Do you think you’d be equally uncomfortable about any other situation where your potential child might potentially be molested? Say, at day care, school, playground, doing sports, visiting friends or relatives… If yes, I’d say you’re likely to be an overprotective parent.
If you’re only worried about overnight visits, I’d say you suffer from lack of imagination. Evil deeds aren’t actually required to take place in the dead of night, you know.
If you’re only worried about scoutmasters, I’d say you suffer from scoutophobia.
desdinova’s link to the press release (and especially the resolution linked to in the release) talk equally about atheism and homosexuality as verbotten. I’m a cub scout leader and an atheist. We don’t talk about it, but I suspect noone in my scouting circles would have a problem knowing I am. I also suspect that if it were found out that one of the leaders in my circles was gay that there would be no problem.
Souting is an extremely loosely-coupled organization. Just as I’m sure there are units that are very religious, I’m sure that there are units that are anti-gay. Doesn’t mean all or even most are. Certainly none of the ones I know of or associate with are.
I suspect that there aren’t a high preponderance of gays as Scount leaders because the majority (almost all?) of the leaders are fathers of members.
There is a lot of stuff here I want to reply to, but I want to take this first, as it goes to the core of my position:
I remind you of my statement in the OP:
Please explain to me how you got the impression of “homosexual = child molester” from this. I single out Northern Piper here as representative, a number of other people, inexplicably, seem to have come to the same conclusion.
As to this:
In the first place, as to “the way pedophilia works”: what assertions are being made here? That pedophiles typically don’t care about the gender of the child they are molesting? Or, that labelling a male pedophile who only wishes to molest boys “gay”, or a male pedophile that only wishes to molest girls “straight” (or for that matter, one that molests both “bisexual”) is incorrect?
Perhaps it is incorrect, but there seems to be an underlying assumption here that pedophilia as a sexual orientation is strictly binary, ie that you’re either a pedophile or you’re not, there is no fuzzy boundary. By way of analogy: people who are attracted only to members of the opposite sex we label “straight”, and people who are attracted only to members of the same sex we label “gay”. But we know that there are some people who are attracted to both genders, for whom we use the term “bisexual”.
So, people who are attracted only to young children we label “pedophile”, and people who are attracted only to adults we label…ummm…“normal”, I guess. Are there any people who are attracted to both? If so, is there no relationship between what adults they are attracted to, and what children? I ask, in all honesty, because I don’t know. Can someone enlighten me?
In the second place however, and much more importantly, I think it is quite problematic to label the sexual molestation of a twelve year old as “pedophilia” to begin with. It varies from individual to individual of course, but secondary sexual characteristics have quite often begun to set in by that age. I think if we were going to use a technical term here it would be ephebophilia, about which I know even less than pedophilia. But, if it would help to clarify matters, we can adjust the age in the OP upwards to 13, 14, or even 15. Hell, I’m a 33 year old male, and I imagine I could be attracted to a 15 year old girl. I wouldn’t act on it, but neither would I consider myself a freak of nature.
As a straight male, I’m extraordinary insulted that you would immediately think of me as a potential child molester. I hope you’ll explain your reasoning.
Using a man’s marital or parental status as an indication that he is not gay, is a mistake. In my fairly small circle of friends and acquaintances*, quite a few, who are currently married (or have been married) profess to be gay. Many of these are parents.
Even more are bisexual to a lesser or greater extent.
Bob
*I am gay myself so that I know far more gays and bisexuals than straights and I’m not trying to make any assumuptions about the general population.
Yes, it is. Pedophiles don’t belong to the subset of gay guys or straight guys. Or to put it another way, a guy who you know is gay is no more likely a pedophile than a guy you know is straight.
Funny, I wrote a comment about this in my post, then erased it for whatever reason. I have two sets of friends with children who are gay (all 4 lesbians, so not a perfect fit for this discussion, such as it is), and I do realize that plenty of gay people have kids, either in gay relationships or in straight ones. However, statistically, I think it’s fair to assume that the vast majority of parents in straight marriages are straight.
As I say, Scouting is an extremely loosely coupled organization. Noone in the Scouting that I know has any problems with gay people. As far as I’m concerned there is no gay issue in Scouting. I’m sure it’s different elsewhere, but that’s what it is in my world.
Further, the Scouting I know builds boys with good, decent morals and values that includes inclusiveness (though not specifically sexuality inclusiveness). For example, in my den of 13 boys, only 3 of them (including my son) are white.
I gotta ask, just out of curiousity, cite? About the married part I mean, or are you just playing the percentages? Also, why would an “ostensibly hetereosexual man” be interested sexually in a 12 year old boy? Wouldn’t this statement be true only if the minor in question were a girl or the offender were true pederast(sexually oriented toward prepubescents?)
