Teaching kids that Uncle Fred might be a pedophile is "unprincipled?"

High Ideals and No Principles by Thomas Sowell on National Review Online: "What is called “sex education,” whether for kindergartners or older children, is not education about biology but indoctrination in values that go against the traditional values that children learn in their families and in their communities."

Were that true, it would be a damning allegation. It's a shame that the once respectable NRO seems to have abandoned the principle of basing opinions upon facts presented honestly in the light of respectable and honorable Conservative perspective.

Here's what Obama was actually suggesting:

When Obama's campaign was asked by ABC News to explain what kind of sex education Obama considers "age appropriate" for kindergartners, the Obama campaign pointed to an Oct. 6, 2004 story from the Daily Herald in which Obama had "moved to clarify" in his Senate campaign that he "does not support teaching explicit sex education to children in kindergarten. . . The legislation in question was a state Senate measure last year that aimed to update Illinois' sex education standards with 'medically accurate' information . . . 'Nobody's suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,' Obama said. 'If they ask a teacher 'where do babies come from,' that providing information that the fact is that it's not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that's going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.'"

In addition to local schools informing kindergartners that babies do not come from the stork, the state legislation Obama supported in Illinois, which contained an "opt out" provision for parents, also envisioned teaching kindergarteners about "inappropriate touching," according to Obama's presidential campaign. Despite Obama's support, the legislation was not enacted.

So, I'm forced to wonder aloud - as I have, all to often when these memes come up - as to how such harmless and frankly needful information could be considered destructive and harmful to families?

Could it be the "inappropriate touching" part?

Look - I know how utterly snide and insulting that sounds. But I'm not saying it in order to score political points or shoot across the bow of anyone's "Culture War" gunboat. This observation comes out of almost two decades of involvement in abuse and survivor's issues. Bluntly, I'm the product of something that (though my specific memories are unreliable) would, both by the patterns of cracks in my psyche, point toward something for which the term "inappropriate touching" would be an understatement of truly mythic proportions.

And of the people I know who's shatter patterns resemble mine, it's almost a cliche' to observe that the shattering occurs within a family context that justifies it's abuse via authoritarian belief structures, generally with some religious trappings.

I can count on the fingers of one thumb the number of polyfragmented, traumatized, dissociated and disordered multiple personalities that did not have such a background, absent something like autism or a particularly hidious scholastic enviroment. Lucky me, I hit the trifecta and despite my inherent conservative biases, it's real hard to ignore such compelling evidence without engaging in levels of denial that are truely and literally insane.

Further, my wife was a special educator for twenty years and has a parallel observation - that in her suburban schools, it would be common for two to three children to disclose (out of classes of 25 to 30) some form of abuse whenever the issue was brought up - often through a reading assignment. Oddly enough, such books are very high on the list of books conservative and religious groups would like to see banned.

As a person who's dedicated much of his adult life to figuring out how things can go so badly wrong within the confines of family and church; institutions that both claim the right, duty and ability to shape children so that they "do right," I have come to the conclusion that our national fetish for preserving "innocence" of children is, sadly, just that.

A fetish.

And whether or not that fetish is personally sexual in any particular person, all persons that buy into and support it add to the cover it grants to Republican Pedophiles.

It seems that the authoritarian conservatives - and far too often, the religous authoritarian conservatives - are easily seduced by the idea of proving their power to themselves and to others by sexually exploiting those with less power, while sexually disenfranchising all those who are not in power. In the most brutal and literal sense, the Authoritarian sees power and sexual abuse - rape, to not put too fine a point on it - as being both the expression, the reward and the natural right of the alpha male.

Now, this understanding is cloaked in culture and shrouded in denial, to the point where conservatives may think that they are being completely honest in making what they think as principled objections to what they see as interference in family matters, and the right to determine what sort of information regarding sexuality is appropriate to their children.

But I see nothing in what Sen. Obama was advocating that would actually be a threat to that - assuming the matters were handled appropriately. And meanwhile, the "abstanance only" movement is more than willing to trade in misinformation and outright lies about the consequences of premarital sex, contraception and abortion.

