Posted on 03/19/2002 9:26:26 PM PST by MadIvan
This week brought news headlines screaming eighty-nine people arrested as part of the FBIs Internet kiddie-porn ring. The FBI had targeted the worst of the worst in its nationwide operation ironically code-named Candy Man. Of those taken into custody, five were members of the clergy specifically two Catholic priests and three clerics of other denominations.
However, it is these five arrests that have liberals rejoicing. The left considers those in the Christian faith as historic adversaries impeding their deviant agenda for decades. They are relishing the moment of having a laugh at the expense of the church.
Putting aside the liberal catcalls and hoots for a moment, it is necessary to remind the left they are overlooking a few details as they celebrate. Details? Like what?
Liberals like to toss out statistics claiming this behavior exists at a level of about 10% among Catholic priests. However, multi year studies about true pedophilia in the Catholic Church (defined as sexual contact between an adult and a child) indicate this type of abuse is actually very rare among priests.
According to Pedophiles and Priests (Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis) by Philip Jenkins, the best estimate is about 0.3% of the entire body of Catholic clergy. By contrast, best estimates on the level of this type of criminal predatory behavior place to around 5% of the general population.
Another problem for lefties is that simple mathematics indicates another eighty-four people were arrested. So this begs the question of where are the mighty cries of shame directed at these people? Why only just direct vitriol at five members of the clergy?
There are three reasons.
First, several of the others arrested are in vocations typically making up a large part of the left leaning base of support. They were teachers, guidance counselors and other types of social works. All part of a base that can be counted upon to vote in like minded fashion in matters of interest.
Any criminal acts committed by members of these groups are almost always hushed up or afforded protective status by the left leaning mainstream media. Pshaw, you might say, do such double standards actually exist? The answer is unless you have had your head firmly planted in an interior body cavity, they most certainly do.
One example of this collusion that can be seen daily is the double standard applied to any luckless American politician, who is arrested, indicted or sentenced guilty. If the perpetrator has the party affiliation of Democrat, then that information is conveniently omitted and the story buried in the paper.
If the perpetrator belongs to the GOP, the story makes page 1 with the words Republican part of the article title. Usually in large case bold font. This penchant to left leaning editorial decisions is widely known. It can be observed on an almost daily basis by anyone with eyes and the willingness to open them.
Simply put, it is not in the best interest of the media who are actively pursuing a collectivist agenda to embarrass their allies or fellow travelers in socialism. This most definitely includes sexual predators amongst them.
Second, always consider self-interests of the lefts allies. In other words, follow the money.
By their nature, churches of all faiths are extremely sensitive to serious charges involving their employees. Rightly or wrongly, this makes the church vulnerable to cases of abuse and thus they are inclined to settle out of court. The result is a virtual gold mine for lawyers while the perpetrator is shuttled out of the picture, and the victim gets justice in the form of compensation minus hefty fees and expenses.
To aid this trial lawyer based moneymaking effort, allies in the media gleefully report on the rare cases of clerics gone bad. The goal appears less in the interest of the publics right to know, and more toward making sure the point is not lost on churches that next time, it could be them.
Third, the crux of the matter is this. Its my contention the real issue here is homosexual predatory pedophilia. This means almost without exception, these cases involve abuse of men against boys. The left, especially cronies in the press, do not want to point out the obvious fact that homosexuals are documented as being over represented as sexual predators.
This wolf in sheeps clothing approach is not limited to religious positions as these arrests could have easily been coaches, scout leaders and others whose work allows them close proximity to children. In all of these arrests, it seems clear these marauders followed the time tested pattern of assuming roles of authority and trust in order to gain nearness to potential victims.
Sexual predators of any political persuasion are criminals. As such, they should be dealt with swiftly and harshly. The left has neither the interest nor willingness to judge what is right and wrong.
The left lives in a world of gray in order to avoid making uncomfortable moral judgments. Their philosophy has left them unable or unwilling to criticize sexual predators as evil. As a result, as a group, they are morally bankrupt.
This position and lack of response is hardly surprising considering how duplicitous this group is. Nothing shocking at all to learn they prefer to embrace hypocrisy through criticisms of the church while happily avoiding the deviancy that oozes from their own political allies like swamp scum.
As parents or grandparents, our children are precious gifts from God. None of us intend our small loved ones become unwilling sexual toys for predators. If we remain silent, we offer tacit consent for these monsters to continue molesting our children.
Our voices, raised to high volumes, must be raised collectively to make it clear this type of behavior will not be tolerated.
We conservatives owe it to all children that we remain vigilant of those forces that, in the name of tolerance, are merely fronts for pedophilia. What we are facing is a real direct threat to our kids, and our society as a whole.
It is my opinion conservatives are obliged to take a vanguard role in raising our voices as loudly as possible against this evil that pervades our society.
Best Regards, Ivan
Full marks, as usual.
Could this be another reason the Left wants sodomites (er..."gays") in the Boy Scouts? Once they're firmly established in the Scouts --- a condition which will hopefully NEVER happen --- it will only be a matter of time before an 'incident' occurs. Then, the Tassled Loafers crowd --- usually BIG donators to the political Left --- can try to sue the BSA into oblivion for having "allowed" these perverts to prey upon "the children." And, once the BSA disappears, that means one less organization that promotes the American values that the Left so despises.
What then? Statutory rape plus perversion. The problem isn't that some minuscule fraction of priests does these things, but that the church covered it up.
When a prominent rabbi was recently caught abusing teenage girls, he was exposed in Jewish newspapers and immediately lost his job.
It is good to see you again, MadIvan, will you be around enough for us to ping you to various threads involving the UK for your valuable insights?
To a previous reply, yes, it's wrong that these things were swept under the rug - for whatever the reason may be. This will begin to work itself out now that it's out in the open. This is going to get ugly but it had to happen. My problem is how the lying, opportunist liberal media whores use this kind of thing to promote their own twisted and bigoted agendas - and the masses who no longer know how to think for themselves who buy the lies.
Pedophilia technically refers to attraction to a pre-pubescent child, not to a person past puberty but under the legal age of consent, although it is often loosely used that way by the media.
Thus a man who pursues a 14 year old girl is a sex criminal in most states, guilty of statutory rape and should be jailed, but it is inaccurate to refer to him as a pedophile, unless he also pursues 8 year olds.
As Salman points out, the problem is homosexual statutory rape and subsequent coverup, not pedophilia. These men are despicable, but not pedophiles.
This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It is despicable to use your position to chase after 15 or 16 year old boys, but it would certainly be far worse to chase 5 year olds. The press seems to do a fine job (intentionally?) of blurring these distinctions that should be obvious to any semi-sane person.
(Little Catholic dogma cyber humor there.)
I understand what you're saying about the 5 year olds and the teens, but I find it all so horribly despicable.....that the pedophiliacs should be put to death. You know? Same with the ones who bother the teens, and I want to say, especially the teen boys...
``The majority of these victims were not prepubescent; they were young teens, so it had nothing to do with pedophilia. It's technically called ephebophilia, which is almost exclusively homosexual, and it isn't about comfort; it's about sex. ``The media don't like talking about this because, by and large, they have come down on the side of gay rights, the advancement of the gay agenda, so there would be an uncomfortability because, again and again, gays are saying, `We're no threat to children; that's why we should be Boy Scout leaders, why we should be teachers, why we should be able to adopt.' That's always their justification for interactions with young people.''
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