DR COLUMNIST EQUATES GAY SOLDIERS WITH PEDOPHILES

By Kelvin Wade

No, this isn't my newspaper column. My paper would never print this. So it's going on my personal blog. I'm writing about a column a colleague wrote. One time I couldn't take it and I responded in my column to a column written by Bud Stevenson. Bud went crying to the powers that be at the paper and the memo came down that we weren't allowed to mention other columnists by name. It's insane because I used to write columns responding to the nonsense Stevenson wrote but I wouldn't use his name. What did he do then? He went to the higher ups and whined that I was writing about him but not mentioning his name! I kid you not.

Bud wrote a column called "Pedophilia may soon be big issue in the military." I wondered how that could be. As far as I knew children weren't allowed to join the military. No, it turns out that because of the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' Stevenson evidently believes gay soldiers will somehow molest children. He's afraid we'll end up with a big Penn State/ Syracuse / Tailhook scandal involving gay soldiers and children. Read the article for yourself here and then come back to my piece here.

What people like Stevenson fail to realize is that pedophilia is an attraction to children. Some pedophiles are attracted to males. Some to females. Some to both. The common denominator of their attraction is that they're attracted to children. Often abusers have no adult sexual orientation. Other times a man may be married to a woman but have sexual feelings for young boys. That doesn't make him a homosexual. It makes him a pedophile. This same perpetrator would balk at a sexual relationship with an adult man.

The Third National Incidence Study (NIS-3) of child maltreatment released by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect under the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services found that girls are three times more likely to be sexually abused as boys. Studies have shown that most abusers are male.

If, according to Stevenson's logic, an influx of gays is going to presumably increase male-male pedophilia then what about female children who are sexually abused by males? Wouldn't there already be a high level of male soldier to female child sexual abuse in the military if sexual orientation is what made one molest children?

We misunderstand the problem if when we look at situations like the Catholic Church's child sexual abuse scandal we mischaracterize the perpetrator priests as "homosexual." While we don't know a priest's adult sexual orientation, we do know they're satisfying a sexual need with what they have access to: young boys. Once again the attraction is to children. If priests were simply gay, they could find other gay priests or go to gay bars and find men to have sexual relations with.

This fear that homosexuals are more likely to molest children has been a baseless charge hurled at the gay community for years. A gay man no more wants to have sex with a little boy than a heterosexual man wants to have sex with a little girl. Since Bud Stevenson is married to a woman, I'll assume he's heterosexual. I'd like to ask Bud if he feels sexually attracted to little girls. Perhaps then he might see that the mere fact of being heterosexual doesn't cause one to be attracted to children. Maybe, even with his limited insight, he could see that merely being homosexual doesn't cause one to be attracted to children.

Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State coach accused of raping and sexually abusing young boys, displays many traits of a pedophile. Yet he is married to a woman. If he's guilty of the despicable crimes, it's not because he's a homosexual. It's because he's a pedophile who acted on those desires.

When we're talking about a crime as horrific child rape, why would we trivialize it by even thinking about sexual orientation? It doesn't matter if your heterosexual, homosexual, asexual, bisexual, transgendered or whatever. If you're raping children, you're a scumbag. To equate gays with pedophilia is one of the last vestiges of homophobia that needs purging.

It's wrong for Bud Stevenson to perpetuate this myth and I'm surprised the paper ran it. If a writer wanted to write a column spinning old anti-semitic myths and trashing Jews the paper would be flooded with so many letters to the editor and calls that the paper would probably sack that writer. And I'd be the first one writing about how hateful and out of line that writer was.

And don't give me that First Amendment line. Newspapers are a business and don't have to print anything they don't want to.

It's amazing that Bud's column comes out at the same time the highest ranking marine, General R F. Amos, who opposed the lifting of the don't ask, don't tell gay prohibition, announced that the troops have convinced him that the repeal was the right thing. He says he is "very pleased" at how well the lifting of the ban has gone.

If a man or woman is willing to wear the uniform, leave their families, endure all manner of hardships and risk their lives to ensure our way of life, how dare we disparage them just because of who they love? Stevenson wore the uniform in Vietnam. You'd think he'd get this.