So if this is a principled position, it's a principle that admits that it's ok to decieve "for the greater good," to bear false witness, to install toxic fear and shame as an acceptable price for the prevention of "sinful behavior."

Having spent far too many years hip deep in the consequences of such stupitdity, both personally and in support of the weeping consequences of being forced to face the price and consequences of surviving their childhoods in abusive and almost universally religous conservataive families, I call bullshit.

And Thomas Sowell is either bullshitting himself or trying to bullshit you. Either way, it's another reason to vote for someone with a realistic view toward the costs and benefits of early information and age-approprate education about maintaining appropriate sexual boundries, both in and out of one's own family.

Child-Internet-Safety-Software and other false comforts.

"Do you have child internet safety software on your computer? If you do, just what are you thinking?"

Back in the day, when I ran what many would call a "porn site," I refused on principle to put up links to net-nanny, cyber-sitter and other such spyware. Why? I checked them out. Net-nanny was set up to censor "Liberal" links, such as the National Organization of Women, not just "adult material." My notice was "protected by the human brain" and instead of "Adult Material," I labeled it as being "for grownups." I'm going to check these folks out. I smell a far more substantial story.

(Later)... no. Simply a variation of the old "Internet, Threat or Menace" idea, with some good ideas that are essentially aimed at making parental panic responses more effective and to suggest (accurately) that if one is paranoid about one's kid's safety, reliance on such tools is a foolish delusion.

Our resources will help you to stop the criminals. We’ll show you how to thwart sexual predators cold in their tracks. We can also help you stay in front of the problem. And, the problem cannot be overstated. According to a study released in 2002 by the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrown-away Children (NISMART II), an estimated 6 children per hour are abducted by a non-family member. In approximately 50% of these cases, the children are sexually assaulted. By the time children are 18, the surveys indicate that as many as one in eight boys and one in five girls will have been sexually abused.

This makes every child a potential target for sexual predators. This could make your child an unwitting target, too. Don’t let that happen!

Sexual predators are on our streets, in our neighborhoods and at our schools. Not only are they there, they are an ever growing danger on the Internet.

Be prepared and take charge of you child’s safety. Take ACTION!

Ok, like all the best "call to action" types of appeals, these assertions are at least somewhat true - although the data of surveys about sexual abuse percentages have been called into question.

You see, it really helps the statistics if you count all sexual encounters before the age of 18 regardless of consent and regardless of who initiated what. I'm not saying that this added pile is not a problem - but it's quite a different problem. Actually, it's several different issues, each one requiring it's own specific response. It's distinctly useless to treat them all as the same "crime," inasmuch as that any reasonable assessment causes one to put the quotes around the term, for clearly, in many particular cases, that is an arbitrary distinction.

And that's damn dangerous, because there are other things in the same pile that are treated as being the exact same crime that are inarguably criminal. Expanding the pile to include things that are criminal only because they offend taboos rather than cause provable harm trivializes the actual harm done by real criminals and gains them apologists.

Years and years ago, as I was trying to make sense of that pile of festering crap I laughingly refer to as my "childhood," I took a side trip into trying to comprehend pedophelia and sexual predation. I read both sides of the issue. I have to say, honestly, that it's hard to tell exactly which perspective is more delusional, but one statistic - presented by the "hang 'em high" crowd - struck me hard enough to leave a permanent mark.

I found a citation that restated it with higher numbers and in even more alarming terms:

The second classification of sexual offender is defined as a preferential child molester. These offenders have a sexual preference for children and usually maintain these desires throughout their lives. Preferential child molesters can have an astounding number of victims and these crimes can remain undiscovered for many years. In 1995, a child molestation case in Texas caused a national uproar when the suspect was due to be released from prison after serving a six-year sentence for the rape of a 6year-old boy. He told the police that he got away with abusing over 240 children before getting caught for molesting a single child and if released, would do it again⁽⁴⁾. One long-term study of hundreds of sex offenders found that the pedophile child molester committed an average of 281 acts with 150 partners.

For the moment, let us take the sexual aspect out of it. Indeed, let us take the underage aspect out of it, and remember that in order to have a sexual encounter, first there must be a relationship and trust, because that is how this particular sort of person operates - by non-violent seduction.

