Okay, boys, let's all calm down and take a deep breath. It ain't all that serious.
CTH and Oddball are both using snippets of articles to plead their cases. How about posting an entire article in its entirety?
I know, I know, it's just more "propaganda" with not enough "facts" from "experts," but we've got to start somewhere.
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ACLU to Defend NAMBLA
Associated Press
Aug. 31, 2000
BOSTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union will represent a group that advocates sex between men and boys in a lawsuit brought by the family of a slain 10-year-old.
The family of Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge said the North American Man/Boy Love Association and its web site which is now off-line incited the attempted molestation and murder of the boy on Oct. 1, 1997.
One of two men convicted in the killing, Charles Jaynes, 25, reportedly viewed the group's web site shortly before the killing, and also had in his possession some of NAMBLA's publications. Also convicted in the killing was 24-year-old Salvatore Sicari.
The ACLU said the case, filed in federal court in mid-May, involves issues of freedom of speech and association.
"For us, it is a fundamental First Amendment case," John Roberts, executive director of the Massachusetts branch of the ACLU, told Boston Globe Wednesday. "It has to do with communications on a web site, and material that does not promote any kind of criminal behavior whatsoever."
ACLU officials said NAMBLA members deny encouraging coercion, rape or violence.
Attorney Lawrence Frisoli, who represents the Curleys, said he is glad the ACLU is defending NAMBLA, because he has had trouble locating the group's members.
Harvey Silverglate, an ACLU board member, said Wednesday that the group's attorneys will try to block any attempt by the Curleys to get NAMBLA's membership lists, or other materials identifying members.
The ACLU also will act as a surrogate for NAMBLA, allowing its members to defend themselves in court while remaining anonymous.
According to the Globe, NAMBLA officials in the past have said their main goal is the abolition of age-of-consent laws that classify sex with children as rape.
At two separate trials last year, prosecutors said Jaynes and Sicari were sexually obsessed with the boy, lured him from his Cambridge neighborhood with the promise of a new bike, and then smothered him with a gasoline-soaked rag when he resisted their sexual advances. They then stuffed him into a concrete-filled container and dumped it into a Maine river.
Sicari, convicted of first-degree murder, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Jaynes' second-degree murder and kidnapping convictions enable him to seek parole in 23 years.
The Curleys last week were awarded $328 million by a superior court jury in a civil suit against Jaynes and Sicari.
Copyright © 2000 The Associated Press
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Apparently, "ACLU officials said NAMBLA members deny encouraging coercion, rape or violence." Shall we start by arguing if this proposition is, in fact, true or not?
Or, as it is put on another site (condeming the ACLU): "The plaintiffs, the family of Jeffrey Curley, said that the NAMBLA website, which advocates sex between boys and adult men and the abolition of age-consent laws, incited the attempted molestation--and murder--of their boy in 1997."
The rub is "incited the attempted molestation." Did NAMBLA cause these two men to do the things they were alleged to have done?
I would say it's impossible for anyone to "incite" anyone else to do (or not do) anything. People are going to do what they are going to do. 99.9% of the people who listen to Marilyn Manson don't shoot up their high schools. We know of two who did. So what?
In addition, I still have yet to find anything concrete that links the criminal intent to criminal advocacy by NAMBLA.
A quote from NAMBLA's Official Position Papers, Oct. 12, 1996.
"NAMBLA'S first position was adopted at its third General Membership Meeting in June, 1980. It focused on the hated "statutory rape" laws which confuse rape and violence with consensual sex. "Statutory rape" laws vilify, persecute, and arrest the development of the love which men have for boys and which boys have for men. These laws are used in a discriminatory way to give long prison sentences to boy lovers and hinder the development of the gentleness, wisdom, and creative contribution of boy lovers as a minority group. The resolution proposed by Tom Reeves states: (1) The North American Man/Boy Love Association calls for the abolition of age-of- consent and all other laws which prevent men and boys from freely enjoying their bodies. (2) We call for the release of all men and boys imprisoned by such laws."
Doesn't sound like much of a how-to for would be boy rapists. The point is, though, that NAMBLA has a first amendment right to post whatever they want to post.
If you believe in free speech, then you believe in it EXACTLY for the points you find morally repugnant. Otherwise, you don't believe in free speech. Period.
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