'Everybody does it': Lawrence Taylor defends himself for soliciting an under age prostitute

The Daily Mail ^ | March 23, 2011 | Daily Mail Reporter

[bkopto]

A football legend who was convicted over under age sex with a prostitute, has told an interviewer 'everybody does it', adding the case had left him 'screwed'. Ex New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who was caught paying a 16-year-old girl $300 to have sex with him in a hotel room, made the outrageous comments in a interview for Fox News last night.

Taylor, 52, was sentenced yesterday to six years probation and was forced to sign the sex offenders register.

[Alberta's Child]

I’m not trying to be offensive here, and maybe it’s just me . . . but that girl looks like she might be semi-retarded or something.

[Seruzawa]

I’m not exactly sure what the point is supposed to be with this bashing of a 16 year old girl who for whatever reasons is living the life of a prostitute. I prefer to bash the s***heads who pimp her and use her.

[dfwgator]

Also a very important thing to bear in mind — even with major offenses against younger and more innocent children — is that if you use the death penalty for offenses that don’t result in death, you’re in effect giving the offenders an incentive to kill the victim (and to decrease their chances of getting caught by leaving no witnesses).

I understand what you're saying, but on the other hand, that implies that perhaps if there were a death penalty, it would deter them from even trying in the first place.

[TSgt]

FRiend,

This is just one of many instances where the church has used the “everybody does it” excuse. Hell, I’ve seen FReepers say it.

But we can agree to disagree.

[dennisw]

yikes

[GJones2]

> “I understand what you’re saying, but on the other hand, that implies that perhaps if there were a death penalty, it would deter them from even trying in the first place.” <

I believe it probably would deter a considerable number, but many persons are going to give in to their passions anyway. The ones who do will kill a greater percentage of their victims. I don’t think saving a thousand children from being molested at all is worth the loss of, say, ten or twenty more children, who might have otherwise been able to come back alive.

I don’t think that’s an exaggerated number but rather a conservative one. A single murderer who leaves no witnesses might kill that many before getting caught.

[faucetman]

While the statement was crass, and technically incorrect, the Catholic Church deserves to have this shoved in their face for a very long time. So no one forgets the inexcusable actions by many, many, priests and the total cover up by the church for decades. While the church has been forced to deal with it, finally, this abomination continues to this day. Let the light shine in. Stop with the indignation about unflattering comments about your church, they are deserved. “We’re sorry, just won’t cut it. Let’s move on, won’t cut it. Let the punishment fit the crime. A little humiliation, or even a lot of humiliation of the church won’t take away the humiliation and shame of the children violated by the priests and the church.

Looking for sympathy? Look elsewhere.

[Alberta's Child]

I challenge you to find me one example of a Freeper who has justified the behavior of the Catholic Church with regard to sexual abuse by priests by pointing out that "everybody does it."

In every conversation I've had on FreeRepublic on this subject, the focus of the matter is not on defending the Church, but on pointing out that the Catholic Church is consistently singled out for exposure and criticism on this issue among all other religious denominations or even secular groups such as public school teachers.

Dolan has been consistent about this, too. Just last fall he published his own article (which the New York Times refused to print as an op-ed piece) excoriating the Times for its lengthy coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal while at the same time giving almost no attention to two major sex abuse scandals right in New York City that were being exposed at the time (one of them involving the NYC public school system and the other involving an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn).

[GJones2]

>”like light and day”<

Boy, I really stepped on that line. It should be, of course, “The difference between getting back an abused child alive, and getting back one whose body has to be dug up somewhere is, in my opinion, like night and day.”

[WOBBLY BOB]

Since this is a war chosen by women, my guess is the name came from a woman with Honda minivan named Dawn.

[faucetman]

How does bringing in the Boy Scouts or Rabbi's or teachers make what the piests and the Catholic Church did? Are you trying to say “Everybody Does It”?

[faucetman]

How does bringing in the Boy Scouts or Rabbi's or teachers make what the priests and the Catholic Church did? Are you trying to say “Everybody Does It”?

[faucetman]

How does bringing in the Boy Scouts or Rabbi’s or teachers make what the priests and the Catholic Church did any less horrible? Are you trying to say “Everybody Does It”?

Sorry about the multiple postings but I messed it up twice.

[mia]

"The Catholic church uses the exact same excuse when it comes to child rape."

