NAMBLA Responds to KRON-TV Witch-hunt
John David White
In response to the recent attack by KRON-TV and the San Francisco police,
NAMBLA posts the following:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Saturday, January 4, 1992 a KRON-TV cameraperson and reporter
forced their way into a local meeting of the North American Man/Boy Love
Association at the Potrero Hill Public Library in San Francisco.
In addition, KRON equipped one Michael Echols with a hidden camera to
record the meeting and attempt to involve the group in a potentially
illegal activity, the production of a calendar featuring boy nudes.
Nine days later, KRON-TV began a series of broadcasts designed to
incite public hysteria over NAMBLAs meeting in the library, something
NAMBLA had been doing with the consent of the library for two years.
Although there were never any allegations of criminal activity, KRON
used the presence of children in the building to promote fear and panic.
KRON then attacked the San Francisco Library Commission for its
defense of NAMBLAs First Amendment right to use the library, like any
other community group. Later, the TV station criticized the phone company
for listing NAMBLA in the phone directory, and gay bookstores were
attacked for selling NAMBLA publications.
Through all of this, NAMBLA has merely been attempting to exercise its
constitutional rights of free speech and assembly.
This is a campaign of hysteria using rhetoric against sexual abuse
which NAMBLA condemns to justify repression and censorship, says Nick
Palmer, NAMBLAs San Francisco spokesperson. It was no accident that
neo-Nazi skinheads picketed us and our supporters at our press conference
January 20th on the steps of KRONs headquarters.
NAMBLA/San Francisco has so far not decided whether to apply for
continued use of the Potrero Hill library for meeting space.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statement by Bill Andriette, spokesperson, NAMBLA, at the NAMBLA press
conference, January 20, 1992 at the KRON Building, San Francisco:
We are gathered here today in front of KRON-TV to respond to what has
been a week-long crusade by this station, in conjunction with the San
Francisco police, against the right of this citys NAMBLA chapter to exist
and to meet. This attack on a vulnerable sexual minority should frighten
every San Franciscan who cares about the rights of assembly, privacy, and
freedom of expression.
From the start, KRON has used grossly unethical tactics in its attack
on NAMBLA. On January 4th, a KRON TV camera crew barged in unannounced on
a meeting of the San Francisco NAMBLA chapter at the Potrero Hill Library,
where we had been gathering peacefully once a month for two years. For two
meetings previously, KRON used Michael Echols- who a CNN producer told us
has disappeared and is being sought by the police- to attend meetings as
an undercover agent and film them with a hidden camera.
NAMBLA is an open, public organization with nothing to hide. We march
every year in the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade, and are well known
in San Franciscos gay and lesbian community. Our spokespeople appear on
television and have spoken before community groups and college classes,
including ones at San Francisco State, Berkeley, and other area schools.
If KRON wanted to find out about NAMBLA, it could simply have called us up.
San Franciscans should wonder what group will next be the target for
KRONs investigative reporters. Will the station next send an undercover
agent with a camera into a support group for HIV-positive people in order
to disclose individuals antibody status, along with information on the
identities of their sex partners? Will they send undercover agents to a
meeting of a group for rape victims and reveal faces on the evening news?
After all, such meetings, like the NAMBLA chapter meeting at the Potrero
Hill Library, are held in public places. The right of people to organize
around sensitive or controversial topics is virtually worthless if tactics
like these are tolerated, and they will lead quickly to a society where
only non-controversial groups can survive, with others forced out of
existence or under ground.
But it is not simply the mode of KRONs reporting, and that of other
media, that is objectionable, but the lies and deceptions that
characterize it.
KRON claims that the purpose of one of the meetings infiltrated was to
design a calendar featuring pictures of nude boys. The proposal for this
came from KRONs own Echols, and was rejected by the chapter. Having found
NAMBLAs meetings untitillating, KRON had to invent a story.
San Francisco Police Captain Diarmuid Philpott claims that NAMBLA has
been distributing literature telling where and how to meet young boys at
video stores and arcades. This is a lie. A copy of the leaflet Philpott
claims to be referring to includes basic tourist information on things to
do in San Francisco culled from tourist bureau brochures. Even though
NAMBLA replied to Philpotts claim, the Chronicles Jack Vietz continues to
state it without rebuttal.
San Francisco police claim that they have arrested over the years 13
NAMBLA members for sex with boys. In fact, we know of no NAMBLA member
who has been arrested in the city of San Francisco proper. On what basis
does the San Francisco police claim someone they arrest is a NAMBLA
member? Is membership attributed to anyone who has a copy of the NAMBLA
Bulletin, available in a dozen gay bookstores around the US, in his or her
home? Or anyone who has come to a meeting of the San Francisco chapter?
These are the same catch-all criteria that crusaders used during the
McCarthy era to persecute communists, by insisting that anyone who had
Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto on their bookshelves or who attended
a meeting of the Communist Party were thus traitors and without rights.
KRON has made much of the fact that some NAMBLA activists have been
arrested for sex with boys. Man/boy lovers face intense persecution in
this society. Erotic love between boys and men is a crime- just as sex
between adult males or adult females is a crime in dozens of states, just
as marrying a person of another race was until just a generation ago in
parts of this country. We are angered and saddened but not ashamed of men
labelled criminals for a consensual sexual relationships with boys.
As a gay man who sought out men for friendship and sex starting when
I was 14 years old, I can only imagine with disgust how KRON would distort
the reality of my own relationships with men, had it had the chance, how
the the kisses and caresses and erotic play that I enjoyed as a teenager
with men would be claimed to be only so many felony counts of child
molestation.
Also disturbing has been the close association between KRON and the
police, who have supplied the station with mug shots, film footage of
NAMBLA activists speaking at conferences, and detailed information about
cases that have not been prosecuted. The police have broad powers to
collect information in the course of enforcing the law. With regard to
men and boys who have consensual sex, we believe the laws that the police
enforce are abhorrent. But the dissemination of this information to KRON
simply to advance that stations campaign against NAMBLA, which is not
accused of anything illegal, is unjustified and unethical. The San
Francisco police are substituting a campaign of persecution against an
organization they know they cannot prosecute.
The bigotry that KRONs campaign has fueled can be judged by the
panicked reaction of some residents of Potrero Hill, who are clamoring to
deny NAMBLAs San Francisco chapter the right to meet at their library.
They should pause to consider: the library that they claim to be trying to
protect has on its shelves books by such writers as Walt Whitman, Oscar
Wilde, Andre Gide, and Plato men whose erotic love for boys was central
to their identities and creativity. If these people were alive today, I
am confident that they, like poet Allen Ginsberg, would be members and
supporters of NAMBLA. If there is any good that can come out of this
sorry affair, it is the opportunity for San Francisco to rise above a
bigotry against man/boy love which is as intense today as that a
generation ago for all kinds of homosexuality, and discover the good and
the humanity that man/boy love offers the world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
For an info packet containing membership info, sample Bulletin, and a
publications list send $1.00 postage to:
North American Man/Boy Love Association
PO Box 174, Midtown Station
New York, New York 10018
Robert Crawford
many of NAMBLA's members are convicted child abusers? From what I've
heard (admittedly second-hand, but from reliable sources), a
significant number.
IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
--
"Alone, without love, in Cleveland..."
Rob Crawford be...@camelot.bradley.edu
Jeff Dauber
> IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
>communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
Then where do you draw the line? Would it be best for the gay and lesbian
community to isolate themselves from: transsexuals, transvestites, the
leather community, and so on and so on and so on...
FWA
Jess Anderson
In article <gcb...@fido.asd.sgi.com> dau...@sgi.com (Jeff
Dauber) writes:
>In article <betel.696605739@camelot>
>be...@camelot.bradley.edu (Robert Crawford) writes:
>>IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
>>communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
Bradley University, taking the heat off PSU, what a service!
>Then where do you draw the line?
I dunno about others, but as for me, the line is between me
and that fellow. "HO" my heinie.
>Would it be best for the gay and lesbian community to
>isolate themselves from: transsexuals, transvestites, the
>leather community, and so on and so on and so on...
I'd bet good money there's a chorus of "yes" out there in
queerland this very minute. I really have much greater
contempt for gay phobes than for straight ones; the latter
are just dumb fucks, but the former are traitors, which is
dumbfuck to the thirteenth power.
<> We are all humans, we all know pain; it is not asking
<> for superhuman empathy to expect people to recognise the
<> fact of another's pain and to require them to act
<> accordingly. To refuse to acknowledge someone else's
<> pain, to react with exasperation and annoyance at an
<> encounter with obvious distress is to abscond from our
<> common humanity. -- John Fisher (j...@threel.co.uk)
--
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: ande...@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
NeXTmail w/attachments: ande...@yak.macc.wisc.edu Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888
Nelson Minar
>communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
Thanks, but there are plenty of good reasons to want to isolate
oneself from NAMBLA. Boot-licking isn't amongst them.
--
__
nel...@reed.edu \/ Nothing is true; everything is permitted
__
nel...@reed.edu \/ Nothing is true; everything is permitted
Phil Howard KA9WGN
> Nice job of trying to stir up counter-hysteria. And just how
>many of NAMBLA's members are convicted child abusers? From what I've
>heard (admittedly second-hand, but from reliable sources), a
>significant number.
So far what we hear are two UNPROVEN sides of the story.
Tell us why you believe the side you do?
And, did you pick Clarence Thomas or Anita Hill?
Tell us why you believe the side you do?
> IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
>communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
EVERY group that wants to advocate a change in law in any way MUST
stand BY with NAMBLA until such a time it is proven that NAMBLA is
indeed actually acting, or urging other to act, in illegal ways.
Today NAMBLA, tomorrow your group.
Where should the line be drawn (be specific)?
--
/***********************************************************************\
| Phil Howard --- KA9WGN --- p...@netcom.com | "The problem with |
| depending on government is that you cannot depend on it" - Tony Brown |
\***********************************************************************/
There Is No Excuse
> Nice job of trying to stir up counter-hysteria. And just how
>many of NAMBLA's members are convicted child abusers? From what I've
>heard (admittedly second-hand, but from reliable sources), a
>significant number.
I shall withold judgement until you post statistical and empirical facts from
reliable sources. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I need proof before I can
make any decisions based upon your claims.
> IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
>communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
A sidenote: While I do not support sexual relations with people who are
incapable of giving informed consent, there were several grains of objective
truth in the words of the NAMBLA representative who posted. Several of
humanity's greatest thinkers were exposed to the world of sensual love at
comparatively early ages (teens, I believe, I'll check and post later), and in
many circles it is held that this had an effect upon their ability to think
'outside the lines', thus coming up with the most profound breakthroughs in the
history of humankind. I do not subscribe to this theory, but I do not deny the
possibility of its truth. And I *do* know that, personally, teenagers get...
urges... Upon what do I base that knowledge? Easy. I WAS A FARKING
TEENAGER!!! I hated the overwhelming flood of hormones, not knowing what it was
I hated. All I knew was: I was horny *all the time* and, while I doubt I would
have turned to adult males (I was straight at the time), I don't deny that there
are people as old as I was then that would. Yes, I think there should be limits
upon the age of participants in sexual activity, but how do you put a universal
number on maturity? I have a 15-year-old female friend (FRIEND) who is every
bit as mature as many 30-year-olds I know, and *more* mature than most people my
age (20). I also have friends in their twenties that I wouldn't trust to be
able to tie their shoelaces without help, much less give informed consent to
sex. I don't defend sexual relations without informed consent, but neither do I
defend burning NAMBLA members at the stake, for the simple reason that maybe,
just maybe, they don't deserve it.
>--
>"Alone, without love, in Cleveland..."
>Rob Crawford be...@camelot.bradley.edu
Gack. My sidenote turned out to be the meat of my post. Oh, well. back to
work.
John D. Burke "Man, I *gotta* get me a .sig file"
Brian Quinby
In the previous post by Rob Crawford
<be...@camelot.bradley.edy>, he writes:
>Nice job of trying to stir up counter-hysteria. And just how
many of >NAMBLA's members are convicted child abusers?
From what I've heard >(admittedly second-hand, but from
reliable sources), a significant number.
Best check your sources in this, Rob, least you look as foolish
as KRON and the San Frnacisco Police Department.
Bill Andriette raises important points. If irresponsible media
and the police can get away with this, who will be next?
Brian
Tim W Smith
> stand BY with NAMBLA until such a time it is proven that NAMBLA is
> indeed actually acting, or urging other to act, in illegal ways.
No, every such group must stand by NAMBLA's right to meet and advocate
a change in the law, not stand by NAMBLA itself.
Tim Smith
Eric S. Raymond
> NAMBLA is an open, public organization with nothing to hide. We march
> every year in the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade, and are well known
> in San Franciscos gay and lesbian community.
O.K., now, who's lying? When I originally criticized the gay community for
supporting NAMBLA in this way, I was repeatedly assured that this was a myth.
That assurance was one of the major reasons I was persuaded to consider
Clayton Cramer's "gays == child molesters" screeds a manifestation of hysteria.
*What are the facts*? Is NAMBLA publicly supported by the San Francisco gay
community, or not?
Cripes. Like any good libertarian, I wanted to side with the people calling
for freedom. But maybe I've been unfair to *Clayton* this time...
