Banned by Wayne Besen
CommentsI rarely talk about my specific religious beliefs about the Torah’s obligations on Jews in the area of gay sex, nor do I spend much time specifically spelling out the disturbing evidence that a signicant minority of the gay and lesbian community has no objection to adult-child sex. I think talking about either issue can needlessly hurt people who aren’t Jewish or who think pedophilia is disgusting, so I rarely do so. But the most prominent opponent of the “ex-gay” movement, a petty, self-hating, ignorant Jew named Wayne Besen, has thrown down the gauntlet by banning me from his Web site for allegedly advocating the murder of homosexuals and comparing gay people to child molesters. As you will see, I did neither of the above, but since I am banned from his site, I must defend myself somewhere, so I’ll do so here.
1) Jews believe that almost any Jewish law can be suspended in order to save a life, because we believe life is precious. However, there are three categories of mitzvot (commandments) that supercede that principle. They are called yehareg v’al yaavor - be murdered rather than transgress. The three categories are idol worship, murder, and gilui arayot - certain sexual sins that include male-male anal intercourse. I confirmed to Wayne that I and all Orthodox Jews think a Jew is commanded to allow himself to be killed rather than commit the act described above. That does not mean I think it’s right for anyone to kill a homosexual! Far from it. That means if someone puts a gun to my head and says “Sodomize me” I and every other Jew who follows halacha (Jewish law) would refuse.
2) I never compared all gays to child molesters. I am fully aware that the majority of both the lesbian and the gay community is horrified by pedophilia. But there is significant evidence that a subset of the gay community has no objection to adult-child sex. In fact, there’s a participant in the discussion at Wayne’s site who insists that “the general consensus” is that pedophilia is a medical, not a moral problem. He didn’t specify but if I agreed with him I would want child molesters sent to psychiatric hospitals rather than prisons. I wonder how he feels about imprisoning what he calls “mentally sick” pedophiles. I will give just two other examples of the sympathy for adult-child sex in segments of the LGBT community, and if I am pressed, I have many more.
For example, I know of no gay or lesbian individual or organization who has objected to the stated position of the gay arm of the ACLU that “everyone agrees” that a mentally retarded 14-year-old can consent to sex with an adult. (For some reason my computer won’t access the site so the language might be slightly off but it’s pretty close.) I think by definition a 14-year old, especially if he is mentally retarded, cannot consent to sex, and I am disgusted at the fact that the LGBT project of the ACLU successfully fought to free the adult repeat statutory rapist of a mentally retarded youth barely out of puberty who allowed him to perform oral sex on him at first but then got uncomfortable and said please stop (which the predator thankfully did).
Second, a prominent gay-rights organization in Canada, Egale, argued against raising the national age of consent from 14 to 16 in part because it considers sex between a 14-year-old and an adult to be “non-harmful sexual activity.” Other pro-gay Canadian organizations opposed outlawing sex with 14-year-olds because “it would interfere with efforts to educate youth about pregnancy, disease prevention and sexual rights and responsibilities.” The executive director of Egale, Kaj Hasselriis, testified that “Egale believes very strongly that it is possible… even common… for 14 and 15 year olds to consent to sex, even with people over the age of 20.” My googling has found no evidence of prominent Canadian or American gays or even lesbians, nor important LGBT organizations in Canada, who were offended by Egale’s position and stated the obvious: there is something terribly wrong with a 21-year-old having sex with a 14-year old.
Does the above mean I advocate the murder of homosexuals and compare gay people to child molesters? I don’t think so. But I stand by every word I wrote, so you be the judge. If pressed, I will give more information on exactly how wrong Judaism thinks gay sex is, and how I know that a minority - only a minority - of the gay community has no problem with adult-child sex. I would rather not, but I will if it’s important to clarify that I did neither of immoral things Wayne Besen has accused me of doing.
David: ‘For example, I know of no gay or lesbian individual or organization who has objected to the stated position of the gay arm of the ACLU that “everyone agrees” that a mentally retarded 14-year-old can consent to sex with an adult. (For some reason my computer won’t access the site so the language might be slightly off but it’s pretty close.)’
