I seem to recall hearing or reading that in the past, as well. I don’t think it changes things much. The fact is, there are adults out there that are attracted to children of both sexes and it is our job to protect them. I constructed my example to be extreme: two adults, both with the same sexual preferences looking after children of the sex that they are attracted to. I was trying to show where a rational line couldbe drawn. In the real world I think it is an issue that is easily planned around—but should be acknowledged.
Rational, sane, objective, and fair. But, don’t we all?
Hang on a tick. Aren’t we getting something back to front here? Of course there are vastly more paedophiles who identify as hetero than homo - there are vastly more heteros in the population. Shouldn’t the question be whether the incidence of boy-diddling is higher among gays than straights? (<–genuine question to which I neither know nor presume the answer.)
Far more children are mauled annually by dogs than by Komodo dragons, at least in this country. Still’n’all, I hope you wouldn’t think me prejudiced if I was a tiny bit concerned when my neighbour started keeping a ten-foot Indonesian lizard in his back yard.
No, if we all thought that that was an accurate phrase to describe your stance I doubt we’d be having this debate. Want to try again, or should we stick with homophobe to describe those milder cases?
Fairly sure that magellan01 meant that “we all” think our own stance is rational, sane, objective and fair…
No, the question is “Are gays more likely to be paedophiles than straights?” The important issue is the likelihood of the person in authority wanting to abuse children in the first place, not whether he’s more likely to interfere with boys than girls.
No, neither would I think you prejudiced for being concerned if you knew your neighbour was a paedophile. However, you would be prejudiced if you think that he’s more likely to be a paedophile just because he’s gay, which is what the “scout leader” argument appears to be based on.
Quite right, and the point I was trying to make is that it’s ass-backwards to argue that most paedophiles are straight; more of everyone is straight, and the figures mentioned in a post above - that has 91% of paedos being straight - sounds fairly close to the percentage of the general population that’s straight in the first place. As I say, we need to know what proportion of the gay population interfere with children, compared to the proportion of the straight population that does so; then we can get around to arguing whether a randomly-selected gay person is more or less likely to be a hazard than a randomly-selected straight person.
Then we can get onto the subject of Scouts, who are generally post-pubescents and thus not what we’re talking of as victims of paedophilia. We shouldn’t be waving objections away with the doubly-foolish “Well, 91% of child-abusers are straight!” argument, but examining the statistics to see whether gays or straights are more likely to prey sexually on persons on the edge of sexual maturity. Again, I don’t know what the answer is and I have, when all’s said and done, much less predilection than some might think to believe that gays are necessarily the greater risk. It’s just that I’m fussy enough to want to argue over what question we ought to be asking.
And again, we need to know what proportion of gays molest young persons of Scouting age compared to what proportion of straights do so, and until we do, we’re just spinning our wheels.
A rational-but-wrong argument would be “Well, a gay person’s sexuality is ‘broken’ in the first place, so what more likely than that it should be ‘broken’ in another way as well? Seems to me like he might get off on anything except an adult female!”. There are, of course, any number of flaws in the argument, beginning with the dubious (not to say offensive) use of the word ‘broken’ in the first place. But the most logical objection is to say “Until we are in possession of the facts as to whether gays do or don’t have the greater predisposition to prey on children, it’s fatuous to ‘explain’ why they do :rolleyes:. So how about we get hold of the facts?”
Some-of-my-best-friends-are-black footnote: I have one or two gay friends. I have two small boys. I would happily leave them alone in each other’s company without the least qualm.
Footnote that occurred to me after posting: It’s possible that I don’t care even IF homos are, say, ten times as disposed to child-molesting as straights. If the figures show that my kid is safe with “only” 99% of queers as opposed to a whopping 99.9% of breeders, I’m happy to run with that 99%.
- nods *
I’m not really sure that the approach “A certain form of crime is more prevalant among members of a particular group, X is a member of this group, therefore X is more likely to commit this crime” is either logically valid or consistent with civil rights in general. In the USA, for example, murder rates are much higher among blacks than whites (statistics from the Department of Justice). Does this mean that a policy of (say) excluding blacks from the police, because a randomly-selected black man is more likely to be a murderer than a randomly-selected white man, is justified? And, even if such a policy could be justified, I think it would be still correct to describe it as racist.
On the scouting issue, the question should not be “Are gays more likely to commit sexual assaults? If so, we should ban them from being scout leaders.”, but “Is this particular man likely to commit a sexual assault? If so, he should be banned from being a scout leader.” His sexuality, of itself, shouldn’t be a factor in answering this question.
Another hypothetical. Would you be comfortable with leaving your sons in the company of someone who had convictions for sexually assaulting little girls? I hope not. My point is that, whatever the correlation between it and homosexuality may be, paedophilia, and paedophilia alone, should be the criterion for deciding this sort of thing.
Not really relevant to the original topic, but at least it shows that controversial issues can be subject to rational discussion. 