--
Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Jeff Baron
er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
|> Cripes. Like any good libertarian, I wanted to side with the people calling
|> for freedom. But maybe I've been unfair to *Clayton* this time...
It's been a rough day, but I must say, this did make me
laugh just a little bit.
Well, OK. It made me laugh a lot.
Donn Pedro
Thanks for crossposting this to alt.sex. We are so lonely
around here and your post will surely bring the attention we
need.
Donn Pedro ...................{uunet, sequent }!uswnvg!dfpedro.
Bob Donahue
>community, or not?
There's the fallacy: the SF gay (really GBLO*) "community" is a
loose collection of individuals each of whom has a subjective opinion
on any number of issues. To assume that there is a governing consensus
is a big mistake that in an open door to misunderstandings and paradoxes
like the one that you're troubled about.
By definition, the "public support" you're looking for both
exists and doesn't exist at the same time depending on whom you talk to.
This is the logistics corner that ******* can't unpaint himself out of.
Don't make the same mistake.
>Cripes. Like any good libertarian, I wanted to side with the people calling
>for freedom. But maybe I've been unfair to *Clayton* this time...
Not likely.
BBC
brou...@admin.usask.ca
many Rob Crawford's are determined hate-mongers? From what I've heard
(admittedly second-hand, but from reliable sources), a
significant number.
IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
communities to isolate themselves from Rob Crawford.
--
"Alone, without love, in soc.motss..."
Darrell Broughton brou...@sask.usask.ca
Donn Pedro
am sick and tired of these raids into soc.motss.
Followups set to alt.sex and alt.sex only. You wannt address this
in soc.motss you change the newsgroups line.
BEGIN RANT
In article <1fHhmC#8RFdLX64NH8q3rKZWJ3Xl4V4=er...@snark.thyrsus.com>, er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
> In <53...@cup.portal.com> John David White wrote:
> > NAMBLA is an open, public organization with nothing to hide. We march
> > every year in the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade, and are well known
> > in San Franciscos gay and lesbian community.
>
> O.K., now, who's lying?
Who knows!
> When I originally criticized the gay community for
> supporting NAMBLA in this way, I was repeatedly assured that this was a myth.
> That assurance was one of the major reasons I was persuaded to consider
> Clayton Cramer's "gays == child molesters" screeds a manifestation of
> hysteria.
NAMBLA marching means nothing more than the 'community' (march organizers)
recognize the right of NAMBLA to march.
Get it? Got it? GOOD!
> *What are the facts*?
Go goddamn fucking already find them out. Would you really be
satisfied with answers provided in soc.motss? There is no *one*
authority in this group. Call San Francisco and find the 'facts'
yourself. Then there will be no question of their reality to *you*.
You will have your answer and will have no need to continue to
haraung this group with your demands that we contunually defend
insulting accusations of a madman.
I'm not being smartass to you for any other reason then I'd like
you to get the information you need so you can make the decision
for yourself.
> Is NAMBLA publicly supported by the San Francisco gay
> community, or not?
Supported in what way? The right to speak? The right to march?
The right to peacably assemble? The right to work for change
in laws they (get the 'they' here), as NAMBLA, want changed?
If that is how you define support then you might be able to find
an answer.
Supported in what way? Claytons definitions? The right to stalk
children (one year olds). The right to steal young boys for bondage
anal sex? The right to rape the young?
Is it clear that this 'debate' is getting damn old and tiring
to me? Think I am the only one sick and TIRED of hearing about it?
> Cripes. Like any good libertarian, I wanted to side with the people calling
> for freedom.
Freedom to do what. Freedom to speak? Freedom to march?
Freedom to peacably assemble?
> But maybe I've been unfair to *Clayton* this time...
What about the unfairness to the members of soc.motss and the
'community' you talk about so much. Who deserves an apology
more?
> Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com
Begone, learn, and trouble us no more.
A Usenet Pal
We're still trying to check this, but around USAir, staffers are
circulating the story of an employee last-named Gay who boarded a
USAir flight with a non-revenue ticket. Finding the seat assigned
to him occupied by a paying passenger, he slipped into an empty one
a couple of rows back. Then, due to a mechanical delay on anogther
flight, the plane began filling up so the gate agent came aboard to
get all non-paying passengers off. [Hmph. They don't do that for
paying passengers.] Stopping at the seat assigned to Mr. Gay, he
said to the man, "Are you Gay?" Looking startled, the man nodded,
at which the agent said, "Then you'll have to get off." Mr. Gay,
hearing this, called out to the aent, "You've got the wrong man --
*I'm* Gay." Whereupon a young man seated across the aisle leaped
to his feet and announce, "Hell, I'm gay, too -- they can't kick
us *all* off!"
-paul asente
ase...@adobe.com ...decwrl!adobe!asente moo-...@cs.stanford.edu
When a change of scene was proposed, Lady Celia suggested a visit to the
nearby seat of Sir Egbert, a dear friend of her youth.
Roy Radow
> IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
>communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
>--
>"Alone, without love, in Cleveland..."
>Rob Crawford be...@camelot.bradley.edu
For your consideration I submit the following:
This article appeared in the B.A.R. (Bay Area Reporter) on 1/23/92.
Guest Opinion Steve Hanson
Shame on Us
Shame on us if our lesbian/gay voices remain silent while our NAMBLA
brothers are persecuted once again, and shame on those lesbians and
gay men who will raise their voices to condemn NAMBLA insisting that
boy lovers (and presumably the boys they love and who love them) are
not part of this thing called the lesbian/gay community. Shame on
GLAAD especially for selling NAMBLA down the river. For GLAAD to say
that the persecution of NAMBLA is not a gay issue is an act of
cowardice that at the very least denies the existence of gays under
the legal age of 18.
NAMBLA deserves the support of at least those San Francisco queers who
call themselves radicals or progressives, for the people in NAMBLA
represent perhaps the most radical among us. A boy lover who acts
upon his desires lives with the day-to-day threat of very real
persecution by the state (and the media): surveillance, arrest,
imprisonment. Boys in relationships with men risk losing their
freedom as well, being dragged through an ugly legal process that
supposedly exists to protect them. The rest of us it seems have
forgotten, or never known, what it means for our sex to be illegal,
but it was and, of course, in many places still is.
I wouldn't expect any mainstream assimilationist gay voices to be
heard in defense of NAMBLA - too much respectability at stake - and I
don't expect the gay press to come out swinging for NAMBLA either.
After all, the group held its national conference here in November and
precious little mention of it appeared in the gay press. The B.A.R.
ran a paragraph about the Women's Building statement that they
regretted having leased space to NAMBLA. No dialogue appeared in the
B.A.R. about the issues around man-boy love; no insights into what
NAMBLA's purpose and goals might be. The Sentinel ran nothing at all
(big surprise).
I attended that conference as a field research project for a City
College Gay Studies course in anthropology. What I found there
surprised me. The group has perhaps the most comprehensive and
well-developed philosophical and political stands, outlined within
their constitution, of any lesbian/gay group I've seen. My
preconceptions about NAMBLA representing the predatory desires of
older men at the expense of young people were proved unfounded. The
discussions I heard at the conference centered around the empowerment
of youth, not exploitation. Unlike what KRON's Pete Wilson (homophobe
of the century) would have us believe, NAMBLA is not a support group
for molesters. The people of NAMBLA that I met are more concerned
with the intellectual and emotional health and freedom of children
than any heterosexual parents I've ever known. What NAMBLA does do is
pursue a political end to age of consent laws, and a moral ideal that
elevates children and youth beyond the status of property.
Discussions about the real issue, consent - including whether it is
even possible between an adult and a child - are discussions I have
heard only within NAMBLA. Discuussions about the liberation of youth
from an oppressive society and oppressive families are discussions I
have heard only within NAMBLA. A sad byproduct of the assimilationist
fear of being labeled "child molesters" is that the lesbian/gay
commmunity has largely turned its back on lesbian and gay youth.
We are so quick to buy into the morality of the straight world when it
comes to children, yet no one who considers himself or herself a
progressive or radical should accept *any* mainstream position on
*anything* without challenging it. The most I can hope for is that
you will find out for yourselves who NAMBLA is and what they stand
for. The lesbian/gay community should know better than to buy the
garbage the straight media feeds us - especially about ourselves.
-Steve Hanson
Yours in Liberation,
Roy
--
Roy Radow r...@panix.com ...rutgers!cmcl2!panix!roy
North American Man/Boy Love Association - For an info packet containing
membership info, sample Bulletin, and a publications list send $1.00 postage
to: NAMBLA Info, Dept. RR, P.O. Box 174, Midtown Station, NYC NY 10018
Steve Dyer
and I'm really impressed. It's quite stylish and well-executed.
Here's a quote without comment from a recent issue which
may be of interest to those following this NAMBLA discussion.
I think it puts the goals and methods of many of the men who
belong to that organization into somewhat clearer perspective.
"What (some) boys like: the
Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of
all ages. And adults can have a good
time here, too, if science is not entirely
off-limits. You can see weird things like
the "strange" force in action! At Pier 39
we have kids in from the suburbs, often
with their parents, playing video
games. At the Cliff House, there's the
Musee Mechanigue with Nickelodeons
and slot machines of yesteryear, even
some modern-day video games. The
laser light shows at the Planetarium in
Golden Gate Park's Academy Or Sciences
are wonderful. And see the remote-con-
trol sailboats and model steamboats on
the park's lake near the buffalo pad-
dock. See above, 'How to Find Your Way
Around,' for skateboarding, dirt-bike
exhibitions and stunt kites."
Excerpt from a "Welcome Letter" distributed to
conventioneers at the National Man/Boy Love
Association's Annual gathering in San Francisco.
As a result of the pamphlet, the San Francisco
Police Department has filed criminal charges
against NAMBLA for distributing information that
"assists in the corruption of minors." A spokesman
for NAMBLA disagrees. "Anyone reading this can
see it's just innocuous tourist information, " he said.
This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
I've read in a long time...
--
Steve Dyer
dy...@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Jeff Dauber
>Here's a quote without comment from a recent issue which
>may be of interest to those following this NAMBLA discussion.
>I think it puts the goals and methods of many of the men who
>belong to that organization into somewhat clearer perspective.
[tourist information deleted]
Wait a minute... Judging someone based on that tourist information
is ridiculous.
What about this not-so-impossible scenario:
There is a couple. Member 1 is 25, member 2 is 15. They are both
members of NAMBLA (or perhaps just the 25 year old, this is sort of
irrelevant). They are travelling to SF together. They want to know
of places where they can go together, since most of the gay life in
SF is for the over 21 crowd. Suddenly, there is a nice tourist guide
for people in this situation. This situation is quite likely for NAMBLA
members.
The only reason that this "puts the goals and methods of many of the men
who belong to that organization into somewhat clearer perspective." is
if you are already biased against them.
Jeff
-FWA
Steve Dyer
>Wait a minute... Judging someone based on that tourist information
>is ridiculous.
OK, judging NAMBLA.
>The only reason that this "puts the goals and methods of many of the men
>who belong to that organization into somewhat clearer perspective." is
>if you are already biased against them.
You mean, such a bias might open your eyes to the ways such information
could be used? But, in any case, you're absolutely right.
I admit it--I have a rather cynical attitude towards NAMBLA members
who deal with very young children (say, 16 and below). The thing
about that welcome letter is how much ying/yang there is. If it
were put out by the PTA, you wouldn't think twice about it (although
the mention of the fact that suburban kids can be found at Pier 39
is a bit odd.) Knowing it was put out by NAMBLA, it can be read
as providing information where young boys can be found. Since that's
nominally what some of these guys like to do, is it completely
preposterous for the SF police to read it that way?
Am I totally out in left field here?
Jess Anderson
In article <1992Feb1.0...@cbnewsm.att.com>
m...@cbnewsm.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
>In article <1992Feb1.0...@macc.wisc.edu>,
>ande...@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb1.0...@cbnewsm.att.com>
>>m...@cbnewsm.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
>>>I *do* dislike (at whatever age I might see the
>>>participants) "relations" in which each side is acting out something
>>>that effectively uses the other as a masturbatory toy.
>>Other than by mutual consent, presumably.
>[...]
Sorry, you took my remark to have a much larger scope than I
expected. I was referring only to fully aware mutual consent
between peer adults. That's a circumstance in which I think
the sex can be on just about any basis, as long as the
parties agree to it.
<> I truly feel that there are as many ways of loving
<> as there are people in the world and as there are
<> days in the lives of those people. -- Mary Calderone
Jack Hamilton
>Knowing it was put out by NAMBLA, it can be read
>as providing information where young boys can be found. Since that's
>nominally what some of these guys like to do, is it completely
>preposterous for the SF police to read it that way?
They can read it however they like, but acting on it is a different matter.
>Am I totally out in left field here?
Right field is more like it. I think it's extremely dangerous to have a
legal system in which the legality of someone's behavior is determined by
whether they're popular. Please pardon the sexist language, but I want to
live under a government of laws, not of men.
--
ROPER: I'd cut down every law i nEngland to do that.
MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the devil turned round on
you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws being flat? This
country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - Man's laws,
not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do
it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that
would blow then?
(Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons)
--
------------------------------------
Jack Hamilton j...@netcom.com
Tall One
You of course failed to note that nothing above states ANY SUPPORT COMING FROM
THE GAY & LESBIAN COMMUNITY, and in fact is much the opposite. NAMBLA
*SUPPORTS* the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade; the fact that the rest of
the Gay & Lesbian community lets them march in the parade does not imply
*direct* support of NAMBLA, merely support for Gays & Lesbians *in general*.
Second, just because NAMBLA is well known in San Francisco's gay and lesbian
community, does not imply that the gay and lesbian community supports NAMBLA,
merely that the gay & lesbian community *KNOWS* of them and is possibly friends
with some of them! I remain friends with several people of questionable
behavior that I do not myself engage in; am I to be condemned as supporting
their behaviors JUST BECAUSE I KNOW OF THEM OR AM FRIENDS WITH SEVERAL, when
I do not emulate their behavior?
Side with Clayton, and you are guilty of condemnation by association with no
direct evidence proving Gays & Lesbians support NAMBLA; in effect, breaking
everything you as a Libertarian hold dear!
Side with the gay & lesbian community, and you have effectively reduced the
hysteria Clayton was trying to produce through his unproven statements you
originally took the wrong way.
> --
> Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
--
===========================================================================
"Things are more like they are now than they've ever been before..."
-- Zippy the Pinhead
--------------\------------------------------------------------------------
Pro-Choice \ Leo Mauler, aka Marvin, aka The Tall One
Pro-Freedom \ kud...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Anti-Censorship \ "Soon To Be Home Of The Magical Changing Sig!"
------------------\--------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: KU and I agree on one thing: we disagree with everything else.
===========================================================================
Steve Dyer
>>Knowing it was put out by NAMBLA, it can be read
>>as providing information where young boys can be found. Since that's
>>nominally what some of these guys like to do, is it completely
>>preposterous for the SF police to read it that way?
>
>They can read it however they like, but acting on it is a different matter.
Er, why? The law being discussed relates to distributing information that
"assists in the corruption of minors." You don't have to be a troglodyte
to read this material in that light, so to that extent, I don't think the
SF police are completely out of line here.
Aside from the legal issues, I happen to think the welcome letter
describes exactly what I dislike about NAMBLA's stance and about
its cynical, two-faced approach towards operating in our society,
namely, claiming when challenged that it's only an advocacy group,
but managing to disseminate information on "where the boys are"
at the same time.
There is a peculiar engineer-think in arguments here on USENET which
dictates that if X in situation Y is OK, then it must follow that for
all Y, situation X is OK. I don't agree with that. You have to
evaluate each situation on its merits.
That is, I could imagine being open to the charge that what I said
two paragraphs above could have been made by people against the
Mattachine Society (one of the earliest gay male liberation groups)
in the 1950's. Homosexuality was "illegal" back then, and un-"popular".
It might not have been strictly illegal to print a list of gay bars,
etc. back then indicating where the "big boys are", but for the sake
of this argument, let's assume that was the case, and that the
Mattachine Society wrote a similar "welcome letter" for adult men
with information on where to meet other adult men.
Nonetheless, however culturally and temporally conditioned I might be,
I argue that the two situations are not at all analogous because of the
issues which Michael Siemon made explicit here in his recent articles
and which have always been the crux of why many people do not support
NAMBLA where they might other groups which support relations between
consenting adults. And that issue is the one of power, influence and
the (in)ability of young children to necessarily choose what is best
for them or to give a fully engaged consent. A child has very
different needs and wants from an adult, and is prey to exploitation.
An adult with a strong sex drive is exploitative enough when trying to
get a peer into the sack--the asymmetries of power and influence are
many times greater when you're dealing with a child under, say, 16
years or so. I don't want to quibble about the age; under the right
circumstances, you could probably be convinced to lower it a bit, but
that's not the point.
>Right field is more like it. I think it's extremely dangerous to have a
>legal system in which the legality of someone's behavior is determined by
>whether they're popular.
"Popular"???? How is this a matter of "popularity"?
>Please pardon the sexist language, but I want to
>live under a government of laws, not of men.
Hmmmn. I am not saying that all laws deserve to be enforced, whatever
the merits of this one is, but proposing that an existing law be ignored
seems not to fit well with your purported sentiments.
mike.siemon
> In article <1992Jan31.1...@spdcc.com> dy...@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
writes:
> >Here's a quote without comment from a recent issue which
> >may be of interest to those following this NAMBLA discussion.
> [tourist information deleted]
> Wait a minute... Judging someone based on that tourist information
> is ridiculous.
> What about this not-so-impossible scenario:
Your scenario is a bit contrived (no, not impossible.) What I read
in the excerpt (with a note that it may have been culled so as to be
unfairly pretending to be representative) is a "Where the Boys [sic]
Are" reminiscent of nothing so much as a mealy-mouthed variant on a
50's "Where the Girls Are" (written specifically to guide the sexual
predations of prefeminist jocks) -- with the interesting difference
that we are NOT here talking about the separate assemblage of the
two stereotype genders for the express purpose moving together from
base to base, but have pointers to those assembling from elswhere
to "likely" [and I suggest one seriously consider the contexts, and
the susceptibilities of the mostly nerdly types under consideration]
aggregations of youngsters.
None of this denies the overt rights agenda of NAMBLA -- nor the claims
and experiences of those of us who as youngsters ourselves were screwed
over by imposed ages of consent and the like. What is DOES, in my mind,
is to call into question whether NAMBLA-ites understand the asymmetry
of power -- for this guide looks like an attempt to provide fulcrums
for leverage to me. If they do this knowingly, it is contemptible --
and dangerous. If unknowing, it is frightening. It's the "friendly"
guy, who "shares" the child's enthusiasms and wants to play along that
I worry about. I have no _a priori_ objection to sex between a young
kid and an adult -- I *do* dislike (at whatever age I might see the
participants) "relations" in which each side is acting out something
that effectively uses the other as a masturbatory toy.
--
Michael L. Siemon "O stand, stand at the window,
As the tears scald and start;
m...@usl.com You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer With your crooked heart."
Roger B.A. Klorese
>
> Excerpt from a "Welcome Letter" distributed to
> conventioneers at the National Man/Boy Love
> Association's Annual gathering in San Francisco.
>
>I've read in a long time...
I dunno... these are places I like to hang out and boy-watch... what does
that mean to you, Steve?
--
ROGER B.A. KLORESE +1 415 ALL-ARFF
rog...@unpc.QueerNet.ORG {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!unpc!rogerk
"Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from."
-- J. Foster
Steve Dyer
>>This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
>>I've read in a long time...
>I dunno... these are places I like to hang out and boy-watch... what does
>that mean to you, Steve?
It sounds like a "mid-life crisis" to me.
Anyway, everyone knows that "young guys" like "young guys"--ask Kraig.
You're wasting your time.
Roger B.A. Klorese
>In article <1992Feb1.2...@queernet.org> rog...@queernet.org (Roger B.A. Klorese) writes:
>>>This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
>>>I've read in a long time...
>>I dunno... these are places I like to hang out and boy-watch... what does
>>that mean to you, Steve?
>
>It sounds like a "mid-life crisis" to me.
*sob*
>Anyway, everyone knows that "young guys" like "young guys"--ask Kraig.
>You're wasting your time.
I already have one... complete with skateboard, thank you. (I won't
mention his age; Clayton will have to wonder.)
BigFoot Bear
well said (and thanks for pointing that out)
J. N. Shaumeyer
>
>I admit it--I have a rather cynical attitude towards NAMBLA members
>who deal with very young children (say, 16 and below). The thing
>about that welcome letter is how much ying/yang there is. If it
>were put out by the PTA, you wouldn't think twice about it (although
>the mention of the fact that suburban kids can be found at Pier 39
>is a bit odd.) Knowing it was put out by NAMBLA, it can be read
>as providing information where young boys can be found.
Guilty until proven innocent? If it *were* put out by the PTA,
we *wouldn't* think twice about it--but it could *still* be
"read as providing information where young boys can be found."
If I buy a condom, should I be prosecuted for sodomy because
condoms bought by men can be used for homosexual acts?
If I rent a hotel room by myself, should I be prosecuted for
prostitution because hotel rooms can be used for that?
>Am I totally out in left field here?
I don't know. I'm reacting to the statement, not presuming
your motive for making it, so I won't judge.
--jns
Jess Anderson
>I *do* dislike (at whatever age I might see the
>participants) "relations" in which each side is acting out something
>that effectively uses the other as a masturbatory toy.
Other than by mutual consent, presumably.
<> Good ol' Merriam-Webster knows that you can't take
<> 'u' out of masturbation. -- David Preston (d...@dosbears.uucp)
Hades project
You attack KRON-TV as if they don't have the same rights your
organization has. The Police and KRON are simply sharing the feelings
of the majority of the population. I personally feel that your
organization has a right to meet and demonstrate but on the other hand I
find your organization a discusting piece of filth.
You may have the right to assemble but the majority of the people,
I think, would love to see the police shut down every meeting you
schedule in a public place where children are present.
I ask any parent if they would let their child go to a public
building where the NAMBLA is holding a meeting? My fear is that your
group will publicly put down child abuse but privately will share where
and how to abduct children.
I'm not totally closed minded so prove to me that you have some
valid purpose and I will publically apologize (don't see that ever
happening).
These opinions are mine but I hope they are shared by the majority of
you.
Gene Ward Smith
> As a result of the pamphlet, the San Francisco
> Police Department has filed criminal charges
> against NAMBLA for distributing information that
> "assists in the corruption of minors." A spokesman
> for NAMBLA disagrees. "Anyone reading this can
> see it's just innocuous tourist information, " he said.
>This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
>I've read in a long time...
On the other hand, it's a little scary the police did not wait for the
NAMBLA folks to actually commit a crime before charging them with one.
There seems to be an idea in law enforcement circles that in issues
involving children and sex, one can toss out the bill of rights,
invoke RICO, and God knows what else. An instance being the recent
aborted and completely outrageous prosecution of a San Francisco child
photographer on a phoney child pornography charge. The grand jury
refused to indict, an almost unheard-of phenomenon and an indication
of how crazy this issue (along with the drug issue) is becoming.
--
Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/CICMA/Concordia University
gsm...@concour.cs.concordia.ca
Tim Pierce
>who deal with very young children (say, 16 and below).
I don't think that 16 is a good cutoff for "very young," but that's my
opinion.
>The thing
>about that welcome letter is how much ying/yang there is. If it
>were put out by the PTA, you wouldn't think twice about it (although
>the mention of the fact that suburban kids can be found at Pier 39
>is a bit odd.) Knowing it was put out by NAMBLA, it can be read
>as providing information where young boys can be found. Since that's
>nominally what some of these guys like to do, is it completely
>preposterous for the SF police to read it that way?
No, it's not. What is preposterous, for the SF police and for you,
Steve, is to believe that there is no other way to read it. Jeff's
reading is not farfetched in the slightest. As long as we're talking
about innocent until proven guilty, I don't think the police can base
a case on that document.
>Am I totally out in left field here?
Not quite, but the batter's still a southpaw...
--
____ Tim Pierce / "If you eat _Light Twinkies,_ do you kill
\ / pie...@husc.harvard.edu / 1/3 less people?"
\/ (aka twpi...@amherst.edu) / -- Stan Schwarz (st...@dir.texas.gov)
Steve Dyer
>> As a result of the pamphlet, the San Francisco
>> Police Department has filed criminal charges
>> against NAMBLA for distributing information that
>> "assists in the corruption of minors."
>
>NAMBLA folks to actually commit a crime before charging them with one.
Er, the police seem to think a crime has already been committed.
The best you can do is disagree with them.
>There seems to be an idea in law enforcement circles that in issues
>involving children and sex, one can toss out the bill of rights,
>invoke RICO, and God knows what else.
Not only law enforcement circles, but legal circles too. Most
courts have upheld anti-kiddie-porn laws prescribing penalities
for distribution and possession of such materials. Modification
of traditional court practices (such as facing your accuser) have
been made to accomodate children in child-abuse cases, and these
innovations have usually been upheld by the courts.
Steve Dyer
>No, it's not. What is preposterous, for the SF police and for you,
>Steve, is to believe that there is no other way to read it.
I explicitly said there were at least two ways to read it.
I only believe one of them.
>Jeff's reading is not farfetched in the slightest.
To quote Michael Siemon:
[Jeff's] scenario is a bit contrived (no, not impossible.)
>As long as we're talking about innocent until proven guilty,
>I don't think the police can base a case on that document.
I don't know; it would seem difficult. On the other hand,
I have no illusions about what they were disseminating there.
mike.siemon
> In article <1992Feb1.0...@cbnewsm.att.com>
> m...@cbnewsm.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:
> >I *do* dislike (at whatever age I might see the
> >participants) "relations" in which each side is acting out something
> >that effectively uses the other as a masturbatory toy.
> Other than by mutual consent, presumably.
Consent is a useful guideline for legislation. It may be also a good
starting point for moral discussion. It is not, however, something
that I see as a symmetrical boundary. Actions against consent have
a presumption against them; I do not feel equally strongly that mere
consent justifies something (even though I am usually willing, absent
a case to the contrary, to take it as "legitimating" it.)