It’s not pretty close, it’s one of the most breathtakingly dishonest misrepresentations I’ve ever seen.
This will be the last word I say on this subject because, quite frankly David, your obsession with these issues evidences just how unbalanced and irrational your views are on this topic. The number of heterosexual men who use a prostitute on any given day far exceeds the number of gay men who visit bath houses or engage in “man-child” sexual relationships. Further, the number of heterosexual adult men who have sex with someone under the age of 14 each day also far exceeds the number of gay men who do the same. Do you never watch the news?
Your obsession with sexual depravity is disturbing, not the least because you generally ignore (based on no evidence other than your own anecdote) the rampant sexual depravity among heterosexuals. Further, you focus almost exclusively on gay men. What about lesbians? Are they ok in your book? If so, then perhaps the alledged depravity among gay men has more to do with them being men than being gay?
I find this argumentation ridiculous and distasteful. Gay people hardly invented sexual depravity and constantly highlighting the extremes of some gay people’s sexual lives is simply a canard and a distraction away from legitimate debate. If this blog continues down this path, you’ll have one less reader.
Mark-
It cannot be a dishonest representation when I openly admitted I was going by memory and cannot double-check because of computer troubles.
The link is working now, and the full sentence is “The court disagreed, and Matthew was convicted of criminal sodomy based on what everyone agreed was a consensual sexual encounter.” You are right, I said “everyone agrees” instead of “everyone agreed.”
Other than that inconsequential distinction, what substantive misrepresentations did I make? I have read a lot about the Limon v. Kansas case, including reading every word of the final decision of the Kansas Supreme Court. You can read an essay about the case a few places on line, incluing here:
http://www.eurekareporter.com/article/080602-the-broken-gay-moral-compass
Dan-
I promise never to mention pedophilia again except in this particular thread without a clear warning (and probably not very much at all). I’m not the one who forced me to defend that I don’t think gays are like child molesters - if Wayne Besen withdraws his false accusation I’ll see no reason to continue discussing it.
Just as with monogamy, my concern is not with the absolute numbers or percentages of actual molestation by straight and gay people. It’s that virtually all straight people are quick to condemn pedophilia, while a subset of the gay community since Stonewall (including lesbians) have openly questioned what is particularly wrong with adult-child sex - or at least tolerated men in the community who have celebrated or pursued sex with children.
And I would bring up none of this if it wasn’t for gays I am talking to who claim there is no connection between NAMBLA and the gay community, or who claim that I am comparing gays to child molesters. If they will drop it, I will drop it.
David: “Other than that inconsequential distinction, what substantive misrepresentations did I make?”
You conflated two different sorts of consent: consent in the sense of mere voluntary agreement versus consent in the sense of legally valid, informed consent. It would indeed have been shocking if all parties had been saying that a borderline retarded 14 year old had given informed consent, or if the ACLU had been noting this with approval. But on the contrary, all parties were talking about mere voluntary agreement because that’s one of the conditions of the Romeo and Juliet law in question:
http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_21/Article_35/21-3522.html
That is, the ACLU was noting the agreement to make the point that it was uncontroversial that Limon qualified for a reduced charge under the Romeo and Juliet section in all respects except for being of the same sex as the 14 year old. But there’s no suggestion by the ACLU that the consent was informed, or that Limon should have got off scott free.
Still wrong. Even with your now corrected quote you are misrepresenting the meaning. It’s not the opinion of the “gay arm of the ACLU” that the sexual encounter was consensual, it is one of the stipulated facts of the case! The prosecutors agreed in the original trial that it was a consensual encounter. In the appeal the State then tried to argue that the encounter was “more likely coercive”–an argument the Supreme Court rejected since the prosecution had already agreed that it was consensual. If you’ve read “every word of the final decision” you should understand that. It’s here if anyone else is interested:
http://www.kscourts.org/cases-and-opinions/opinions/supct/2005/20051021/85898.htm
I notice that in the article you linked to you used the same tense (agrees) in your paraphrase of the ACLU position. You’re smart enough to understand the difference between the ACLU saying “everyone agreed” that it was consensual (meaning in the course of the trial both sides stipulated to this fact) and your changing it to “everyone agrees” (suggesting that the ACLU means everyone in the world agrees agrees with this fact). It’s no “inconsequential distinction”, it really is a “substantive misrepresentation”. If you want people to stop calling you dishonest, you should stop being dishonest.