No, I wouldn’t agree. Do you think it would be reasonable and prudent not to have say, a heterosexual couple take a coed group of young kids on an overnight camping trip? What’s the risk difference? In our straight couple, presumably there’s a risk that Bob will molest the girls, and Mary will molest the boys, right?
Daniel
GAH!!!
:mad:
The hamsters ate my post!!
Briefly, Tevildo, statistical correlation, if it exists, indicates something that should be looked at, but in the interests of fairness we should be sensible with the statistics and also look for more reliable indicators. It is inadequate to say “Excluding blacks from the police force, simply because of a greater predisposition to murder, is racist and therefore evil”. It is better to say “Greater or not, the predisposition to murder is still very small, probably self-selected out by the individuals themselves showing a desire to be part of the law-enforcement system, and counterbalanced by the benefits of an integrated police force <list of benefits>”.
Similarly, if the figures do actually show that gays are more disposed to molest children than straights - and that the incidence is more than minuscule - then yes, that’s something to worry about, and calling it homophobic won’t help. But if we can say “We have a reliable predictor for child molestation, and the chance of anyone, gay or straight, not being picked up, is very small”, then we have a much better solution than the gross and crude statistical correlation. But if the stats are all we have, and are worrying enough by themselves, then we’re stuck with that until we have something better.
Of course I would be suspicious of a known child-molestor; and I would be nearly as suspicious of anyone else with an indecency conviction, and so on down the scale of decreasing risk. Somewhere down the scale, I start to worry about a homo - if he has a predilection for young (but legal-age) men - looking after adolescent males. He is not - as yet - doing anything wrong, but he might view a mature-looking fourteen-year-old as much more “eligible” than either the law or I would agree with. It seems to be near enough to his boundaries for me to be concerned, and I want some solid reassurance. It’s a lot less anxiety than I’d feel about a known sex-criminal looking after children, but it’s more than if he were, say, a nun in a wheelchair. Show me a more reliable predictor, one that will demonstrate with acceptable reliability that this man needn’t be a worry, and I’ll cheerfully polish his woggle for him. More: I’ll agree that it’s unjust that such a predictor isn’t being actively sought. But calling me a homophobe if I’m not 100% easy with it isn’t going to help.
“Briefly?” :rolleyes: I crack me up. We ought to let them have their thread back now, shouldn’t we?
You know, not only is that a good point, but I am rather ashamed for not including that in my cursory statistics break down. Keeping in mind that this is the result of about 5-10min of Google-fu, I may have to completely reverse my earlier position. It seems that there may be no statistical correlation once population averages are taken into account. To that, I apologize for earlier posting statisitics which may be misleading.
Since I don’t have the time to do a good survey, I will not post more stats one way or the other. Suffiice it to say, in my 5-10min additional review, I find that the correlation between sexual orientation and pedophilia to dissappear.
[S**** P****]I WIN!!![/S**** P****]
Let me rephrase: We all thiink think that our respective positions are “rational, sane, objective, and fair”.
Cite. That is not an arguement I’ve made anywhere.
Can you address my question–that is, would you consider it inappropriate for a straight couple (say, a married straight couple) to lead a camping trip with both young boys and young girls?
Daniel
Man. you’re really reaching here. And I think you’re playing semantic games with “couple”. Yes, your example is possible, therefore no children should ever be alone with any adults. 
The reality is that we want to prevent children from being in situations where the will be the most vulnerable to predators. That’s why sane parents don’t send kids on overnights to Neverland Ranch. That’s why we don’t send a bunch of adolescent girls on overnights with two male heterosexual men. It’s because the men are attracted to the girls. Similarly two women with a bunch of adolescent boys. Similarly two gay people with a group that they are attracted to. You’re trying to read bias into this and it is not there. Sorry.
Actually, I think you’re the one really reaching here. I’m not playing any semantic games at all with the word “couple” and I have no idea what games I would be playing with taht word. I don’t think that children can’t be alone with adults, but I think your reasons for not trusting two gay men with little boys are absurd, given that they apply equally to a straight man and a straight woman with little boys and girls.
Can you explain why the mixed-gender group isn’t in as much danger when they’re around the straight man and woman as the single-gender group is when they’re around two members of a group that may be attracted to them when they’re adults? Because I really can’t see any increased risk in the second situation. In both situations, we’ve got two adults who, if they’re normal, won’t be attracted to the children, and if they’re pedophiles, will be attracted to the children.
Daniel
??? Semper Pie? SimulPost? Success Party?
What is “[S**** P****]”?
Yes, but because pedophiles don’t care about the gender of their victims, segregating adults from children based on their sexual orientation doesn’t do anything to protect them. A pedophilic man is no safer with a group of girls than with a group of boys, regardless of wether he considers himself gay or straight in his adult relations.
It’s only a rational line if you’re ignorant of the nature of pedophilia. Considering the purpose of the Boy Scouts, there’s no excuse for them to be that ignorant about the subject.