You might think that would be easier with someone underage - and if we are speaking of those under the age of, oh, say, six, that may well be true. Nonetheless, that is a relative statement.

I've been involved in the raising of children, and it would be foolish indeed for anyone to think that a trusting relationship with a child is something that can be assumed.

So, let us look at it from the perspective of sheer numbers. 150 partners. On average. In the particular case cited, 240, before a misstep or mistake that caused discovery. Let us assume that this was in fact due to the "victim" feeling they had been factually abused.

I wonder just how many ordinary heterosexuals who are sexually attracted to persons within their own age cohort could manage a statistic better than one out of three.

So, let us put aside for the moment what the pedophile is doing wrong. Take that as a given - especially since the particular person was self-aware enough to inform society that he could not be trusted and would offend again. A person, obviously, of genuine conscience and who obviously must care for children, a trait that is obviously key to their better-than-average statistics and who is aware that their nature is absolute conflict with an outcome they must strongly believe in. Consider that genuine criminals tend to lie to the parole board about such matters.

In order to achieve a sexual goal, he had to do a tremendous lot of right in order to even get into talking distance of "wrong." I don't want him running around loose - but I do damn well want him available as a resource. I want him to be able to expiate his sins, if you will, by telling us what he did to make children feel cared for and loved. Because, folks, that is what it takes, not just to exploit a child, but to raise a child so that they become solid and sane members of society. And in that regard, a child is harder to delude than many adults.

The implication that certain pedophiles may well be making a net contribution to society is not to be taken as approval. The fact that parasites infect the body politic, and that more successful parasites are to a degree benign or somewhat commensal is immaterial.

The parasite is not the problem. Indeed, it's pointless to even BLAME the parasite. The problem is that there is a niche that a parasite can adapt themselves to fit. To the extent that they fill that niche by doing something that the family or culture cannot or will not do, than the net ethical equation is that the parasite is being permitted to exist as an alternate to society or family dealing with it's issues. You see, if you blame the parasite for exploiting a niche that actually needs to be filled in order for family or society to function - the net result will simply be a succession of successfully better adapted tapeworms who are more successful at controlling the family or the social matrix toward the end of maintaining their comfortable existence.

As would you, I might add.

Now, let me refer to a few things that I learned along the way, both from offenders and survivors. And let me underline something - this sort of person is the sort that many survivors refer to as "their favorite perp.¹"



Indeed, and this is a wildly conditional statement, made up of a number of different inputs, but, that particular "perp" was the one that definitely made a difference toward the positive in their survival.

Tragically, many children and indeed, many adults these days, are so conditioned that they cannot actually trust a relationship unless they are exploited to a degree that permits them to believe they are of a minimum absolute value to another person. That is to see, they see themselves as being primarily sexual objects as the foundation of their entire self-worth.

In this context, a "good perp" is one who made contributions to a level of self-worth beyond sexual availability.

But it could be worse. At least they have the minimum self-worth required in order to survive and perhaps grow. Those who's self-worth is crushed usually find some awkward and messy way to die, often taking others with them.

There are many personal profiles on Yahoo and other services that would underline this with used brainfloss, but aside from being NSFW, I feel it's my job to floss my brain so you don't have to. :P

Let me put this as bluntly as I can. I'm afraid that in a certain dark and tragic way, those survivors who were victimized in this particular way by the sort of person we are speaking of were lucky.

Which leads me back to the selection criteria of such pedophiles. Getting into the head of a pedophile requires that you read their verbal dribblings, and I did just enough of it to feel a genuine sad caring for the poor bastards - while simultaneously wishing to scrub myself with bleach. But at some level, I had to admit that there was an extent to which that reaction was the result of considering and listening to soemething that violated one of the strongest social taboos we have. Well, actually, it's several, but let us not overly complexity this.

The bottom line is that the majority of molesters were molested themselves in ways that arrested their own personal development, and there is very likely a further required inherent sexual orientation required to overcome common-sense aversion to risking everything for satisfactions that could be had safely and cheaply in other ways, if those were in any way at all acceptable.