Mark-
The ACLU has never responded to any of my E-mails. However, if you write them and they confirm what you are saying is true, I will apologize and chalk this example up to a misunderstanding rather than an example of gay insensitivity of the rights of children to be free from molestation by older same-sex individuals. Please ask them if they agree with the following situation:
“A mentally retarded 14-year old by definition cannot consent to sex. Any older person who repeatedly engages in sex with a youth below the age of consent has done something terribly wrong and deserves serious punishment including imprisonment. Our objection was only to the fact that Limon wouldn’t have been punished as much had his victim been female, not the fact he received a strong punishment in itself.”
I am as certain the ACLU will not accept that statement as I am that night follows day. But I promise to publicly apologize as withdraw my complaint about the ACLU if the organization readily agrees to the statement above. I don’t know what else I can be expected to do.
werdna-
If you read the Supreme Court decision, you’ll see that the prosecution acknowledged it made a mistake in agreeing to that stipulation, and asked for permission to change its position and the judge refused. I am always willing to let someone - Randy Thomas, say - acknowledge they were wrong and embrace a new position. I think it is terrible for the judge to force the state of Kansas to permanently abide by a mistake it made when this was a minor instead of a major case. If you continue to call this a “stipulated fact” of the case you are deliberately misleading people now that you it continued to be stipulated against the will of one of the parties to the conflict.
I have already stated why I said “agrees” instead of “agreed.” It was because I was relying on my memory and my computer wouldn’t let me visit that Web page. Now that I can visit that Web page I readily agree to my mistake, and apologize because I now know for sure that they said “agreed.”
I think when I explain that I am going on memory, and correct myself as soon as I can visit the page in question, for anyone to say that is “dishonest” would call me dishonest no matter what I would do, and I can’t worry about such people.
David: ‘I am as certain the ACLU will not accept that statement as I am that night follows day. But I promise to publicly apologize as withdraw my complaint about the ACLU if the organization readily agrees to the statement above.’
I’m sorry David, I’m not playing along with your face-saving games. You got caught red-handed. Originally it was probably just reckless indifference to the truth. You should have had a “Can that be right?” moment and checked the wording of the Romeo and Juliet clause. I was 90% sure what it would say before I even looked. But given that that clause says,
“Unlawful _voluntary_ sexual relations. (a) Unlawful _voluntary_ sexual relations is engaging in _voluntary_: (1) Sexual intercourse; (2) sodomy; or (3) lewd fondling or touching with a child who is 14 years of age but less than 16 years of age and the offender is less than 19 years of age and less than four years of age older than the child and the child and the offender are the only parties involved and are members of the opposite sex.” [MB's emphasis],
and that the context was,
“Before his trial in June 2000, Matthew’s attorneys moved to dismiss the sodomy charge, arguing that the _”Romeo and Juliet” law_ violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by _discriminating based on a defendant’s sex and sexual orientation_. The court disagreed, and Matthew was convicted of criminal sodomy based on what everyone agreed was a consensual sexual encounter.”
and that the discussion continues,
“Matthew received a sentence of 206 months (17 years and two months) in prison, when a _heterosexual_ teenager with the same record would serve a maximum of 15 months for the same offense.” [MB's emphasis],
I put it to the lurkers that it is _beyond_ _reasonable_ _doubt_ that the ACLU writer was using “consensual” in the sense of “voluntary” but not “informed” and that now you’re just plain brazenly lying about what it seems to you was intended.
David, yet again you dissemble. You wrote “agrees” in your published piece as well as here. Here’s how you wrote it in your article:
‘The American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT project had the chutzpah to claim that “everyone” agrees this “was a consensual sexual encounter.”’
