The Washington Post’s She The People blog does something similar. Freelance journalist Diana Reese’s piece does a fairly balanced job of reporting on the feelings of parents of Scouts in reaction to the proposed lifting of the ban. But then there’s this:
Not every parent liked the idea of a change in policy, however. “I lost my ability to advance in scouting as a young man because of a scoutmaster who was a pedophile,” one dad wrote me in an email. “I am dead set against gays in scouting.”
One mom, who prefaced her remarks with the belief that homosexuality does not equal pedophilia, still admitted she would worry about the safety of the boys.
“Most of BSA’s constituent parents view this as a safety issue more than a moral issue,” another dad wrote in an email.
But this is not a safety issue. It’s about prejudice. When people say that they are worried about putting gay men in leadership positions because children might be harmed by pedophilia, what they are really saying is that gay men make them uncomfortable, and they believe gay men to be perverted and deviant. Happily, most Americans no longer think this way, but the media still needs to pierce the illusions of those who do. When something is wrong, we need to explicitly say so.
I don’t think it’s bad for reporters to bring up pedophilia when writing about gay men and the Boy Scouts if parents bring it up on their own as a worry. But it is important to recognize that being concerned about gay men leading children in the scouts because of prospective pedophilia is an unfounded fear. Instead of further scaring our readers, we should inform them — with facts.
I don’t think it’s bad for reporters to bring up pedophilia when writing about gay men and the Boy Scouts if parents bring it up on their own as a worry. But it is important to recognize that being concerned about gay men leading children in the scouts because of prospective pedophilia is an unfounded fear. Instead of further scaring our readers, we should inform them — with facts.
Hmmm ... yes ... "facts".
If assessed according to conversion method 1 (see above), the ratio
of heterosexual vs. homosexual pedophiles in the present sample was
1.35:l. If assessed according to conversion method 2, this ratio was 1.44: 1. When considering the 7.6 factor of Abel et al., the two ratios
of heterosexual vs. homosexual pedophiles, according to methods 1
and 2 above, would increase to 10.26:1, and 10.94:l.
- Freund, K. and R. I. Watson, The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18; 1992.
In other words its disproportional.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 1 Feb 2013 at 04:15 PM
What also might help dispel this “myth” is if the gay community didn’t hold gay pederasts up on an alter and genuflect every time their names were mentioned: Harvey Milk, Allen Ginsberg, Harry Hay, Michel Foucault.
Perhaps it would have been better had Yale not named its initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies after an outspoken pederast like Larry Kramer .. you know, to help dispel instead of wallow in these myths.
#2 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 1 Feb 2013 at 04:34 PM
Taking into account Mike H's "logic," we should note that heterosexual men rape females (including teenager girls) at about, oh, a million times the rate that females rape males.
So extending Mike H's "logic" we should forbid any man from teaching college or high school, managing agencies or business units that employ women, serving as ministers in congregations that include women or girls, etc.
Sexual assault in all its horrifying forms continues to be major problem in our society. We'd have a better, safer, kinder society if we worked in good faith ways to combat the problem rather than using the issue as a club to justify prejudices against one group or another.
#3 Posted by whm, CJR on Sat 2 Feb 2013 at 02:26 PM
In the article about gay men being pedophiles, there's a lot of argument about just how much more likely it is for gay men to be pedophiles than straight men.
But all this is missing the point. Men are much more likely than women to be pedophiles - much more so than even the most disproportionate estimates of gay pedophiles. Going by that line of reasoning, all scout leaders should be women. Don't ban gays from boy scouts. Ban MEN from boy scouts.
Or, you know, just ban pedophiles.
#4 Posted by EricRead, CJR on Mon 4 Feb 2013 at 05:22 PM
Oh Mike, u failed to mention that in THAT VERY SAME BOOK you cited, Freund said the notion that gay men are more likely than straight men to be child molesters is simply not true - pg. 41
#5 Posted by a.mcewen, CJR on Mon 4 Feb 2013 at 06:35 PM
I don't believe gay men are more likely than straight men to be pedophiles, but there is an 'opportunity' factor in the mix, which is why men are not allowed to be Girl Scout masters.
Did Jennifer Vanasco or CJR raise this issue when the topic was Roman Catholic priests and pedaresty? Just asking the obviouis, but to be PC is to determinedly ignore the obvious.
#6 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 6 Feb 2013 at 12:28 PM
What critics of the priest sex abuse scandal focused on was the cover up by the church hierarchy of large numbers of documented cases of molestation. No responsible critic said that "all priests molest" or that, well, "all priests should be banned from being priests " or "all priests should be banned from working with kids"(the parallel of "all gays should be banned from being scoutmasters"). They said "child molesters shouldn't be priests" (How PC of them!). And they said that evil flourishes when people in positions of power turn a blind eye to abuse, shuffle abusers into new positions where they have more opportunities to abuse, and generally engage in a top-down cover up.
#7 Posted by whm, CJR on Wed 13 Feb 2013 at 02:16 PM
Mike, I have to wonder if you actually read and understood the statistics behind the paper that you cite from 1992. The paper actually says that it estimated that there are about 10 heterosexual pediphiles to every homosexual pedophile. It then goes on to suggest that gay men may be slightly more likely to be pedophiles because it would expect the ratio to be 20:1. Presumably this is based on an esitmate that gay men account for 5% of the general population. The devil is in the math any inaccuracy in the estimated ratio or the percent of the population that is gay will potentially have a large impact on the interpretation of the results. The bottom line it that this early study is crude in its methodology and is based on a numerous unknowable asumptions. Later more rigorous work has demonstrated that there is no difference between gay and straight men when it comes to pedophilia.
#8 Posted by Phil , CJR on Fri 22 Feb 2013 at 04:14 PM