They cannot be cured, any more than you can "cure" a homosexual. But as I said, it's obviously a complex of predisposition and experience. The experience itself is something that IS within our ability to control, to preclude if possible, and if not entirely possible, it's certainly possible to create an ethical context in which the child will grow into a person who will not damage other persons regardless of their own missteps.

Sexual predators are no different than any other sort of predator. Ultimately, successful predators exploit weakness, opportunity and the ignorance of their victims. Ask any rabbit that reaches adulthood how that works.

The fact that so much predation exists and the consequences so widespread among the population should of course alarm and concern us, but not in the ways we are told we should be concerned and alarmed by the ramshackle taboo system we laughingly refer to as "western morality."

You see, a moral system - in order to work at all - is first ethical, and based on real information about real persons, not dogmatic presumptions about human sexuality that are not just presumably, but provably untrue.

It should fairly easy and reasonable to follow a well-designed moral code and the benefits for doing so should be obvious to both the practitioner and all who see. It should definitely NOT be in conflict with the existing social matrix or require certain false-to-fact assumptions in order for it to function, since if it's advice is otherwise worth following, it can be completely disrupted by a follower learning that a basic foundation of it is provably untrue.

Trust me, this can lead to the Uncharted Swamps of Suck. The pun is intended - but not as the primary message. That is to say, not only does the result suck - but as the joke goes, not particularly WELL, either.

Most importantly, in order to be effectively protected from a predator, one must know what a predator looks like, what they smell like, their likely strategies and tactics and what techniques one can use to avoid being prey. There is absolutely no way to achieve this end while at the same time requiring that the "prey" be kept ignorant of the very existence of wolves.

Indeed, it's rather obvious to me that our current assumptions about the appropriateness of speaking about, much less teaching appropriate sexuality is so much to the advantage of sexual predators that it's wise to assume that any advice that relies upon conventional morality and assumptions of the workability of "Traditional Family Values" is questionable at best, almost certainly dangerously irrelevant to actual situations, and - frankly - designed and spread with exactly that in mind. It will work for some; perhaps many - but it will predictably create, isolate and make vulnerable enough victims to keep the predators fed, while keeping the vast majority ignorant of the true nature of the problem.

I believe that to be a problem that must be addressed. I'd underline this with strong language, but frankly, I cannot think of language strong enough. Suffice it to say that when "moral" conduct leads directly and predictably to the lifelong harm and misery of a large segment of the population, the word for it is not "Morality." "Evil" is a much more appropriate word... though again, not nearly strong enough from the perspective of myself and others who have been considered to be the disposable price of a proper sense of vigilant propriety.

That morality has an underlying foundation of fear and hatred and in order to function at all, requires it's adherents to become numb to the consequences on actual persons of applying and enforcing broad, rigid, authoritarian principles. All persons who are unable to function within it's narrow strictures are defined as disposable, while those capable of adhering to it's appearances while exploiting those within or without are not even identified as problematic. Morality, in these United States, has become almost entirely an exercise in visible propriety that need have no genuine meaning beyond "not getting caught."

One should not ask, "how did Ted Haggard get away with it so long?" The question is, how could such a person, who's very taste in church art, rhetoric, teachings and mannerisms should have been ringing alarm bells among the discerning have actually passed the first interview, or even graduated from divinity school, should he actually have any such training.

My personal opinion is that there is no longer any place for persons of discernment and conscious, deliberate ethical concern in either church or politics anywhere east of Center, and has not been for some long time.

The fact that the powerful among church and state have clearly ordered things to allow them to indulge the vile habits in private that they condemn in public to be more than enough reason to personally implement a change. Alas, the usual reaction is to deny in the face of manifold and obvious horrors that any such thing could possibly be true.

Yes, I do mean you. Stop expecting other people to live up to standards you expect on your behalf. Set high standards for yourself, live up to them, and set a good example - or, frankly, you are damned.

To quote Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," "Why, this IS hell, nor am I out of it."

1 - I'm choosing to be a complete and utter bastard and make you search through Ghostwolf's story to find the precise reference. Frankly, the reference won't make a whole hell of a lot of sense until you get a sense of the alternatives.