I also have nothing against masturbatory toys -- I'd be condemning a
good part of my sex life if I did!
But it is a quirk, possibly something to chalk up to my Christianity,
that I *don't* see it as positive to indulge in intimacies (I use
a generic term as other social, or even purely linguistic, interaction
fits here, as well as sex) with another person who is merely a counter
in some fantasy construction. This is a realm in which I (think I)
see the point of feminist protests about "objectifying" women for sex.
In the case of a young (say, roughly pubertal) boy and an adult, it
amuses me (sadly) when the kid is manipulating the adult in order to
get his jollies. This could even be hurtful to the adult (quite aside
from what would happen if the Law found out.) Yet that case doesn't
much exercise me. I have at least a certain sympathy with children
being able to do unto others what others all-too-often do to them
(recognizing in this a certain perversion of the way I'd usually like
to take the do-unto-others rule to apply only positively.)
When the child is the sex toy of the adult, I worry. And I am not at
all clear in my mind what "consent" means in this context. I intend
specifically to exclude in this case a relationship in which the boy
*is* personally important to the adult (i.e., the adult is engaging
in relations -- sexual or otherwise -- which have the boy's concerns
valued equally with his own.) That kind of relationship is valid on
its face, though it brings its own potential abuses (through a human
inability to avoid harming those we love.) I am unwilling to judge
any putative "case" through abstractions such as we'd have to use to
discuss things here. If confronted with a real situation, I'd hope
to deal with it without my prejudices trompling all over everything --
and what I'd look for, as I meant to underlay my earlier remarks,
would be the manipulation of one person by another -- realizing all
the while that since our actions all *affect* one another mutually,
and given a charged relation those effects will tend to be large,
there is NO way in which a deep human relation can avoid a measure
of manipulation.
The fruit of that apple is very bitter. But I would choose to eat it.
Tim Pierce
>In article <1992Feb01.08...@netcom.COM> j...@netcom.COM (Jack Hamilton) writes:
>>is a different matter.
>
>Er, why? The law being discussed relates to distributing information that
>"assists in the corruption of minors." You don't have to be a troglodyte
>to read this material in that light, so to that extent, I don't think the
>SF police are completely out of line here.
You don't have to be a troglodyte to read it that way, no, but you
have to be pretty ugly to be unable to see it in any other light. I
don't see any clear and unambiguous sign that the material you posted
was specifically and explicitly a guide on How To Rape Young Boys.
>There is a peculiar engineer-think in arguments here on USENET which
>dictates that if X in situation Y is OK, then it must follow that for
>all Y, situation X is OK. I don't agree with that. You have to
>evaluate each situation on its merits.
I don't agree with that either, and I think that you would do well to
evaluate this situation on its particular merits.
BigFoot Bear
> I've just taken a look at NYQ, an east-coast _Advocate_ clone,
> and I'm really impressed. It's quite stylish and well-executed.
> Steve Dyer
well, Steve, to my understanding- it is NOT an Advocate clone- I am told it
was put together by some of the folks that did the now-departed
(regrettably) OutWeek....
and there is the infamous style/thought differences between West Coast and
East Coast....(and I am sure any other groups...)
Donn Pedro
In article <1992Jan31...@panix.com>, r...@panix.com (Roy Radow) writes:
> In <betel.696605739@camelot> be...@camelot.bradley.edu
(Robert Crawford) writes:
>
> > IMHO, it would be in the best interest of the gay and lesbian
> >communities to isolate themselves from NAMBLA.
>
> >--
> >"Alone, without love, in Cleveland..."
>
> >Rob Crawford be...@camelot.bradley.edu
>
>
> For your consideration I submit the following:
Hey Roy,
Did it occur to you to submit it without the damn crosspost
to alt.sex?
Or is your crusade for NAMBLA blinding your judgement just
as Clayton's crusade against NAMBLA is blinding his?
[article deleted]
Gene Ward Smith
Dyer) writes:
>>On the other hand, it's a little scary the police did not wait for the
>>NAMBLA folks to actually commit a crime before charging them with one.
>Er, the police seem to think a crime has already been committed.
>The best you can do is disagree with them.
My point is that the police have been known to think this before in
case where they are clearly wrong (e.g., Steve Jackson Games, my
example of the children's photographer.) There is nothing I can see in
the thing you posted which is criminal, in the sense that it could
just as well have been put out by the Boy Scouts of America as a guide
for visiting Scouts. Can it be right that something is wrong when done
by NAMBLA which would be OK when done by anyone else? This is the road
to a police state.
The reasoning is this: you "know" that NAMBLA members all are involved
in illegal activities involving minors, therefore you "know" this
publication is abetting this, therefore you "know" it is a criminal
conspiracy. But if you presume innocence, you must first actually have
evidence as to what, in fact, this publication is intended for. That
would mean an informer, bugging or whatever. If you actually had that
evidence, you would not *need* to proceed against this tourist guide,
you could bring a case of conspiracy directly. If you don't have such
evidence, this is harassment. It is a way of punishing people without
having to go to the bother of showing that they actually have
committed a crime.
Did it ever occur to you that someone with paederastic tendencies
might join NAMBLA and use this guide without actually intending to
commit a crime? Perhaps they don't even agree with NAMBLAs position on
age of consent laws, and think sex with 13 year old boys is morally
wrong. Nevertheless, they would like to find places to meet 13 year
old boys and drool quietly or something.
If the San Francisco municipal authorities want to do something to
help boys, I suggest that getting some help to the boys who live and
hustle on Polk Street would be a place to start.
>Not only law enforcement circles, but legal circles too. Most
>courts have upheld anti-kiddie-porn laws prescribing penalities
>for distribution and possession of such materials. Modification
>of traditional court practices (such as facing your accuser) have
>been made to accomodate children in child-abuse cases, and these
>innovations have usually been upheld by the courts.
These have also led to miscarriages of justice in some cases, though
there are horror stories on both sides of this issue. But my point is
that there are abusive legal devices by police and prosecutors in some
of these cases. They have not always held up in court--as I pointed
out, they are sometimes so plainly abusive they don't even *get* to
court--but innocent people get punished anyway.
Steve Dyer
>Did it ever occur to you that someone with paederastic tendencies
>might join NAMBLA and use this guide without actually intending to
>commit a crime?
Sure, and I read Playguy for the articles. Really.
Jack Hamilton
prosecutors and the police. It is simply too dangerous to give them carte
blanche to prosecute or harrass unpopular minorities for activities which
would be legal if performed by anyone else.
Gene Ward Smith
Dyer) writes:
>However, it would be illegal in many areas to publish and disseminate
>a pamphlet which said: "this is where young boys can be found."
I don't know much about the law (is there a lawyer in the house?) but
I find this to be a remarkable statement. If I were to publish a
pamphlet detailing my vast knowledge of the rug-rat set, and telling
people that boys could be found in video arcades, school playgrounds,
comic book stores and Boy Scout Jamborees, you are telling me this
would in fact be illegal--even though everybody knows it already, and
the information is of an entirely innocuous variety?
Have I already broken the law and led to the demise of the net by
giving out this hot tip? If so, will I need to move to Russia in order
to live in a free country?
I thought before you were saying it would be illegal *only* if the
person publishing the data did so to help people pick up boys for sex.
Would someone who knows tell us about the law?
J. N. Shaumeyer
ande...@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
> [commenting on a discussion of NAMBLA's bulletins between
> Steve Dyer & Nelson Minar:]
>
>Those whose job it is to enforce the laws -- sexual abuse of
>children or blocking access to a clinic that does abortions
>-- should be alert, but presumptive arrest in either case is
>illegal; if it isn't, the people should revolt and seize
>control of their government.
The trend may be disturbingly present though when you
consider that "pre-emptive strikes" have come to be
thought of as "defensive actions".
[btw, I agree with Nelson--again.]
--jns
Jack Hamilton
>
>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>various cities. It's completely legal. There is nothing illegal about
>saying "this is where boys can be found." NAMBLA members should not be
>prosecuted for writing or reading said materials.
>
>These two views are not contradictory.
My reading of what Steve said is that he thinks it should be illegal to
write about it.
Gene Ward Smith
Dyer) writes:
>In article <25...@daily-planet.concordia.ca> gsm...@abacus.uucp (Gene
Ward Smith) writes:
>>Did it ever occur to you that someone with paederastic tendencies
>>might join NAMBLA and use this guide without actually intending to
>>commit a crime?
>Sure, and I read Playguy for the articles. Really.
You seem deficient in Anglo-Saxon Attitudes when it comes to
jurisprudence. The whole idea, in case you missed that week in Civics,
is that a person is innocent until proven guilty. This means a
prosecutor should never indict unless it is reasonable to assume guilt
could be established. Otherwise, it is harassment.
Of course, the prosecutor could be hoping that the jury will be so
biased against the defendants that they will convict even in the
absence of a reasonable case. This is not the kind of attitude we
should want to encourage on the part of prosecutors.
As to the articles in Playguy, up here in the Frozen North it is hard
to read some magazines for the articles. In the January issue of Torso,
we find Our Hero discussing international relations with a hunky
Roman:
"We rested in each other's arms for
a while, and then his fingers began
to explore my
It felt great, though I was uneasy
about letting that huge cock of his
anywhere near But, damn,
his touch felt so good! He pro-
vocitively slid his index finger into
his mouth, coating it with spit,
as I relaxed, I
started to enjoy the strange new sen-
sations flooding through me...
After one more kissing session, he
turned me around and bent me over
a rocky outcropping. His hands
massaged and kneaded
and I pressed back
against him. I wanted him so bad-
ly! I needed his huge cock
no matter how much it would
He positioned the head of his
dick against and
lunged to me. and he
shoved his beefy forearm to my
mouth for me
he slowly
pushed to me, while one
hand reached around to play with
my cock."
This is an example of the useful improvements those judicial and
police authorities you admire so much are able to accomplish. Similar
improvements occur during the course of another discussion of
international relations with a Turkish wrestler, an an episode
involving a pair of Alabama redneck blue-collar guys, and hunky office
workers in the big city.
Steve Dyer
>You seem deficient in Anglo-Saxon Attitudes when it comes to
>jurisprudence. The whole idea, in case you missed that week in Civics,
>is that a person is innocent until proven guilty. This means a
>prosecutor should never indict unless it is reasonable to assume guilt
>could be established. Otherwise, it is harassment.
There are two issues here, one the SFPD, the other my opinion.
The SFPD may have trouble here proceeding with their case.
I don't need proof to find them guilty; all I need is to
read what they print and find them creepy.
ter...@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov
writes:
>In article <1992Feb04.04...@netcom.COM> j...@netcom.COM (Jack
Hamilton) writes:
>>I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
>>bother with the facts"?
>
>Someone please help me here.
I suspect the line Jack was responding to was where you said
>I don't need proof to find them guilty...
Terri
P.S. I also find NAMBLA creepy. I find it equally creepy that the police are
taking legal action against something that is not illegal (printing and
distributing pamphlets).
--
The above opinions are my own and do not represent those of the University of
California, LLNL, or any other Right Thinking Person.
Endure pain, find joy, and make your own meaning, because the universe
certainly isn't going to supply it. Always be a moving target. Live. Live.
Live. -- Lois McMaster Bujold, _Barrayar_
Roy Radow
>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>various cities. This information is almost undoubtedly being used to
>help adults pick up children. This is creepy to Steve, and it's creepy
>to me.
Please supply your reference for this. I have been involved with the
publication of the NAMBLA Bulletin since its inception in 1980 and to
the best of my recollection WHAT YOU CLAIM IS NOT TRUE.
Yours in Liberation,
Roy
--
Roy Radow r...@panix.com ...rutgers!cmcl2!panix!roy
North American Man/Boy Love Association - For an info packet containing
membership info, sample Bulletin, and a publications list send $1.00 postage
to: NAMBLA Info, Dept. RR, P.O. Box 174, Midtown Station, NYC NY 10018
Steve Dyer
>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>saying "this is where boys can be found." NAMBLA members should not be
>prosecuted for writing or reading said materials.
I've never read one of NAMBLA's bulletins, so I don't want to say "uh-huh"
here--for all I know, they discuss organizational details. However, it
would be illegal in many areas to publish and disseminate a pamphlet which
said: "this is where young boys can be found." The issue here is that this
welcome letter is clearly ambiguous--it could be read a number of ways.
Does that mean the police need to give them the benefit of the doubt?
Maybe. Do I need to? I doubt it.
Jack Hamilton
>The SFPD may have trouble here proceeding with their case.
>I don't need proof to find them guilty; all I need is to
>read what they print and find them creepy.
I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
bother with the facts"?
--
------------------------------------
Jack Hamilton j...@netcom.com
Steve Dyer
>>>I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
>>>bother with the facts"?
>>
>>I don't need proof to find them guilty...
Oh, I see. Jack thought I said:
(I don't need proof) to find them guilty...
And I said:
I don't need (proof to find them guilty...)
[as opposed to the law which does]
Nelson Minar
>>I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
>>bother with the facts"?
>members of the "North American Man-Boy Love Association" might actually
>be Men having sex with Boys? Gasp, pardon me for overreaching. If I
>see a "welcome letter" describing where "suburban kids playing video
>games" can be found, I don't think it's out of line to wonder if this
>is more than tourist information.
