every time a hammer is in our hand (and project our beliefs onto very different times and cultures.)
For instance, was it all the sacrifices that ended the Aztecs? I can think of no more vile a practice, yet I think it was the arrival of the West that heralded their doom. At least at that moment. The Incas too...
I am curious. What is your source for this information?
Honestly, I couldn’t point you to a source off the top of my head. If you read enough, things blur. I know that in spite of the fictional component of the show, they had the guy who wrote RUBICON as a historical consultant and one of the characters Antony is involved with tells him he has to sell off all his slaves he’s slept with, including the men.
It should be fairly easy to find...apparently there is a book on google (at least some is in preview) called Bisexuality in the Ancient World but I can already hear the cries of “academia—biased-—propaganda” (not really, though aspects of it might be)
I was looking for an older or at least more established source and I can’t give you one off the top. It’s like asking me source some other factoid. What I can tell you is that I did not get that from the show Rome but encountered it before that.
Is there a way to send this article to the Duke 88?
Still googling but now I wonder if I read it in print (perhaps even in Rubicon, don’t know.)
Even the rumor about Caesar and that king in Asia was aimed at the idea he was submissive in the relationship, not that he had an affair with a man.
Kind of a weird time in history to contemplate, really.
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