You will be tempted to say "that couldn't happen today." Yes it does. Check Google News "Child Sexual Abuse" and note the dates.

You will be tempted to say "It couldn't happen in my town." If your town has more than ten thousand, it certainly does - and there are probably several instances on record. Ask a social worker. Be prepared to buy them a drink, though and offer a shoulder. NOBODY gets paid enough to deal with this crap.

The friend of my enemy is my... friend?

There's a famous unattributed quotation from WWII, alleged to be uttered by a Peer of the Realm: "This Hitler fellow makes it impossible for a gentleman to be an Anti-Semite."

That quotation leaped to mind as I read the reactions of socially-conservative voters to the news of San Diego's Mayor Jerry Sanders' tearful reversal of his stance on Gay Marriage.

He began by explaining his refusal to veto the council's decision, saying his beliefs had “evolved significantly” since 2005, when he established his stance on civil unions during his first mayoral campaign.

In the time since, he said he realized he could not accept “the concept of a separate-but-equal institution.” Because of that, he continued, he was unwilling to send the message to anyone that “they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.”

The mayor, now crying openly, noted that he has close family members and friends in the gay and lesbian community, including staff members and “my daughter Lisa.”

“In the end, I couldn't look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana,” said Sanders, who quickly thanked reporters and dashed from the room.

Now, as an Aspie/autistic, I have the unusual tendancy to take statements such as this at face value. I even take the emotional context at face value. If an issue causes a bluff old conservative police chief to break down in tears over what he plainly states to be a crisis of concience, I'm inclined to take him at his word, and indulge in the delusional procedure of supposed mind-reading about his "real" motivations.

But the comments on this article reveal that that is one of the most common - and possibly least offensive - assumptions made about him and the "gay agenda" he has "betrayed" the people in "condoning."



But the overwhelming majority of the outrage reveals a depth of hatred, bigotry and ignorance about law, constitution, spelling, grammar, logical construction, evidence, rational argument, ethics, reason and most especially the Bible that I suspect that the supporters for his former stance were as persuasive to him as those he'd been arguing against.

Here is one such argument, actually, one of the more articulate ones; penned by one "Faithful on 09/20/2007 at 8:51 a.m.

"I don't know where, in our constitution, it says marriage is a "right".

The fact that you do not know something does not mean that that which you are ignorant of does not therefore exist.

US Constitution, Bill of Rights:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Faithful continues:

I highly doubt that the Founding Fathers were thinking about queer relationships when they penned it. That said, the same argument goes for heterosexual marriage. It is a privilege granted by the State.

More precisely, it is a right arrogated by the states; originally to deal with the "Plague" of interracial marriage. That's why "marriage licenses" were first issued by various States.

Then, of course, the advantage of it from revenue and record-keeping standpoints became obvious to cash-strapped states. But Constitutionally speaking, there's no argument that any form of permission for civil marriage is or should be required. Whether or not there is a compelling state interest in regulating marriage, much less giving substantial advantages to married people is a separate argument, but if such advantages do exist than the equal protection clause states that it should be given and withheld without arbitrary distinctions between persons over matters irrelevant to the goals of the state, or for goals that would be unconstitutional if they were admitted aloud.

In fact, the "granting of privilege" was one of the great issues for our founders and one thing they did their best to eradicate from and forbid to government. One expression of said intent was the so called "Equal Protection Clause -" which to paraphrase, states that all laws must apply equally to all, or be judged unconstitutional.

The term "marriage" is derived from the scramental institutution promoted by Judeo/Christian (and others) religion. I suppose one way to resolve the whole thing is for the State to quit calling it "marriage" and calling it "civil union" available to both heteros and homos, with only the individual religions permitting (or not) the sacramental term, marriage.

Putting the hilarity of an argument based on the authoritative nature of English word derivation aside, so what? If anything, that is a persuasive argument, given the Constitutional protection of religious practices, to stay out of the matter entirely. In fact, legal recognition for marriage comes out of English Common Law, which addressed the rights and responsibilities of those who chose to live together "without benefit of clergy."

This is a simple issue of citizenship, inheritances and transmission of rights, privileges and duties, when said matters had not already been defined by church records.

