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Yeah, I hear that. Thing is, people's attitudes toward homosexuality were changing before it was removed from the DSM. In fact, that attitude change was very likely one of the factors behind its removal. On the other hand, I'm not seeing widespread or even growing approval of sex with children. I see a few fringe groups that have become a bit louder and a bit more organized thanks to the methods of communication currently available, but I've not met a lot of people ready to consider that sex with a six year-old may not be that bad after all. I don't think that people will be changing their minds just because the inclination to have sex with a six year-old is no longer considered a "mental illness".

I personally lack the credentials to really make a call on whether or not pedophilia should be considered a mental illness, but my belief that sex with children is a "bad thing" is not based upon pedophilia being a mental illness. To me, it does not matter whether or not pedophilia is a sickness, I believe that there are other and more valid criteria for outlawing it -- laws aren't based upon actions driven by mental disorders; if they were then hand-washing would be illegal because of obsessive compulsives.

As I said, I don't think that anything will come of this. The article itself looks to be blowing things out of proportion and I think that there's quite a bit of political pressure aside from that to keep such a decision from being made for precicely the reason that I stated: idiots can't tell the difference between saying that pedophilia is not a mental illness and saying that child sexual abuse is not a bad thing.

"Thing is, people's attitudes toward homosexuality were changing before it was removed from the DSM."

The propaganda campaign had already begun, true. I'm not saying taking it out of the DSM started the whole thing, just that it lent a false credibility to claims that deviant sex is normal.

However, as I recall from the 50s and 60s, it was the fringe, the left, the New York not-so-intelligent-sia that were on the bandwagon back then.

Hippies (or "freaks," as we said back then) made a grand show of tolerance, but you didn't see SSAD sufferers and those of normal sexuality hanging together much. I mean, deviant sexuality just naturally creeps people out, and it takes a lot of propaganda, brow-beating, and desensitization before people can deny and repress that to the degree some do today.

"In fact, that attitude change was very likely one of the factors behind its removal."

The facts, actually, don't support that. Intimidation--threats of violence to career and body--were used to gain the acquiescence of moral cowards. That's all it took.

"On the other hand, I'm not seeing widespread or even growing approval of sex with children."

You might want to look harder. England just lowered the age of consent for buggering boys to 16 from 18.

Then, too, look at all the "useful idiots" the pervofascist movement can draw on, people who leap to the defense of the disorder, prattling on about "consenting adults behind closed doors," as though that had anything to do with the matter.

Such people have bought in hook, line, and sinker to the nonsense that SSAD sufferers aren't attracted to teens. They have an *enormous* emotional investment in the proposition that there's nothing at all wrong with homosexual behavior or those who engage in it.

When the push really gets going to drop the age of consent, these people will first insist that it's "just a few extremists" and "most 'gays' are fine people who would never do that."

But then, when and if it becomes undeniable that SSAD sufferers not only are attracted to teens, but act on that attraction in numbers that are hugely disproportionate to molestation of girl teens by heterosexuals, what will they do?

Will they just chuck that emotional investment? Will they cheerfully abandon the sense of moral superiority that their "tolerance" gives them? Will they be willing to deal with the thorny implications of the fact that their friends, brothers, sons, uncles have been lying to them, and that they in fact do engage in behavior that is not only highly immoral but arguably evil?

When monkeys fly out of my butt.

They will, in large numbers, allow themselves to be persuaded by the arguments that you and I find so offensively specious. Much easier to decide that sex with children is not immoral than to admit they've been wrong all along, that these people who are so important to them are, as they have denied for so many years, disordered.

"I don't think that people will be changing their minds just because the inclination to have sex with a six year-old is no longer considered a "mental illness".

Well, not "just because," no. Of course not. But it won't be "just because." The removal of the disorder from the DSM will be just one brick in the wall, but an important one. How many times have we heard people refute the assertion that homosexual behavior is disordered by pointing to the fact that it was removed from the DSM? It will be the same with pedophilia.

"I personally lack the credentials to really make a call on whether or not pedophilia should be considered a mental illness"

Nah, you've just been browbeaten into doubting yourself. You're qualified to make that call.

"I believe that there are other and more valid criteria for outlawing it"

Well, certainly. It's not illegal because it is disordered, but because there are victims. But here we're discussing whether it should be listed in the DSM, not whether it should be illegal.

"I think that there's quite a bit of political pressure aside from that to keep such a decision from being made"

Perhaps, but the thing about those in thrall to Satan is that they never give up, and when they die, there's always another waiting to take their place. If they don't get it this year, they'll spend the year propagandizing, and try again next year...and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that, for as long as it takes.

"idiots can't tell the difference between saying that pedophilia is not a mental illness and saying that child sexual abuse is not a bad thing."

Bingo.