Is it possible that the two of you are really arguing about nothing?
Here's my take on it.
NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
various cities. This information is almost undoubtedly being used to
help adults pick up children. This is creepy to Steve, and it's creepy
to me.
NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
various cities. It's completely legal. There is nothing illegal about
saying "this is where boys can be found." NAMBLA members should not be
prosecuted for writing or reading said materials.
These two views are not contradictory.
--
__
nel...@reed.edu \/ Civilization runs in 500,000 year cycles
Jess Anderson
In article <1992Feb5.0...@wam.umd.edu>
j...@wam.umd.edu (J. N. Shaumeyer) writes:
>The trend may be disturbingly present though when you
>consider that "pre-emptive strikes" have come to be
>thought of as "defensive actions".
Only one of hundreds of distortions in our political lives,
another kind of enslavement by illiteracy. To do much about
it (certainly not easy), the *real* reasons for the shocking
state of literacy in the US would have to be uncovered (and
of course the trend reversed).
Jess Anderson
>In article <1992Feb4.0...@spdcc.com> dy...@spdcc.com
(Steve Dyer) writes:
>>>I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
>>>bother with the facts"?
>>Someone please help me here. Is it crazy of me to think that a few
>>members of the "North American Man-Boy Love Association" might actually
>>be Men having sex with Boys? Gasp, pardon me for overreaching. If I
>>see a "welcome letter" describing where "suburban kids playing video
>>games" can be found, I don't think it's out of line to wonder if this
>>is more than tourist information.
>Is it possible that the two of you are really arguing about nothing?
>Here's my take on it.
Thank you, thank you.
>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>various cities. This information is almost undoubtedly being used to
>help adults pick up children. This is creepy to Steve, and it's creepy
>to me.
Operation Rescue announces a bus tour in an area known for
its clinics. I'd wonder what they were up to. So would
Steve.
>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>various cities. It's completely legal. There is nothing illegal about
>saying "this is where boys can be found." NAMBLA members should not be
>prosecuted for writing or reading said materials.
Nor is Operation Rescue breaking the law by planning, announcing,
or actually having its bus tour.
Those whose job it is to enforce the laws -- sexual abuse of
children or blocking access to a clinic that does abortions
-- should be alert, but presumptive arrest in either case is
illegal; if it isn't, the people should revolt and seize
control of their government.
>These two views are not contradictory.
More. They are *necessary*.
J. N. Shaumeyer
>
>In article <1992Feb5.0...@wam.umd.edu>
>j...@wam.umd.edu (J. N. Shaumeyer) writes:
>
>>The trend may be disturbingly present though when you
>>consider that "pre-emptive strikes" have come to be
>>thought of as "defensive actions".
>
>Only one of hundreds of distortions in our political lives,
>another kind of enslavement by illiteracy. To do much about
>it (certainly not easy), the *real* reasons for the shocking
>state of literacy in the US would have to be uncovered (and
>of course the trend reversed).
Are you about to reveal the *real* reason for illiteracy?
I'm not sure that we can blame it enirely on illiteracy,
either. Even those who can't read can think, and it's not
the illiterate who issue "clarifications" for presidential
utterances, who manipulate events to "give the appearance"
of doing the right thing, or who promulgate "disinformation"
in the name of the national security. Conspiracy is not
necessary when complicity or mere acquiescence will do;
when "normal business" practice means that the Watergate
defense, "what was so bad? everyone does it", is deemed
acceptable. Is illiteracy alone enough to explain?
--jns
Vincent Manis
gsm...@concour.cs.concordia.ca (Gene Ward Smith) writes about Revenue
Canada's censorship of publications which enter Canada.
I admit I'm not much of a reader of these publications. However, it's
mostly the fact that I find neither the men nor the photography
interesting, in general, rather than any moral objection. In fact, I
have bought a number of these publications over the years. The Revenue
Canada screening is a relatively new phenomenon (dating from 1983), but
it is incredibly irritating.
What really galls me about this process is the words they leave in.
Words such as `fuck' and `asshole' are disallowed (no anal sex) but
words relating to violence are left in. It really makes me wonder about
their priorities.
There is a case winding its way to the Supreme Court of Canada on this
subject. The government knows it's going to lose (they've even said so),
but the Progressive-Conservative (governing) party has a group of
back-bench members who are called the Dinosaurs, which is unfair to the
real saurians, most of whom had brains which were larger than the PC
ones appear to have. The Dinosaurs' spiel is a familiar one: `I think
that we should have the death penalty so that we can get rid of all the
abortionists who are killing our babies and then teaching them to use
the metric systems, which turns them into homosexuals, and then they
learn French.' Unlike the US, we in Canada seem to have a pretty
enlightened Supreme Court, though.
--
\ Vincent Manis <ma...@cs.ubc.ca> "There is no law that vulgarity and
\ Department of Computer Science literary excellence cannot coexist."
/\ University of British Columbia -- A. Trevor Hodge
/ \ Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5 (604) 228-2394
Tim Pierce
>"Citizens" may not be required to prove guilt, but,
>in my opinion, a "citizen" is required to at least
>have an opinion on something that touches their
>life so closely.
I agree that it makes very good sense to do so, but I wouldn't go so
far as to say that people are REQUIRED to have opinions on certain
subjects.
>If you think that there are other
>interpretations to the NAMBLA statement, please
>share them with us. This issue *is* important, and
>we do need to know. What is your opinion?
Jeff already posted it. A couple, 25 and 15, are visiting a city
they've never been to before. Since nearly all forms of
entertainment, especially couple-oriented, are aimed at those over 21
(or at least 18, and in no circumstances a case like this) there's
little they can find in common, until lo and behold! A NAMBLA
pamphlet explaining where traditionally "teen" hangouts are.
Mike Siemon, I believe, and Steve Dyer opined that this interpretation
is absurd. Not only do I think it is believable, it was nearly the
only one that came to my mind when Steve posted the original NAMBLA
document. After he described it as "the scariest ``Welcome Letter''"
he'd seen in a while, I had to reread the article several times before
his interpretation made sense.
--
____ Tim Pierce / Sting will teach us nothing.
\ / pie...@husc.harvard.edu /
\/ (aka twpi...@amherst.edu) / -- History
Steve Dyer
>bother with the facts"?
Someone please help me here. Is it crazy of me to think that a few
members of the "North American Man-Boy Love Association" might actually
be Men having sex with Boys? Gasp, pardon me for overreaching. If I
see a "welcome letter" describing where "suburban kids playing video
games" can be found, I don't think it's out of line to wonder if this
is more than tourist information. Listen, I have two choices here: I
can accept them at their word or I can be suspicious of their motives,
given what it is they're interested in. Either way, direct "facts" on
the particulars are not going to be forthcoming.
Let me turn this around a bit. If Operation Rescue had a convention
and one of its events was a planned tour of a neighborhood which contained
a lot of family planning clinics close to each other, do you think it
would be reasonable for pro-choice activists to be concerned? Would a
pro-choice person reading that be unjustified to respond with cynicism
that this wasn't going to be your typical tour bus?
David R. Preston
>>I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
>>bother with the facts"?
>
>Someone please help me here. Is it crazy of me to think that a few
>members of the "North American Man-Boy Love Association" might actually
>be Men having sex with Boys? Gasp, pardon me for overreaching. If I
>see a "welcome letter" describing where "suburban kids playing video
>games" can be found, I don't think it's out of line to wonder if this
>is more than tourist information.
I missed the original posting, so I don't know what y'all are talking
about wrt what was in the "welcome letter", but the Tenderloin (an area
of downtown) would be a much better place for picking up run-aways and
young hustlers. Pier 39 might be a good place to see "suburban kids
playing video games", but I wouldn't think they'd be easy to pick up.
In other words, what you're describing sounds like a rather specialized
sight-seeing guide, not evidence of criminal conspiracy.
--
David R. Preston d...@dosbears.uucp
Information gladly given but safety requires
the avoidance of unnecessary conversation.
D. R. Preston 584 Castro St. #614 SF CA 94114 USA
Jeff Baron
|> In article <1992Feb4.1...@sunova.ssc.gov> jba...@dirac.ssc.gov (Jeff Baron) writes:
|> >"Citizens" may not be required to prove guilt, but,
|> >in my opinion, a "citizen" is required to at least
|> >have an opinion on something that touches their
|> >life so closely.
|>
|> I agree that it makes very good sense to do so, but I wouldn't go so
|> far as to say that people are REQUIRED to have opinions on certain
|> subjects.
I think that if you want to be a "citizen" of a group, and
I used that word on purpose, you are pretty much required
to have opinions on issues that concern that group, especially
one as important as this one. No one ever said that
being a responsible citizen was easy. (Aside: like it or not,
I'm sure that we both agree that this issue is important to
the gay and lesbian community, for it puts *us* in the
somewhat uncomfortable, well, extremely uncomfortable,
position of having to declare our intentions on one of
those "unpopular speech" issues.)
People can and do violate this "maxim" all of the time.
I cannot believe, for example, that Joe and Jane Public
really understand, for example, what the US has
accomplished, or rather, unaccomplished in Central
America, or that they understand the ramifications
of the budget problem (clearly, if they do understand,
they simply do not care, as the estimated budget
deficit for the budget that Bush just proposed for
FY '92 is $350 billion.)
|> >If you think that there are other
|> >interpretations to the NAMBLA statement, please
|> >share them with us. This issue *is* important, and
|> >we do need to know. What is your opinion?
|>
|> Jeff already posted it. A couple, 25 and 15, are visiting a city
|> they've never been to before. Since nearly all forms of
|> entertainment, especially couple-oriented, are aimed at those over 21
|> (or at least 18, and in no circumstances a case like this) there's
|> little they can find in common, until lo and behold! A NAMBLA
|> pamphlet explaining where traditionally "teen" hangouts are.
|>
|> Mike Siemon, I believe, and Steve Dyer opined that this interpretation
|> is absurd. Not only do I think it is believable, it was nearly the
|> only one that came to my mind when Steve posted the original NAMBLA
|> document. After he described it as "the scariest ``Welcome Letter''"
|> he'd seen in a while, I had to reread the article several times before
|> his interpretation made sense.
I see your interpretation, and it does make
sense. I apologize for being brash.
Jeff
Robert Coren
|> Oh, I see. Jack thought I said:
|>
|> (I don't need proof) to find them guilty...
|>
|> And I said:
|>
|> I don't need (proof to find them guilty...)
|> [as opposed to the law which does]
I think some of the confusion surrounding "what Steve was trying to
say" stems from his original article, in whcih he wrote:
|> Here's a quote without comment from a recent issue which
|> may be of interest to those following this NAMBLA discussion.
|> I think it puts the goals and methods of many of the men who
|> belong to that organization into somewhat clearer perspective.
|>
|> "What (some) boys like:...
|>
|> Excerpt from a "Welcome Letter" distributed to
|> conventioneers at the National Man/Boy Love
|> Association's Annual gathering in San Francisco.
|> As a result of the pamphlet, the San Francisco
|> Police Department has filed criminal charges
|> against NAMBLA for distributing information that
|> "assists in the corruption of minors." A spokesman
|> for NAMBLA disagrees. "Anyone reading this can
|> see it's just innocuous tourist information, " he said.
|>
|> This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
|> I've read in a long time...
Apart from the question of whether that last sentence, which I presume
to be Steve, and not NYQ, talking, counts as "comment" :-), the fact
that the *quoted* article includes information about the SFPD's
reaction probably caused some connection in some minds between "Steve
feels uncomfortable about NAMBLA's pamphlet" and "SFPD is prosecuting
NAMBLA over this pamphlet, leading to a possible belief that Steve
approves of the SFPD's actions. I don't believe Steve has made a
statement on this last point.
Christina Black [Chris]
probably very good drag shows there, but don't really know how to find
one. Our general-interest guidebooks don't cover this issue, and
_Places for Men_ doesn't rate the places it lists. We're more
interested in something which is somehow Mexican in character than in
something we could find in the states. Can anyone make any recommendations?
Thanks.
-- Chris (bl...@sybase.com)
Tall One
> I've just taken a look at NYQ, an east-coast _Advocate_ clone,
> and I'm really impressed. It's quite stylish and well-executed.
>
> Here's a quote without comment from a recent issue which
> may be of interest to those following this NAMBLA discussion.
> I think it puts the goals and methods of many of the men who
> belong to that organization into somewhat clearer perspective.
[sorry, guys, I felt this had to be included]
> "What (some) boys like: the
> Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
> Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of
> all ages. And adults can have a good
> time here, too, if science is not entirely
> off-limits. You can see weird things like
> the "strange" force in action! At Pier 39
> we have kids in from the suburbs, often
> with their parents, playing video
> games. At the Cliff House, there's the
> Musee Mechanigue with Nickelodeons
> and slot machines of yesteryear, even
> some modern-day video games. The
> laser light shows at the Planetarium in
> Golden Gate Park's Academy Or Sciences
> are wonderful. And see the remote-con-
> trol sailboats and model steamboats on
> the park's lake near the buffalo pad-
> dock. See above, 'How to Find Your Way
> Around,' for skateboarding, dirt-bike
> exhibitions and stunt kites."
>
> Excerpt from a "Welcome Letter" distributed to
> conventioneers at the National Man/Boy Love
> Association's Annual gathering in San Francisco.