Would this make gays happy? Probably not, because it is the word "marriage" that they want applied to them. They also want to force religion to accept their unions as godly and "normal". They want homosexuality promoted in the schools as "normal" and "healthy" and have succeeded to a great degree in the public school system. They have plans to extend this "education" to the private education system. This is what I object to.

As the Mayor stated, any "separate but equal" solution has a particular stench of inequality to it in our culture.
By contrast, you want their relationships portrayed as "abnormal" and "unhealthy," and have up until now succeeded in that goal to a great degree in the public school system.

Personally, having for no other reason other than my appearance and personality been identified by my peers as "gay" in grade school, I think teaching acceptance of differences to be a good thing, and the rejection of persecution of others for transparently false religious rationalizations to be also a good thing.

So yes, there is a gay lobby. And no, one isn't a bigot because one doesn't accept homosexuality as "normal" and "healthy".

No, one could merely be totally ignorant and willfully misinformed. But the venom in your tone strongly suggests bigotry, as well as a suspicious fixation upon the sexual practices of others that could be reasonably presumed to represent either repression or envy of the "sexual license" and "immoral lifestyle" you clearly presume all homosexual people practice. I presume neither, since I care nothing about why you would choose to act so intolerably toward others. I don't need to hear your excuses for evil thoughts and evil deeds, whatever they are, they will be neither original nor enlightening.

I've known a lot of Gay people - because gay people do accept differences, and so it's always been my practice to hang with the lesbigay crowd even though I prefer sex heterosexual style from an aesthetic perspective and in the "missionary position" for the sake of my dignity and my sadly defective joints.

To quote one strong advocate of what you would call the "gay agenda," "Don't call me a gay activist. I don't get laid that often." This is not a "gay" issue. It's a human rights issue on the most basic level - and you are presuming the "majority right" to decide who gets to be "human."

I assert the first and second amendment rights to contest the idiocies of the majority, with as much force as is needed to penetrate their skulls with a useful degree of enlightenment.

The fact is, the majority of gay people have as good moral character as any heterosexual; actually, they tend to have a better grasp of right and wrong. Being exposed on a regular basis to the evil of stark, evident hatred and persecution will tend to clarify your values big time.

"That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others."

Clearly, you find the "homosexual agenda" hateful... but yet you are perfectly comfortable forcing the "Right Wing Socially-Conservative Cultural Christian" agenda upon everyone. Furthermore, you claim a religious right to express this through force - state violence and even occasionally the justification of individual violence against gays and all sorts of other people you find "freaky" and "abnormal."

Me, for example. There are entire institutions devoted to eradicating the entire autistic spectrum, pre-birth, with no other justification than a parent's "right" to have a "normal" child. But we shall save the rest of this related rant about xenophobia for another day. Today, we are speaking of specific sins, not the more mental, moral and social failures our currently dominant social class are beset with.

In order to say that a certain behavior or attraction is "unnatural," you are absolutely stating that it doesn't occur outside of an artificial context, never occurs in nature, only occurs within the human species and as a result of deliberate, willful choice AFTER exposure to the behavior.

Provably and totally, the above assumptions are false. Homosexual preference occurs in many species, does occur outside of our society, in all cultures everywhere, regardless of social approval or moral stricture. It's recorded in history as far back as history occurs, both with and without exposure to "influence." And as far as we can tell, it was no MORE prevalent in societies that held it to be a virtue than in cultures that held it to be a vice. All it did was change who got to strut publicly.

Frankly, we are born attached to the parts that primarily influence us. All sexual morality and most reasoning is rationalization and regulation after the fact, in order to keep those parts from leading to do foolish, dangerous and evil things. I don't know about you, but in my experience, it is far, far more dangerous to pretend to be what I am not and try to apply moral standards which have no direct application to me or my needs, than to admit what I am and then try to act ethically towards others based in a sound and honest appreciation of what moral and ethical pitfalls exist for me.