Interesting that you say this because I never heard such a thing from any priest. I'm a senior citizen and have been a Catholic my entire life. Where did YOU hear this statement from a priest or nun? If a priest is a pervert, a priest is a pervert. He should be punished like one. Since when is the Catholic church the only institution with perverts?

I can name several institutions with perverts. . . ministers, administrators, teachers, police, football players, doctors, etc.

[TSgt]

Ask requested:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2676202/posts?page=6#6

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2475430/posts?page=51#51

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1995439/posts?page=4#4

[Alberta's Child]

I can't find any fault with that sentiment, but I've learned over the years that some of these sordid stories have elements to them that have never seen the light of day.

There was a priest sex abuse case in New Orleans in the early 1990s that got a lot of media exposure because it was one of the first case where a substantial award for damages was given to a person who had sued the Catholic Church in that kind of case. One of the interesting points that came up in the trial is that the priest in question had been identified by his superior as a "problem" in the past, and his superior even made a point of turning over incriminating material to the New Orleans district attorney's office. The district attorney refused to prosecute the case.

The district attorney of New Orleans who made that decision was named Harry Connick, Sr.

Yes, the father of THE Harry Connick, Jr.

[MARTIAL MONK]

It puts it in the proper perspective. It is an ongoing societal problem which manifested itself in a Church organization. We are going to see that the demands of justice are met and then we are going to step back and let the good people of the Catholic Church set their affairs in order. It was their children who were victims in this and I am confident that they will handle this as needed.

[TSgt]

I can name several institutions with perverts. . . ministers, administrators, teachers, police, football players, doctors, etc.

Thank you for making it easy for me, case and point.

[HKMk23]

Your cite doesn’t support your initial, broad-brush accusation.

In the context of the exchange the Archbishop didn’t vindicate anybody. Nothing he said translates to “Priests are excused, because other people are getting away with this right and left.”

His comments were clearly focused on pointing out to the other man that, despite the unrelenting drumbeat of the nightly news, Catholic priests as a class of people don’t warrant any more suspicion in this regard than do any others. In fact, the actual facts prove that they warrant less, as is to be expected of the priesthood.

You misconstrue the Archbishop’s point, and with a great deal of help from a slavering media.

Surely you recall the media focus on Boy Scout leaders several years back? Same deal, just that the scout leaders weren’t expected to be as morally pure as the priests are, so the media didn’t have basis for as much self-righteous indignation. Otherwise; no difference. The Scouts and their leaders were, for many months, cast under a pall of suspicion founded on little more than media-driven emotionalism. We all heard the jokes from Leno, and Letterman, and around the water cooler at the office.

In that case, as in this one, the feigned outrage of the media was blown totally out of proportion to what the facts could support. Did it stop them? Hell no; there were ratings and advertising dollars at stake! More hype; more bluster; let’s dig up another abusive scout leader from some unexpected quarter; the more the merrier. Why did we damn the media in that case, but not so much in this case?

In neither case is it true that there is nothing to fix; that isn’t my point, nor was it the Archbishop’s point. but in both cases, we see how public consumption of media Kool-aid is perpetuating — in a factually-unwarranted fashion — an elevated sense of social outrage directed at an entire group based upon some members of that group having made themselves media targets-of-opportunity.

The fact remains: it is wholly incorrect, and immature, to continue to lambast and malign an entire class of people over the malfeasance — even the gross malfeasance — of some in the class. Neither Catholic priests, nor Boy Scout leaders, nor reclusive neighbors, nor crazy uncles, nor any other group are morally pure in regard to child sexual abuse, but the vast majority of the members of every one of those groups are innocent.

So, please debate like an adult, and limit your accusatory blasts to just those individuals who have been positively identified as culpable, and their actions supportive and directly tributary to the problem. Display the the personal maturity and grace to leave the greater body of The Church, and of the priesthood out of it; not to allow your own expressed revulsion over the acts of some to overflow onto the whole.

[Alberta's Child]

There was no attempt to justify anything. The point was made that the New York Times was singling out the Catholic Church for attention and criticism because they have their own ulterior political and philosophical motives for doing so. The fact that the Times has given little or no attention for other similar sex abuse scandals is compelling evidence that they don't much care about the sex abuse . . . they only care when they have a vendetta against the perpetrator's organization.

I don't know why anyone here would dispute that, when you consider that just on the matter of political partisanship alone that rag has been completely discredited as leftist crap.