You selected bits of the quote from the ACLU but deliberately changed the tense of the verb to make it appear as though the ACLU was saying something it clearly was not. That’s what I mean by dishonesty. If you think your arguments stand on their own weight you shouldn’t need to be so sly and misleading.
As for the fact that the State on appeal attempted to make a new argument about the nature of the encounter it’s not a question of whether a judge wants to allow it or not, it’s a question of procedure. You can’t argue on appeal against facts to which you’ve stipulated at the trial stage. The decision is quite clear:
‘Where the State stipulated below that the sexual activity between Limon and M.A.R. was consensual, it cannot be heard to argue on appeal that Limon’s actions were “coercive and predatory.” We agree the wording in the stipulation that the oral sex between Limon and M.A.R. was “consensual” was a legal misnomer and a better term would have been “voluntary,” but that distinction does not permit the State to back away from its stipulation at this stage of the case.’
Perhaps you should learn more about the way the judicial process works. Or just look up the legal meaning of terms before you use them. You might think it’s “terrible” that the appeals process has particular rules, and you and I would most likely agree that they do occasionally lead to unjust results, but the rules are the rules, you can’t change in the middle of the process. Blame the prosecutor who relied on this discriminatory statute in the first place and who stipulated to the fact you find so offensive, but don’t blame the justices who were unanimous in this decision. And most of all, don’t impugn the ACLU for using the legally correct language.
Mark-
I use words very carefully. When I make a mistake, I admit it. I am certain that the ACLU’s lawyers also use words very carefully. Instead of appearing to endorse child molestation, surely someone in the several years that page has been on the Internet would have said “Oh, we should replace ‘consensual’ with ‘voluntary.’” Because I believe the sex was voluntary, just as voluntary as an 8-year-old boy who tells his Scoutmaster, “sure I’ll lick your penis, why not?”
Sex with someone who cannot consent - even if it’s voluntary - is wrong, wrong, wrong, and I think a good subset of the gay community doesn’t think so, because I’m the first LGBT person to publicly disagree with the “Free Matthew Limon” campaign, and when I disagree on this issue some people get very upset. I lost a good friend of more than a dozen years whose gay wedding I attended because he was offended by my condemnation of Limon and Gwen Araujo, both of whom had gay sex with males who did not consent.
Werdna-
When I wrote it I did not see a major difference between “agrees” and “agreed.” There was no intentional deception. I see your point about the difference, and am happy to use “agreed” from now on, but I am certain the ACLU still agrees that the sex was consensual - which offends me.
Even if technically the state isn’t allowed to back out of its stipulation, it is clearly dishonest and even fraudulent for the ACLU to imply that everyone agreed, with no dissent that the sex was consensual, when they knew that one of the major parties, the state, no longer felt that way.
The ACLU had unlimited bandwidth to clarify that they thought Limon’s behavior was inexcusable. They did not do so. They made him into a “victim” (!) and a martyr and never once showed serious sympathy for the real victim, the boy who was molested. I think gay people are so focused like a laser on equality that they cannot see that they are victimizing mentally retarded children, or Boy Scouts, or orphans, or traditionally religious people.
David: ‘I use words very carefully. When I make a mistake, I admit it. I am certain that the ACLU’s lawyers also use words very carefully. Instead of appearing to endorse child molestation, surely someone in the several years that page has been on the Internet would have said “Oh, we should replace ‘consensual’ with ‘voluntary.’” ‘
Correcting what turns out to have the prosecution’s malapropism might well be a good idea. Regardless, I put it to the lurkers that it has for some time been beyond reasonable doubt that it _was_ a malapropism and not the ACLU’s considered opinion.