I've found it quite dangerous to my safety, my mental health and my good self-opinion to pay much attention to what others think of as the "most important sins." I'm not particularly vulnerable to sexual temptation - I can wade through porn for days on end, with the greatest risk being either nausea or uncontrollable laughter. But I am daily beset by the temptation of arrogance. While self-righteousness is not my particular pitfall, it's a related failing, and clearly, that's your issue. It is also a sin your religious faith directly encourages you to indulge in the face of everything Jesus had to say about that particular vexation.

The bottom line is this: "Sin" is not about what other people do. It's about what YOU do to other people. By the tenants of your OWN faith, you will not be judged on what you prevented others from doing, or what you forced them to do, you will be judged on that which you did to others, and your rationalizations will not matter. For emphasis on the futility of human rationalizations, consult any dour Presbyterian you know.

As your religion clearly has not helped you identify and cope with your particular tendency toward the evil of self-righteousness, may I suggest your efforts might be better employed in finding a religion that emphasizes personal humility a bit more?

I'd also gently suggest that the besetting sin of Self-Righteousness is an even greater threat to Christianity itself, but that, my dear Faithful, is YOUR problem.

I've always felt that the question of what faith I have should come up in the context of "what is it you believe, to lead you to act as you do?"

Now, in your case, Faithful, that answer does not reflect well upon either Christianity - or your discernment of it's essential teachings.

Selah.

tag: constitution, San Diego, Mayor, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Family Values, patriarchy, evolutionary biology, Religious Fundimentalism, Clash of Cultures, Conservatism, Christianists, religious persecution, defamation, liberty, California, critical thinking, ignorance, evil, Bizarre Sex Habits, Sexual Sins, Sublimation, Right-Wing Hypocrites, Individual Rights, Individual Liberty, Freedom of Choice, church-state, moralism, abuse of power, bullying, prejudice, christian fanatics, dominionists, theocracy, sexuality, public policy, Religious Ethics, Social Obligations, Smear Tactics, Right-Wing Propaganda, Religious Intolerance, Hate Speech., fundimendalism, oppression, Freudian References, Paranoid Fantasies, Right Wing Talk, blogmockery, Ridicule, ethics of government, Gay Marriage, gay agenda, gay rights

Is your idea of "childhood" in the best interest of your child?

Lucia Reed was only seven when she started her period

Girls entering puberty by the age of six - but are drugs the answer? | the Daily Mail Annotated

Doctors are increasingly worried about the number of girls - and boys - being referred to specialists because of this phenomenon of 'precocious' puberty.

The normal age at which puberty starts in both boys and girls has dropped by about two years since the 19th century, to 14 for boys and 12 for girls. This is largely due to improved nutrition - onset of puberty is believed to be triggered by physical size. Another theory is that the epidemic of obesity is to blame.

But modern social conditions may also be a contributory factor. Research suggests that children from broken homes experience earlier puberty. The stress of family breakdown apparently alters the balance of growth hormones and other chemicals in the body, speeding up a child's physical development.

Absent fathers may be another cause. American researchers have found that biological fathers send out chemical signals that inhibit their daughters' sexual maturity. Girls whose fathers had left home started their periods earlier.

Early puberty has even been linked to watching too much television. A few years ago, Italian scientists found that children who watched three hours a day produced less of the sleep hormone melatonin - low levels of the hormone play an important role in the timing of puberty.

But perhaps more worrying is the theory that it's exposure to environmental chemicals which is causing the drop in the age of puberty. These chemicals mimic the effect of hormones, disrupting the normal timing of sexual maturing.

Whatever the cause, this is another example of reality colliding with our treasured ideas of The Way Things Should Be, and as usual, before admitting defeat - indeed, before even admitting a real conflict exists - every alternative is tried. But when people are actually suggesting that children should be given powerful chemotherapy drugs to suppress puberty and "prolong childhood's innocence," I have to be blunt; that is totally depraved.

This wave of early puberty is troubling and very challenging to parents who are unready to think of their daughters and sons as unavoidably sexual beings. Heck, far too many parents are unable to confront this reality at sixteen, seventeen or even 25. But from an ethical and common sense point of view, such willful stupidity is both irrational and abusive. At some point we have to stop being squeamish and ashamed of perfectly ordinary body functions that, if properly explained, are no more problematic than any others.