> As a result of the pamphlet, the San Francisco
> Police Department has filed criminal charges
> against NAMBLA for distributing information that
> "assists in the corruption of minors." A spokesman
> for NAMBLA disagrees. "Anyone reading this can
> see it's just innocuous tourist information, " he said.
>
> This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
> I've read in a long time...
Really? It looks like innocuous tourist information to me, and the only way
anyone could see anything wrong with it is to have a totally anti-NAMBLA
mindset and know the other fact that they distribute it...
> --
> Steve Dyer
> dy...@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
--
===========================================================================
"Things are more like they are now than they've ever been before..."
-- Zippy the Pinhead
--------------\------------------------------------------------------------
Pro-Choice \ Leo Mauler, aka Marvin, aka The Tall One
Pro-Freedom \ kud...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Anti-Censorship \ "Soon To Be Home Of The Magical Changing Sig!"
------------------\--------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: KU and I agree on one thing: we disagree with everything else.
===========================================================================
Tim Pierce
>In <1992Feb4.0...@reed.edu> nel...@reed.edu (Nelson Minar) writes:
>
>>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>>various cities. This information is almost undoubtedly being used to
>>help adults pick up children. This is creepy to Steve, and it's creepy
>>to me.
>
>Please supply your reference for this. I have been involved with the
>publication of the NAMBLA Bulletin since its inception in 1980 and to
>the best of my recollection WHAT YOU CLAIM IS NOT TRUE.
I doubt that you have any accurate way of knowing what NAMBLA members
do with a particular pamphlet once it's been given to them. Perhaps
you don't use it for that, perhaps NAMBLA didn't intend their brochure
to be used for that purpose ... but it doesn't mean that people aren't
taking that particular course of action.
Robert Coren
|> In article <1992Feb5.0...@panix.com> r...@panix.com (Roy Radow) writes:
|> >In <1992Feb4.0...@reed.edu> nel...@reed.edu (Nelson Minar) writes:
|> >
|> >>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
|> >>various cities. This information is almost undoubtedly being used to
|> >>help adults pick up children. This is creepy to Steve, and it's creepy
|> >>to me.
|> >
|> >Please supply your reference for this. I have been involved with the
|> >publication of the NAMBLA Bulletin since its inception in 1980 and to
|> >the best of my recollection WHAT YOU CLAIM IS NOT TRUE.
|>
|> I doubt that you have any accurate way of knowing what NAMBLA members
|> do with a particular pamphlet once it's been given to them. Perhaps
|> you don't use it for that, perhaps NAMBLA didn't intend their brochure
|> to be used for that purpose ... but it doesn't mean that people aren't
|> taking that particular course of action.
Yes, but the whole thrust of this discussion has been an apparent
certainty on Steve's part (and the SFPD's for that matter) that this
*is* the use NAMBLA intended. This assumption, and the bland rejection
of an assertion to the contrary by someone in a position to know, is
far creepier to me than either the content of the pamphlet or any of
its possible uses.
Robert
Roy Radow
>In article <1992Feb6.0...@husc3.harvard.edu>
>pie...@husc4.harvard.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb5.0...@panix.com> r...@panix.com (Roy Radow) writes:
>>>In <1992Feb4.0...@reed.edu> nel...@reed.edu (Nelson Minar) writes:
>>>
>>>>NAMBLA's bulletins publish info about where to find young boys in
>>>>various cities. This information is almost undoubtedly being used to
>>>>help adults pick up children. This is creepy to Steve, and it's creepy
>>>>to me.
>>>
>>>Please supply your reference for this. I have been involved with the
>>>publication of the NAMBLA Bulletin since its inception in 1980 and to
>>>the best of my recollection WHAT YOU CLAIM IS NOT TRUE.
>>
>>I doubt that you have any accurate way of knowing what NAMBLA members
>>do with a particular pamphlet once it's been given to them. Perhaps
>>you don't use it for that, perhaps NAMBLA didn't intend their brochure
>>to be used for that purpose ... but it doesn't mean that people aren't
>>taking that particular course of action.
>I believe Roy Radow's request was "Please supply your reference for the
>statement that NAMBLA's bulletins publish information about where to
>find young boys in various cities. I (Roy) have been involved with the
>publication of the NAMBLA Bulletin since its inception in 1980 and to
>the best of my recollection it does not publish such information."
>Is this correct, Roy? If it's not what you asked, I'll ask it.
>--Rich
>(Disclaimer, for those who think one is needed: I've never seen
>anything published by NAMBLA. I just want the answer to the right
>question.)
Rich,
You understood my posting correctly.
The statement that "NAMBLA Bulletins publish info about where to find
young boys" IS NOT FACTUAL.
We have published about 1000 issues of the NAMBLA Bulletin in the last
twelve years and have some pretty good stuff in them. A guide to
"where the young boys are" is not included.
D. Owen Rowley
> In article <1992Feb4.0...@spdcc.com> dy...@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
> >
> >There are two issues here, one the SFPD, the other my opinion.
> >The SFPD may have trouble here proceeding with their case.
> >I don't need proof to find them guilty; all I need is to
> >read what they print and find them creepy.
> I certainly hope I misunderstood what you wrote. "They're guilty, why
> bother with the facts"?
I don't think you misunderstood, it seems pretty clear to me.
I guess Steve gets *some points* for being consistent though.
LUX .. owen
--
D. Owen Rowley {uunet,fernwood,sun}!autodesk!owen
" Every Man and every woman is a star "
" the slaves shall serve "
Liber Al
Roy Radow
>It's interesting to note that police used to infiltrate gay
>organizations in order to keep track of the deviants. Because gay sex
>was illegal in those days, many organizations used to maintain the
>pretense that there were no gay people in attendance there, just
>straight people who were concerned about the `problem of homosexuality.'
>I wonder to what extent the two groups play parts in NAMBLA. On the one
>hand, we hear that NAMBLA is composed entirely of people who are
>concerned about unfair age-of-consent laws; on the other, NAMBLA
>spokespersons consistently say that NAMBLA members are not lawbreakers.
>As I've said in earlier articles, I too have a queasy feeling about
>NAMBLA. On the other hand, a lot of the anti-NAMBLA feeling seems to
>fall into the same category as Satanic cults (police officers warning of
>thousands of ritual murders; a few cases of horrible murders which, it
>turns out, have nothing to do with any organized cults; then the police
>officers move on to the next city with the same stories). Surely, if
>NAMBLA members were in fact all involved with prepubescent children,
>there would be statistics and the like. Yet all of the claims one hears
>are vague generalizations about NAMBLA being a front for child
>molesters. Let's hear some numbers.
For those who missed an earlier posting I submit the following:
Guilt by skepticism ? Here are the facts.
GCN September 21-27, 1986
WASHIINGTON, DC - The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA)
has been cleared of any criminal wrong-doing by the U.S. Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. (See GCN, Vol. 12, No. 26)
The subcommittee reached its conclusion after a two-year probe into
pedophilia and pornography, which included information gathering by
undercover police officers. In the 76-page report issued early last
month by chair William V. Roth (R-Del.), the subcommittee states that
NAMBLA did not engage in any criminal conspiracy to violate laws
against the sexual exploitation of children. Nor was NAMBLA engaged in
any organized distribution of pornography depicting minors.
*****
To quote from the US Senate report- Lt. William Thorne, a detective
with the New Jersey Prosecutor's Office testified:
"'that he believed pro-pedophilia groups such as NAMBLA "are not as
severe a threat to our children as we may feel they are." It is the
pedophile with no organized affiliations who is the real threat to
children, Thorne said.'"
*****
Clearly, these people are not "soft on child molesters". TThose
who infiltrated and investigated NAMBLA included FBI, police and
postal investigators.
I let their statements speak for themselves.
Simon Brock-Gunn
that I have never heard of NAMBLA outside this discussion? My ignorance of
this organisation means that I have been sitting here listening to all the
views but have no context in which to put all these opinions.
My main concern is that I do not know what NAMBLA's aims and stance are,
specifically with respect to sex.
IMHO, it would be a jolly good idea if someone could sit down and type the
NAMBLA charter, or whatever, into this newsgroup.
Please, if you think this is a stoopid idea, no flames.
==============================================================================
|| Simon A. Brock-Gunn | Computer Science Dept. | You can't have everything ||
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Lyle Youngblood
>
>> "What (some) boys like: the
>> Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
>> Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of
>> dock. See above, 'How to Find Your Way
>> Around,' for skateboarding, dirt-bike
>> exhibitions and stunt kites."
>>
>> Excerpt from a "Welcome Letter" distributed to
>> conventioneers at the National Man/Boy Love
>> Association's Annual gathering in San Francisco.
>> As a result of the pamphlet, the San Francisco
>> Police Department has filed criminal charges
>> against NAMBLA for distributing information that
>> "assists in the corruption of minors." A spokesman
>> for NAMBLA disagrees. "Anyone reading this can
>> see it's just innocuous tourist information, " he said.
>>
>> This has to qualify as one of the scariest "welcome letters"
>> I've read in a long time...
>
>Really? It looks like innocuous tourist information to me, and the only way
>anyone could see anything wrong with it is to have a totally anti-NAMBLA
>mindset and know the other fact that they distribute it...
>
prosecutable, how can you possibly call a hand-out describing where to meet
young boys as "innocuous tourist information"?
Lyle
--
All men are equal, Colnel Colt made 'em that way - Old West Proverb
Political power flows from the barrell of a gun - Mao Tse-tung
Same thought, different words - Lyle Youngblood
ly...@chainsaw.ecn.purdue.edu
Jeff Dauber
> Although I have to agree, the letter doesn't say anything that should be
>prosecutable, how can you possibly call a hand-out describing where to meet
>young boys as "innocuous tourist information"?
Show me the sentence where it says where you can "meet young boys".
FWA
Steven S. Brack
> As for the `where the boys are' brochure, this really does seem to be a
> tempest in a teapot. I suspect that the prurient part of this brochure
> is `These are good places to go and *watch*.' As far as I know, it's not
> illegal to watch underage people, is it?
>
From my own experience with the law, when a coach at my high school
tried to have a guy arrested for watching football practice.
THe police said that as long as it was on public property, they could
do nothing. That most likely holds everywhaere.
> I feel the need to include a disclaimer here: a) I support
> age-of-consent laws, so long as the age specified is reasonable and
> consistent for gay and straight people; b) I believe that any person who
> has sex without consent ought to have the book thrown at him/her,
> including persons too young to give consent, persons who are in a
> student, employee, or similar relationship; c) I respect the right of
> people to express feelings, even though acting on those feelings might
> be illegal (subject only to reasonable laws against counselling people
> to commit a crime); and d) I respect the right of any person to advocate
> changing laws s/he considers unjust.
a) Why is age a good measure of consent? If nonconsensual sex is
already punishable, why do we need an extra law concerning what
is or is not consensual?
b) Agreed, but the question of determining too young is a difficult
one to answer. Some 12 year olds are more mature than some 20
year olds. Where does the age of consent get set? Isn't it more
properly something that varies with the person?
c) Again, there's a fine line between talking about, say, rape, and
advising people of the best places to go to commit rape.
d) I agree fully. I'll further add that they have the right to meet
and discuss changing the law, or dealing with the feelings they
have in a public meeting place, like the library.
> --
> \ Vincent Manis <ma...@cs.ubc.ca> "There is no law that vulgarity and
> \ Department of Computer Science literary excellence cannot coexist."
> /\ University of British Columbia -- A. Trevor Hodge
> / \ Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5 (604) 228-2394
--
Steven S. Brack | br...@uoftcse.cse.utoledo.edu
2021 Roanwood Drive | STU...@uoft01.utoledo.edu
Toledo, Ohio 43613-1605 _________/^\_______ sbr...@bluemoon.rn.com
+1 419 474 1010 | MY OWN OPINIONS | sbr...@nyx.cs.du.edu
Lyle Youngblood
>
>> Although I have to agree, the letter doesn't say anything that should be
>>prosecutable, how can you possibly call a hand-out describing where to meet
>>young boys as "innocuous tourist information"?
>
>Show me the sentence where it says where you can "meet young boys".
>
> Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
> all ages. And adults can have a good
> time here, too, if science is not entirely
> off-limits. You can see weird things like
> the "strange" force in action! At Pier 39
> with their parents, playing video
> games. At the Cliff House, there's the
would be deseminating information on where boys/kids will be?
But, as I said, they were intelligent enough to make it non-chargeable.
Any DA who can make a case for the prosecution out of this, I don't want to
live in his district.
Vincent Manis
can grant consent. I don't have a good answer to that, except to say
that maturity comes with age, if it comes at all. We have all sorts of
age restrictions in our society; for example, persons under 16 are
forbidden to operate motor vehicles on public roads, in spite of the
fact that many people under 16 are very highly qualified to drive a
motor vehicle, more so than many people over 16. In this case, the
danger of permitting an immature (regardless of age) person to drive is
serious; the combination of an age restriction and a proficiency test is
intended to screen out some particularly immature people. It is in the
public interest to deny some individuals permission to drive if those
individuals are the most likely to cause accidents.
Age of consent is a similar situation. The vast majority of children are
not capable of giving consent, because they simply don't understand such
matters as safer sex, handling pressure from others, and pregnancy.