Further to the previous, here’s confirmation that the ACLU intended consensual as summarizing the Kansas Romeo and Juliet law:
‘Under the Kansas law, consensual oral sex between two teens is a lesser crime if the younger teenager is 14 to 16 years old, if the older teenager is under 19, if the age difference is less than four years, if there are no third parties involved, and if the two teenagers “are members of the opposite sex.” ‘ http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/discrim/11890prs20030627.html
And here’s the Kansas Court of Appeals using “consensual” as a paraphrase for “voluntary”:
‘In addition to the age restrictions placed on the parties and to the requirement that the parties’ age difference be less than 4 years, K.S.A. 2002 Supp. 21-3522(a)(2) requires that the sodomy be consensual and that the parties be members of the opposite sex. ‘ http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/opinions/ctapp/2004/20040130/85898.htm
And the Kansas Supreme Court (from the same decision where it expresses frustration with “consensual” as a misnomer!): ‘M.A.R. consented to the sexual contact, and when he asked Limon to stop, Limon did so.’ http://www.kscourts.org/cases-and-opinions/opinions/supct/2005/20051021/85898.htm
David, you simply refuse to get it. Nobody is arguing that Matthew Limon didn’t break the law. Nobody is arguing that he shouldn’t have been punished for breaking the law. The whole point of this case is that his punishment would have been very different if his victim had been female instead of male. It is not the conviction that was the issue, it was the disparity in the severity of the punishment based on the sexes of the perpetrator and victim.
If you’re going to charge the ACLU with making Limon into a “victim” you need to offer something more concrete than your (repeated) misinterpretation of one particular sentence in a 3 year old case background page. Your use of quotes around the word “victim” suggests you are referring to a specific reference by the ACLU to Limon using that word. Can you provide an example where the ACLU refers to Limon as a “victim”?
Benkof is leaving two critical items from his information:
1. Matthew Limon is also mentally retarded.
2. The Supreme Court of the United States of America vacated the appellate court judgement and that when that court did not respond according, the Kansas Supreme Court unanimously voided the portion of the Romeo and Juliet law that provided to disparate treatment based on orientation. Neither the SCOTUS or the Kansas Supreme Court are bastions of liberal judicial activism.
One could argue that eliminating critical information is by its very nature an indication of dishonesty.
Apparently, there is also a subset of heterosexuals who see no problem with adult-child sex. Such heteros may not be as organized as NAMBLA, but I don’t think that the lack of organizations makes their acts any less reprehensible.
“I know of no gay or lesbian individual or organization who has objected to the stated position of the gay arm of the ACLU that “everyone agrees” that a mentally retarded 14-year-old can consent to sex with an adult.”
This statement strikes me as an appeal to ignorance. That is, just because you know of no gay or lesbian individual or organization who has objected to the “gay arm of the ACLU’s” position, you seem to think that it is a fact that no gay/lesbian individual or organization objects to that position. Is that what you are, in fact, implying?
I certainly hope not. I mean, I don’t know that many gay/lesbians individuals and organizations know of the ACLU’s position. I certainly don’t agree that a mentally retarded 14-year-old is capable of legally consenting to sex with an adult.
Oh, and speaking of heterosexuals who see no problem with adult-child sex, what ever happened to those pregnant girls taken from the Yearning for Zion ranch?
I think this fiercely heterosexual group may be even more organized than NAMBLA.
My point here is show that subsets of all kinds of people see no problem with adult-child sex. What I find reprehensible is how people use this horrible fact to promote various (usually anti-gay) agendas.
Because I have never said I think gay marriage should not be legal due to the approval of pedophilia by a minority of the gay community, I would like to ask that we hold this conversation until after the November election. I have direct responses to all the questions and comments above, but I think it’s smart for me to focus my attentions on this blog on issues that directly relate to marriage, rather than anything and everything gay.
But because I don’t want Timothy Kincaid to get away lying about me once again, I want to point out that my piece on Limon v. Kansas said “At their home for developmentally disabled youths, 18-year-old Matthew Limon persuaded a mildly retarded 14-year-old boy to engage in an act of oral sex” and “Limon’s own mental limitations do not excuse his actions” and “Limon was more functional than his victim.” Anyone who did not pick up that Limon was developmentally disabled wasn’t reading carefully.
