I hope I don't get killed for saying this. Read this carefully, folks, before you subject me to tar and feathers. I can agree with Akenaton - to a point. True pedophilia is an adult having sexual contact with prepubescents, of the same or opposite sex as the offender. There is something especially awful about this. Good thing that it doesn't happen very often.

For an adult to have sexual contact with postpubescents, of the same or opposite sex as the offender, is a diffent matter. This is what Ake has told us time and time again, and I agree with him completely to this point.

Now, the far more common offense is for adults, mostly men, to have sexual contact with young males or females who have reached puberty, but are not of an age where they are able to give full content - if they give consent at all. In the 2004 John Jay Report [The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States], the victims of sexual abuse by priests are usually boys, by a ratio of 4 to 1. But here is where Ake and I part. Ake wants to blame this on the high incidence of homosexuality among Catholic priests; and then this leads Ake into his cockamamie mislogic that ends in his condemnation of homosexual marriage. In our diocese, the most recent problems have been between Mexican-born priests in their thirties, and girls who are about the age of 15. Some of these girls have had mad crushes on the priests, and the priests (who may be sexually immature themselves) have taken advantage of those crushes.

The marriage of consenting adults (of the same or opposite sex) is something very different from occasional sex between an older person and a youth. For a man of 35 to have sex with a boy of 15, is not normal homosexuality. For a man of 35 to have sex with a girl of 15, is not normal heterosexuality, although society seems to place stiffer judgment on sex between adult males and minor males.

Where Akenaton is wrong, is in implying that the crime of homosexual adults having sex with youths, is some sort of proof that all homosexuality is wrong and harmful. And then he uses it as what he considers to be proof that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry. That's where I disagree with him.

-Joe-