There certainly are some who can give informed consent, but there are
many more who will do it and then suffer consequences. By drawing a line
(14 in Canada), the State acts to protect children, just as it does by
requiring that their parents feed and shelter them.
One can certainly argue about what the age should be. The Canadian age
seems about right to me, but I have no strong feelings about a couple of
years either way, so long as it is consistent for boys and girls,
men and women.
There is one exception. If I were a parent, I would not be disturbed sex
play between between children of the same age. Children are sexual
beings; the real need for age of consent comes from the fact that adults
have great power over children.
Jim Graham
|> Aside from the legal issues, I happen to think the welcome letter
|> describes exactly what I dislike about NAMBLA's stance and about
|> its cynical, two-faced approach towards operating in our society,
|> namely, claiming when challenged that it's only an advocacy group,
|> but managing to disseminate information on "where the boys are"
|> at the same time.
Can we at least acknowledge the fact that the original letter
was entitled "What boys like"?
Or, since we have already condemned them, is misrepresenting the
facts to support our view considered appropriate? I'm new to this
witch hunt thing. :-)
And, in the end, would it be illegal for a welcome letter for a
convention of child psychologists to list where to find children
doing what they enjoy most? And given NAMBLA's public statements
that they stand for empowerment of the youth and given the reports
published here that at least one of their members is a therapist
how could you interpret it differently? Or do you *know* something
about NAMBLA that we don't? And what about this statement from
someone who claimed that they *knew* something about NAMBLA?
(excerpt from Steve Hanson's Guest Opinion in the BAR):
|> I attended that conference as a field research project for a City
|> College Gay Studies course in anthropology. What I found there
|> surprised me. The group has perhaps the most comprehensive and
|> well-developed philosophical and political stands, outlined within
|> their constitution, of any lesbian/gay group I've seen. My
|> preconceptions about NAMBLA representing the predatory desires of
|> older men at the expense of young people were proved unfounded. The
|> discussions I heard at the conference centered around the empowerment
|> of youth, not exploitation.
Also consider this comment from the statement Bill Andriette made at KRON:
|> San Francisco Police Captain Diarmuid Philpott claims that NAMBLA has
|> been distributing literature telling where and how to meet young boys at
|> video stores and arcades. This is a lie. A copy of the leaflet Philpott
|> claims to be referring to includes basic tourist information on things to
|> do in San Francisco culled from tourist bureau brochures.
So, NAMBLA wasn't even the source for that information, they were just
reprinting it...
Overall, I think it is very justifiable to worry that NAMBLA's actions
are motivated by predatory desires for molesting children, but I refuse
to condemn them, even personally, on the evidence presented so far. And
I have to consider that I do not have first-hand knowledge of their
activities and the only second-hand knowledge I have is that they really
do stand for empowerment of youth (sexual empowerment being one facet
of that goal). The only evidence I have against them is a bunch of
people whose *preconceptions* are that they are a bunch of child
molestors seeking validation.
Also, consider the following... If NAMBLA had not printed the "What
boys like" information, do you think that would have hindered any
molestors in their midst from "finding the boys"? It's easy to find
children if that is your goal in life...
...jim
Jess Anderson
In article <1992Feb9.0...@cs.ubc.ca> ma...@cs.ubc.ca
(Vincent Manis) writes:
>Steven Brock asks why age should be a determinant of whether
>a person can grant consent. I don't have a good answer to
>that, except to say that maturity comes with age, if it
>comes at all.
Are we getting somewhere? I do believe we are.
It seems to me (I suspect you would probably agree) that we
all use terms we think are well defined, when it often turns
out they aren't so well defined. "Maturity" would be an
example. Also interesting is the fact that often (as here)
this problem doesn't invalidate the argument: "comes with
age, if it comes at all" makes good sense to me.
>[driving license example]
>It is in the public
>interest to deny some individuals permission to drive if
>those individuals are the most likely to cause accidents.
I think the driving license analogy is useful, because it
applies not only to youth -- as you say, many of them can
drive quite well -- but to everyone. An element of the age
of consent discussion involves having social mores that
treat all ages fairly, restricting only what truly does need
to be restricted. As a general observation, I take it to be
axiomatic that 90% at least of the rules are restrictions of
things that don't need to be restricted.
>Age of consent is a similar situation. The vast majority of
>children are not capable of giving consent, because they
>simply don't understand such matters as safer sex, handling
>pressure from others, and pregnancy.
I'm perhaps a little less sure about how vast that majority
is, but I would agree that on average children don't
understand a lot about relevant factors in these issues.
But we also might consider whether it's that they don't or
that they can't. I'll come back to this.
That said, I tend to support your observation, in practical
terms.
We also should try to get a better handle on what's a child
and what isn't; the extremes aren't the problem there, the
middle ground is what's too fuzzy.
>There certainly are some who can give informed consent, but
>there are many more who will do it and then suffer
>consequences.
I support this belief too, but I really don't think it's a
demonstrated fact there are so many more, or that the
consequences (which there would have to be in any case)
amount to suffering. Finding out a lot more about all such
things would usefully inform our discussion.
>By drawing a line (14 in Canada), the State acts to protect
>children, just as it does by requiring that their parents
>feed and shelter them.
Ah, that brings up an interesting side point, I think. I
know of no state in the US that has 14 as its age of consent
(I think a list was recently published but I don't recall
what it said; maybe it was just different countries). But
I'm pretty sure the earliest age at which parents can legally
abandon their children is 18, unless one has gone to court
to get emancipated, and even then I think 16 is the lowest
age.
And in fact the state acts to protect children from all sorts
of things, like imprisonment and certain kinds of abuse.
Some of this is long overdue, naturally.
It's probably inconvenient, but our debates must take all
these factors somehow into account, I think.
>One can certainly argue about what the age should be. The
>Canadian age seems about right to me, but I have no strong
>feelings about a couple of years either way, so long as it
>is consistent for boys and girls, men and women.
And, in the States, consistent in all states (which brings
on a lot of other issues).
>There is one exception. If I were a parent, I would not be
>disturbed sex play between between children of the same age.
>Children are sexual beings; the real need for age of consent
>comes from the fact that adults have great power over
>children.
Though under scenarios rather different from those obtaining
in our time, the terms of these equations could be rather
different.
I learned about sex starting at age 4. I asked, and I was
told the truth. Later I asked more, and I was told more of
the truth, as best my mother could manage to tell. By the
time I started doing sexual things with others (age peers at
age 8), I knew pretty well what I was doing. However, I
wouldn't want to extrapolate too far from my own story.
Sex education -- I think ideally it should begin in the
home, about the time kids begin to go to school -- is a key
thing in all of this. It's unconscionable, I think, for a
kid to get to puberty and not know about all about
pregnancy, and, these days, about infection. We've often
mentioned informed consent, with emphasis on "informed."
What "informed" actually covers is a part of the debate
we've heard less about.
Another part of the issue, as a couple people have
mentioned, is that we should be chary of letting adult
erotophobias derail the discussion. My assumption is that
children are naturally very erotic little people, until the
powerful adults around them start getting into the picture.
Some of the ways adults get involved are entirely salutary
-- protecting if protection is needed, educating as is
always needed, supporting and encouraging as is always
needed, and so forth.
But many -- I might go as far as to say most -- kids are
subjected to adult influences -- at home, at school, and in
religious contexts -- that are not what I'd call protection,
education, or support. On the contrary, the kids get
seriously skewed information, all too commonly. Quite a lot
of this is pretty understandable, since the adults were once
subjected to similar influences. On the other hand, quite a
lot of it is avoidable too.
Steve Dyer
>Another part of the issue, as a couple people have
>mentioned, is that we should be chary of letting adult
>erotophobias derail the discussion.
I think you should be chary of dismissing a legitimate concern
about the potential for child exploitation as "erotophobia".
It's a convenient brush-off, it's the party line in many places,
but it doesn't further any discussion.
I think a far more useful direction would be to examine the assumptions
in the NAMBLA call for "empowerment" and see if they make sense.
>My assumption is that
>children are naturally very erotic little people, until the
>powerful adults around them start getting into the picture.
Children (here, prepubescent) might be "naturally very erotic little
people", but their eroticism isn't an adult eroticism. Adults have
hormones which have a very strong influence on their thoughts and
inclinations. Children don't.
Jess Anderson
In article <1992Feb9.1...@spdcc.com> dy...@spdcc.com
(Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <1992Feb9.1...@macc.wisc.edu>
>ande...@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>>Another part of the issue, as a couple people have
>>mentioned, is that we should be chary of letting adult
>>erotophobias derail the discussion.
>I think you should be chary of dismissing a legitimate
>concern about the potential for child exploitation as
>"erotophobia".
I think you're conflating issues by positing a necessary
link between those subjects. Erotophobia exists and is very
important *apart* from child exploitation.
More important, here, is that I changed the subject line for
a reason: Vince, to whom I was responding, had addressed age
of consent without overt reference to NAMBLA-related issues.
I thought that was salutary. Age of consent is an important
issue apart from any discussion of its relevance or
nonrelevance to NAMBLA, and I wished to make some progress
on the age of consent issue without having to get further
embroiled in the NAMBLA case for the present.
To use your phrase, old sock, I wanted to skirt the nipping
at the ankles, you see.
>It's a convenient brush-off, it's the party line in many
>places, but it doesn't further any discussion.
Your biases are showing again. You merely *choose* to see
it as a convenient brushoff; that doesn't mean it is. You
*define* it as party-line, but that says it's you doing the
brushing off here. Let's get on with age of consent in its
own right as a topic. Maybe we'll uncover something that
will then be useful in the NAMBLA discussion at a later
time.
>I think a far more useful direction would be to examine the
>assumptions in the NAMBLA call for "empowerment" and see if
>they make sense.
Be my guest. Could be interesting. But it's apart from age
of consent in this renamed thread.
>>My assumption is that
>>children are naturally very erotic little people, until the
>>powerful adults around them start getting into the picture.
>Children (here, prepubescent) might be "naturally very
>erotic little people", but their eroticism isn't an adult
>eroticism.
Is there really anyone (sane, I mean) who would take issue
with that statement?
>Adults have hormones which have a very strong influence on
>their thoughts and inclinations. Children don't.
In the context, I'm sure you're right. In our age of
consent debate, we need to take that into account. I would
like to focus as much as possible on the children, both pre-
and post-pubescent, without getting any more adult aspects
involved than the situation absolutely requires. Most
especially, I'd like to leave the whole NAMBLA part out.
Would you like to help?
Roger B.A. Klorese
ly...@chainsaw.ecn.purdue.edu (Lyle Youngblood) writes:
|> In article <gpr...@fido.asd.sgi.com> dau...@sgi.com (Jeff Dauber) writes:
|> >Show me the sentence where it says where you can "meet young boys".
|> >
|> > "What (some) boys like: the <---reference #1
|> > Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of <---reference #2
|> > we have kids in from the suburbs, often <---reference #3
|> Care to tell me why else an organization with NAMBLA's stated charter
|> would be deseminating information on where boys/kids will be?
So members can go boy-watching, of course. What's your point?
--
ROGER B.A. KLORESE +1 415 ALL-ARFF
rog...@unpc.QueerNet.ORG {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!unpc!rogerk
"Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from."
-- J. Foster
Tim Pierce
>In article <gpr...@fido.asd.sgi.com> dau...@sgi.com (Jeff Dauber) writes:
>>Show me the sentence where it says where you can "meet young boys".
>
> "What (some) boys like: the <---reference #1
> Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
> Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of <---reference #2
> all ages. And adults can have a good
> time here, too, if science is not entirely
> off-limits. You can see weird things like
> the "strange" force in action! At Pier 39
> we have kids in from the suburbs, often <---reference #3
> with their parents, playing video
> games. At the Cliff House, there's the
>
> Care to tell me why else an organization with NAMBLA's stated charter
>would be deseminating information on where boys/kids will be?
As if we haven't already told you twice. A couple consisting of
someone in their mid-twenties and someone in their mid-teens would
find information on things they can do together very helpful. Now get
a clue already.
"Deseminating..." Gad. Talk about Freudian slips.
Now for the references for why non-kids might be found in these places:
> "What (some) boys like: the
> Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
> Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of
> all ages. And adults can have a good <---- reference #1
> time here, too, if science is not entirely
> off-limits. You can see weird things like
> the "strange" force in action! At Pier 39
> we have kids in from the suburbs, often
> with their parents, playing video <---- reference #2
Lyle Youngblood
>
>|> >Show me the sentence where it says where you can "meet young boys".
>|> >
>|> > "What (some) boys like: the <---reference #1
>|> > Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of <---reference #2
>|> > we have kids in from the suburbs, often <---reference #3
>|> Care to tell me why else an organization with NAMBLA's stated charter
>|> would be deseminating information on where boys/kids will be?
>
>So members can go boy-watching, of course. What's your point?
flyer followed by a claim that it was simply innocuous tourist information,
similair to what any organization might distribute.
Although perfectly legal, I hardly consider it to be a piece of, I
believe the exact quote was "typical tourist information." Even conceding
your point about boy-watching, I don't think it meets the description of
"typical tourist info".