Fannie, you’re giving David too much credit for being honest about the ACLU’s position. Read the above comments, visit the ACLU’s website and (if you’re really up for it) read the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision. It’s clear to anyone who isn’t intentionally misreading things that the ACLU was correct to state that in the context of the case everyone (meaning the prosecution and the defense) agreed that the act was “consensual” and that it wasn’t a statement about the ACLU’s opinion about who should be able to consent to what at what age. The Kansas Supreme Court in its final decision noted that “consensual” was a legal misnomer because by Kansas law a 14-year-old (retarded or not) can’t legally consent to sex with a legal adult–that’s the basis of the whole proceeding! Nevertheless “consensual” was the term used in the original trial and thus was the correct word for the ACLU to use in summing up the facts of the case.
This doesn’t mean the ACLU has an official position that all 14-year-old retarded people can or should be able to legally consent to sex with adults (that of course depends on the law in any particular jurisdiction). Benkof desperately wants this to be the case but he has yet to show any real evidence beyond his deliberately obtuse misreading of a single sentence in a 3 year old list of bullet points which accurately summarized the facts about a case at that time.
Once again: the issue in Limon v. Kansas was that the law punished same-sex crimes much more severely than identical opposite-sex crimes. Either way the sexual contact was criminal, the only question was whether it was constitutional to have different standards based on the sex of the perpetrator and victim. As it turns out, it wasn’t.
David: “Because I have never said I think gay marriage should not be legal due to the approval of pedophilia by a minority of the gay community, I would like to ask that we hold this conversation until after the November election.’
Ha, bloody, ha. No.
‘I have direct responses to all the questions and comments above, but I think it’s smart for me to focus my attentions on this blog on issues that directly relate to marriage, rather than anything and everything gay.’
Too bad. You brought it up, you made dishonest and insulting misrepresentations of the ACLU, you slurred many other gay organizations as complicit, and you defended the misrepresentations long after they were indefensible. You don’t now get to walk away and hope nobody remembers come December. You owe the world a retraction of the misinformation and the gay community an apology for the slander, and you owe these things _now_.
“the issue in Limon v. Kansas was that the law punished same-sex crimes much more severely than identical opposite-sex crimes. Either way the sexual contact was criminal, the only question was whether it was constitutional to have different standards based on the sex of the perpetrator and victim. As it turns out, it wasn’t.”
Yes, I remember that case.
To bring up that case in the context of some sort of “a subset of gay people accept pedophilia” argument is to severely misunderstand the point of the Limon case- which was whether the punishment for criminal sexual contact should be more severe for same-sex contact than for opposite-sex contact.
Werdna-
Ask me to respond to your fair criticisms after the first week in November and I will gladly do so.
Mark-
I certainly did not bring it up. I mentioned NAMBLA because calling me ex-gay is precisely parallel to my calling a lesbian activist a NAMBLA supporter. Then, someone at the TruthWinsOut (LiesWinOut?) Web site made the preposterous claim that the gay community never tried to associate with NAMBLA - which as a gay historian I know is simply false. When I said so, Wayne Besen ridiculously said I was “comparing” gays to child molesters (if I say that some gays have been associated with socialism does that mean I am comparing gays to socialists?) and I responded at our Web site to show I wasn’t just making this up. I have much, much more information (interesting how nobody disputed my point about Egale in Canada) that I really don’t want to share, because the main result will be giving ammunition to vicious people who really DO want to compare gays to child molesters. For now, I am willing to share two more pieces of relevant data with Mark and anyone else who is interested - offlist. If you guys want to encourage me to post those two points onlist, I will reluctantly do so. I think that’s fair.
As for a retraction, I have publicly stated I was wrong to twice say, incorrectly, that the ACLU said “agrees” instead of “agree.” It was my unintentional mistake, but that doesn’t make it OK. I beg the ACLU’s forgiveness.
Nobody has shown me anything else I said that was false or unfair.
David: “Nobody has shown me anything else I said that was false or unfair.”
I submit that I have shown that you misrepresented what the ACLU meant by “consent”, and that this was grotesquely unfair. (I allow that it was probably reckless indifference to the truth in the first instance, but that it got to be willfull quite some time ago.) I think you owe all concerned a retraction and an apology.
I stand corrected about Benkof eliminating information about Limon’s mental condition. It is referenced in the original article. I apologize for this misinformation.
As to whether I tell lies about Benkof… my words stand for themselves.