I've blogged extensively about sexual ethics, sexual morality, sexuality and of course, one of the most contentious patches of ground in the Culture Wars, Sex Ed.

The reason I do this is simple. Morals are supposed to keep people from doing harm to one another, and to keep them from making obvious and predictable mistakes. Well, I've been aware from before my own puberty that current western shame and guilt-based sexual morality achieved neither goal with any predictablity. Indeed, it seemed to me that the actual function of both Prodestant Shame and Catholic Guilt was, paradoxicly, to encourage sexual sins in order for people to feel ashamed enough or guilty enough to attend otherwise spiritually pointless churches.

Yeah, I was an opinionated little kid. And at 49, that particular opinion has gone from a suspicion to a well-polished working premise. More importantly, as a person on the autistic spectrum, I simply do not perceive the very many unspoken emotional and social cues that allow most people to stay out of trouble most of the time without any actual, solid moral or ethical code.

Not true for me. I need things spelled out for me, and I need to understand why I should do this and avoid that. Well, when you require those explanations - or go looking for them after having very bad experiences with parents who have no better idea than you, and resent having it pointed out, you will find that the actual reasons are often obsolete, based on offensive premises, such as the inability of men to control their "urges" or the ownership of females as chattel property. Being raised as an Episcopalian, I assumed that sexual morality would be clearly explained in the Bible.

Oh, so not true! The more you study about Biblical sexual ethics, the less there is that is relevant to our culture. Most of it turns out to be discussing something else entirely. The "Sin of Sodom" is, quite provably, the sin of refusing proper hospitality to strangers. That was clear to me from the King James at 14. It took a while to find scholars that agreed with my reading, but now it's considered entirely orthodox, at least within moderate and Liberal churches.

However, the problem with finding that your morals and ethics are based on nothing but the prejudices and taboos of your forebears, of no more moral force other than what bigots and fools will do if they catch you is not all that useful. Because amoral behavior WILL lead you into situations you will very much regret, whether or not there IS any moral code that covers the situation. Because of my own mental differences, I need a robust and sensible system of ethics that can be applied to any situation I'm likely to find myself in, no matter how challenging, exceptional or bizarre.

And boy howdy, THIS is exactly such a situation!

Here we have girls and boys becoming sexual FAR before our cultural customs allow for, and no amount of finger-wagging will keep all of them from playing with such urgently swollen toys. It's important to remember that most of our cultural norms about first sexual activity and the age of marriage came when puberty and fertility could be expected to happen a year or so AFTER marriage!

That worked rather well. Unfortunately, this has not been true for centuries, due to all sorts of changes that are at best poorly understood. But the fact that we do not understand why this is happening does not excuse us from dealing sensitively, ethically and humanely with the ever-changing ethical challenges faced by our children in the absence of any useful or relevant guidance.

Our schools are filling up with 9 - to - 11 year olds who are physically capable of making babies but with no informational or social context that views that as anything other than A Fate Worse Than Death That You Must Not Ever Speak About.

This sort of "moral inhibition" does not prevent "sin" - on the contrary, it tends to make the worst possible outcomes more likely, and to artificially inflate those consequences beyond the natural, consequential harm. In other words, western sexual morality is the direct cause of significant, sometimes fatal harm to real people.

I can find no excuse for that and am quite willing to state authoritatively that, all of Paul and Augustine to the contrary, there can be no such excuse. Direct, predicable harm as a result of circumstances that may or may not be truly avoidable is obviously far more of an immediate concern than any theoretical, faith-based consequence imposed by some petulant Sky God.

Any system of morality that requires you to choose between obeying your faith and keeping yourself, your child or indeed, anyone else out of harm's way is, in my studied Autistic and Anglican opinion, a faith you are ethically obligated to reject. And of course, when it requires you sacrifice the children of other people on the altar of ideology and political ambition - well, my ethics tell me that you have willfully become too dangerously insane to tolerate within the boundaries of civilization. As for your faith - well, as a thinking person with deep roots in Christan thought and scripture - my thought would be that, willingly or ignorantly, your faith is placed on that OTHER guy.

tag: morality, ethics, sexuality, childhood, early puberty, relgious morality,