Jack Hamilton
> Although perfectly legal, I hardly consider it to be a piece of, I
>believe the exact quote was "typical tourist information." Even conceding
>your point about boy-watching, I don't think it meets the description of
>"typical tourist info".
The AAA Guidebook recommends, "especially for children", Fisherman's Wharh,
the Exploratorium, and the zoo, among other things. Not much different
from the NAMBLA stuff except that they don't provide as much detail.
--
------------------------------------
Jack Hamilton j...@netcom.com
Nelson Minar
>Let's get on with age of consent in its own right as a topic. Maybe
>we'll uncover something that will then be useful in the NAMBLA
>discussion at a later time.
Ok, fine, although not mention the N word is tough.
Let's assume the American legal view is logical. What is it that makes
sex between a 14 year old and a 20 year old bad, but sex between a 19
year old and a 56 year old ok, and sex between two 14 year olds, while
maybe a bad idea, not molestation?
Answer: people 14 years old are not mature enough to handle sexuality
with adults with authority, but people 19 are. 5 years is a "long
time".
But then how do adolescents grow up? I know how I learned. It was not
from the moral teaching of my mother or my church or my school, it was
from my own sexual experience, sometimes positive, sometimes not. Some
of these experiences involved large age differences (16/35), some of
them involved smaller, but significant age differences (17/22).
Some of these experiences involved power imbalances. Life involves
power imbalance, and one of the aspects of growing up is learning how
to deal with situations in which you are not in complete control.
(this, of course, can go too far - it's called rape).
In an ideal world, adults would be willing to teach children about sex
in a caring, loving manner, totally unselfishly. But this is not an
ideal world.
How do we protect children from terrible experiences, and yet give
them enough experience to grow up?
--
__
nel...@reed.edu \/ The look in his eyes when it hit - Kid, it was tasty...
Jeff Dauber
>>
>>> Although I have to agree, the letter doesn't say anything that should be
>>>prosecutable, how can you possibly call a hand-out describing where to meet
>>>young boys as "innocuous tourist information"?
>>
>>Show me the sentence where it says where you can "meet young boys".
>>
>> "What (some) boys like: the <---reference #1
>> Exploratorium, near the Palace Or Fine
>> Arts, is very popular with brainy kids of <---reference #2
>> all ages. And adults can have a good
>> time here, too, if science is not entirely
>> off-limits. You can see weird things like
>> the "strange" force in action! At Pier 39
>> we have kids in from the suburbs, often <---reference #3
>> with their parents, playing video
>> games. At the Cliff House, there's the
> Care to tell me why else an organization with NAMBLA's stated charter
>would be deseminating information on where boys/kids will be?
Read my previous postings on this topic. How about the Man/Boy relationship
(since there must be some in NAMBLA) where they have travelled to SF
together. Since the "Boy" is under 21, he cannot take part in a lot of what
makes up gay gathering places. Therefore, this tourist guide can be
for them.
And, in reference to your references. None of them mention "meeting".
Jeff
-FWA
David R. Preston
>(I think a list was recently published but I don't recall
>what it said; maybe it was just different countries).
I think there are still many states where an underage girl can get
married, with her parents consent, regardless of age of consent laws.
My mother was 17 when she married my father (who was 24), in Oklahoma.
Dolly Parton was 13 when she got married....
--
David R. Preston d...@dosbears.uucp
Information gladly given but safety requires
the avoidance of unnecessary conversation.
D. R. Preston 584 Castro St. #614 SF CA 94114 USA
Bob Donahue
>ande...@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>>I know of no state in the US that has 14 as its age of consent
>>(I think a list was recently published but I don't recall
>>what it said; maybe it was just different countries).
>I think there are still many states where an underage girl can get
>married, with her parents consent, regardless of age of consent laws.
>My mother was 17 when she married my father (who was 24), in Oklahoma.
>Dolly Parton was 13 when she got married....
New Hampshire and N. Carolina (fancy that) I know used
to be two of the lowest - I am not sure that they still are.
But they're straight so it's OK, right? I mean a 13-yr old
girl can consent, but everyone knows that a <18-yr old boy can't
(with another boy/man). [sarcasm mode on, not directed at Jess or David,
but at the obvious dualism in the society at large].
BBC
Peggy Margaret Murphy
actually, it's vermont, not nh (or at least it *was*). and i
understand that in west virginia you can marry pretty young, if
you're female and have your folks' consent. i also think (gosh,
don't quote me) that those are the only two states where first
cousins can marry, or at least could within my lifetime. i know
first cousins who did, and she was pretty young...
peg
Dana Bergen
are wonderful and positive and beneficial, and now the same people are
claiming that there's no absolutely no reason to think that any man
associated with NAMBLA would ever dream of trying to pick up a boy?
Is it now the North American Strictly-Hypothetical Man/Boy Love Association?
Dana
da...@sybase.com | We women do talk too much, but even
{pyramid,pacbell, | then we don't tell half what we know.
sun,lll-tis}!sybase!dana | -- Nancy Witcher, Lady Astor
Joseph Francis
>claiming that there's no absolutely no reason to think that any man
>associated with NAMBLA would ever dream of trying to pick up a boy?
>
>Is it now the North American Strictly-Hypothetical Man/Boy Love Association?
It is the CONAMBLA, 'Conceptual Man/Boy Love Association', a partner
of "NAMMLA", the spurious-verlag "Natural Man/Man Love Association"
and "NAWWLA" "Natural Woman/Woman Love Association". Max and I are members.
--
| Le Jojo: Fresh 'n' Clean, speaking out to the way you want to live
| today; American - All American; doing, a bit so, and even more so.
Robert Coren
|> Er, how come a few weeks ago some people were saying that man-boy relationships
|> are wonderful and positive and beneficial, and now the same people are
|> claiming that there's no absolutely no reason to think that any man
|> associated with NAMBLA would ever dream of trying to pick up a boy?
Who said either of these things? I certainly didn't, and I don't hear
anybopdy else saying them either. I could tell you what I think we're
saying, but I think it's been pretty clear. Your post has, to me, a
tone that presumes that "there's evil at work here, so we don't have
to address it rationally." This annoys me, especially since it's not
what I've come to expect from you, Dana.
brou...@admin.usask.ca
> In article <1992Feb9.1...@macc.wisc.edu> ande...@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>
>>Let's get on with age of consent in its own right as a topic. Maybe
>>we'll uncover something that will then be useful in the NAMBLA
>>discussion at a later time.
>
> Ok, fine, although not mention the N word is tough.
>
> Let's assume the American legal view is logical. What is it that makes
> sex between a 14 year old and a 20 year old bad, but sex between a 19
> year old and a 56 year old ok, and sex between two 14 year olds, while
> maybe a bad idea, not molestation?
This makes the Canadian legal view illogical. I always thought that there was
something wrong with the Canadian legal system.
The above situations described are all LEGAL in Canada. None of them are
considered "bad" from a legal standpoint.
Darrell
brou...@admin.usask.ca
>
>>Let's get on with age of consent in its own right as a topic. Maybe
>>we'll uncover something that will then be useful in the NAMBLA
>>discussion at a later time.
>
> Ok, fine, although not mention the N word is tough.
>
> Let's assume the American legal view is logical. What is it that makes
> sex between a 14 year old and a 20 year old bad, but sex between a 19
> year old and a 56 year old ok, and sex between two 14 year olds, while
> maybe a bad idea, not molestation?
...
I guess that makes the legal view in Canada illogical. I always knew that there
was something wrong with our legal system.
All the situations listed above are LEGAL in Canada. In Canada, all the above
are considered good!
Darrell
brou...@admin.usask.ca
>
>>Let's get on with age of consent in its own right as a topic. Maybe
>>we'll uncover something that will then be useful in the NAMBLA
>>discussion at a later time.
>
> Ok, fine, although not mention the N word is tough.
>
> Let's assume the American legal view is logical. What is it that makes
> sex between a 14 year old and a 20 year old bad, but sex between a 19
> year old and a 56 year old ok, and sex between two 14 year olds, while
> maybe a bad idea, not molestation?
This implies that the Canadian legal view is illogical. I always knew there was
something wrong with the Canadian legal system.
All the above scenarios are LEGAL in Canada. I guess that they are considered
"good" here.
Darrell
Steve Dyer
Please let's not start throwing around claims of irrationality.
I think Dana has a legitimate point. The early discussion on
NAMBLA after I posted the "Not the Fodor's Guide" quote was
EXACTLY this reaction. Reread Jess's and Tim Pierce's articles,
if they haven't already disappeared into oblivion. As if, how
DARE anyone assume that some of the members of NAMBLA might be
having sex with boys. I mean, it's such a stretch!
Now, actually, I think some good ultimately came out of that
particular aspect of the discussion, because it did become clear
that some members are grown boys (or is that "adult children"? :-))
who feel they were deprived as youths due to the social and legal
strictures around man/boy sex. I thought the point was ultimately
well made that NAMBLA is not comprised solely of men who are attracted
to children.
I still could not begin to support their goals.
Tim Pierce
>are wonderful and positive and beneficial,
"can be"
>and now the same people are
>claiming that there's no absolutely no reason to think that any man
>associated with NAMBLA would ever dream of trying to pick up a boy?
Or, perhaps, that there is reason to think that some men associated
with NAMBLA might have some interests that are not strictly related
with "picking up boys," which doesn't have to have anything to do with
wonderful, positive, beneficial relationships.
Unlike what the rest of you would apparently like to believe. (Just
to keep the wild generalizations going for a while.)
brou...@admin.usask.ca
Tane' Tachyon
In article <919@dosbears> d...@dosbears.uucp writes:
>>
>>I know of no state in the US that has 14 as its age of consent
>>(I think a list was recently published but I don't recall
>>what it said; maybe it was just different countries).
>
>I think there are still many states where an underage girl can get
>married, with her parents consent, regardless of age of consent laws.
>My mother was 17 when she married my father (who was 24), in Oklahoma.
>Dolly Parton was 13 when she got married....
Well, the almanac (whoops, it's not 1991 any more, time to buy a new
one!) doesn't have ages of consent per se, but here are some tidbits
from the Marriage Laws section:
California, Georgia and Mississippi have *no* minimum age requirment
for marriage with parental consent.
Many states will drop the age requirements if a pregnancy or birth is
involved, or in other "special circumstances".
Several states have a minimum age requirement of 14 for both males
and females, for marriage with parental consent, and New Hampshire
goes as far as age 13 for females.
--
____________________________________________________________________________
| tac...@ucscb.ucsc.edu \ / One of the Bivariant Illuminati. |
| tac...@gorn.echo.com \ / I only like sigs on *other* people. |
|tac...@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us \/ I'm supposed to be working now, oh well.|
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jess Anderson
In article <1992Feb5.0...@wam.umd.edu>
j...@wam.umd.edu (J. N. Shaumeyer) writes:
>In article <1992Feb5.0...@macc.wisc.edu>
>ande...@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb5.0...@wam.umd.edu>
>>j...@wam.umd.edu (J. N. Shaumeyer) writes:
>>>The trend may be disturbingly present though when you
>>>consider that "pre-emptive strikes" have come to be
>>>thought of as "defensive actions".
>>Only one of hundreds of distortions in our political lives,
>>another kind of enslavement by illiteracy. To do much about
>>it (certainly not easy), the *real* reasons for the shocking
>>state of literacy in the US would have to be uncovered (and
>>of course the trend reversed).
>Are you about to reveal the *real* reason for illiteracy?
Would that I could give a definitive answer to that question.
To really tackle that, I guess we'd have to get clear on
what kind of literacy (there are many, of course) we're
talking about. But I was referring to the garden-variety
kind, the ability to read at a 12th-grade level.
>I'm not sure that we can blame it entirely on illiteracy,
>either.
Probably you're right, but the double-think you were talking
about would likely be much less effective in manipulating
the social and political lives of a truly literate
population.
>Even those who can't read can think,
In some senses, of course, but not in others. I'd say
reading is access to ideas, to things we think *about*, and
I suppose large portions of the world of ideas are
foreclosed to people who can't read.
>and it's not the illiterate who issue "clarifications" for
>presidential utterances, who manipulate events to "give the
>appearance" of doing the right thing, or who promulgate
>"disinformation" in the name of the national security.
Those who issue these lies are doing it because they can get
away with it and because doing so serves their interests.
Reading requires readers, and that's the point: if we had a
100% literate population who used the ability actually to
read, the pols could not fob lies off as truths.
In practical terms, there's a kind of chicken-and-egg
problem. Having readers would change what is written, etc.
>Conspiracy is not necessary when complicity or mere
>acquiescence will do; when "normal business" practice means
>that the Watergate defense, "what was so bad? everyone does
>it", is deemed acceptable.
Possibly conspiracy is not required, but I do think there's
something very like it at work. If you read Adam Smith and
other theorists of industrialization, again and again they
mention worker control as the main objective. An ignorant
populace is easily fooled by content-free talk, by chicanery
of many kinds, etc.
>Is illiteracy alone enough to explain?
Probably not, but it's a good place to start explaining.
<> Ever been to a YAF convention? By comparison, SDS was a
<> Marx Brothers movie. What's the point of doing good if
<> you can't have fun doing it? You want to wind up looking
<> like Jeanne Kirkpatrick? So smile. -- Molly Ivins