Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? (reposted)

Talking about the Catholic Church, I leave you with this post originally published on May 22, 2013....

Well, a new statistic—there are some 315 million people in the USA, and 750,000 sex offenders. So that means that one person in 420 in the United States is a sex offender. And there’s a little problem—where do you put these guys?

I know about this because the New York Times had a video this morning about a sex offender village in Florida. And I can also tell you—nothing reveals the deep prudery of the United States better than this video. One man, living with his mother, had sex at the age of 18 with a girlfriend, age 16. Another guy was in “gay rehab”—wow, didn’t know we could do that, have to check it out—and mentioned to his counselor that he had touched a boy inappropriately. Still another “computer solicited a minor”—whom he never met.

Granted, no criminal comes right out and says, “yeah, I sadistically assaulted and tortured a little girl, and hey, I’d do it again, in a flash!” But the Times video does make several points. It shows the church member who says that the church got involved because there is almost nowhere to live that isn’t within whatever state limit has been established from a place where kids congregate. So they found a community that had been built to house sugar cane workers; the workers are mostly gone, but the sugar cane fields remain.

Then there is the public defender of Palm Beach, 35 miles away, who makes the point: there’s a big difference between an 18-year old kid screwing his 16-year old girlfriend and a rapist. But they are both “sex offenders” and they both have a label for life.

There’s also the point that not one complaint of a sex offense has occurred in the sex offenders village.

So there are over 100 sex offenders living in the village of Pahokee, Florida—isolated from the rest of Florida by sugar cane. Right, so who are the people in my neighborhood?  Are kids safe?

Don’t have the answer, but according to the NSOPW website, there are eight sex offenders in my zip code.

OK—anything I need to worry about?

Yeah—a guy who tried to commit rape and sodomy in 1974. Another who intentionally committed child abuse. A couple of men who committed lewd acts, and one who attempted to commit a lewd act. (Sorry, but I can’t quite get my head around that. Was he just about to pull down his pants? Was he intercepted in a grope?) Several have moved in from other jurisdictions, and no details are given.

Mind you, there is a school three blocks away from where I live, as well as a school across the street from where two of the offenders live (if the database is accurate).   

All right—another statistic: one in six women will be raped in the course of her lifetime.

That’s serious—that’s something I’d like to know about. What I’m not interested in knowing is what an 18-year-old kid did with his 16-year-old girlfriend. Assuming it was done consensually, assuming no one got hurt, I couldn’t care less. And the video makes a good point—there’s not a lot of work out there for registered sex offenders. Once you’re on the list, that’s it—you can kiss that promising career in food preparation at Burger King goodbye.

We’ve all gone a little crazy, I think. We have the courts giving sentences to kids having sex with kids two years younger than them. At the same time, we have the Catholic Church, which is reportedly still harboring real sex offenders. And, as well, we have a Catholic bishop who has been convicted of not reporting the case of a predator priest.

Yes, I bring you the sorry case of Robert W. Finn, the bishop of Kansas City, who was convicted last year on one account of failure to report Shawn Ratigan, a priest who had hundred of pictures of the private parts of little girls. The pictures were apparently so shocking that the computer technician who discovered them on the laptop Ratigan had brought in for repair later stated: “my hands were shaking so much, I could barely turn off the machine.”

So what did the bishop do? Transferred Ratigan to another place, and told Ratigan to stay away from kids. And what did Ratigan do? Got right back involved with a youth group. Oh, and went to dinner at a parishioner’s house, and got caught by Poppa, photographing with his cellphone the daughter under the table.

For all of this, the bishop has received a suspended sentence, and has agreed to meet monthly with court officials. But the gay guy—or did the rehab work?—down there in the sex offender village, how much time did he get?

A year in the county jail.

Clothes make the man, it’s said, and it’s evidently true. Who knew that a Roman Collar was a pass to touch any child anywhere at any time?  

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

Well, a new statistic—there are some 315 million people in the USA, and 750,000 sex offenders. So that means that one person in 420 in the United States is a sex offender. And there’s a little problem—where do you put these guys?

I know about this because the New York Times had a video this morning about a sex offender village in Florida. And I can also tell you—nothing reveals the deep prudery of the United States better than this video. One man, living with his mother, had sex at the age of 18 with a girlfriend, age 16. Another guy was in “gay rehab”—wow, didn’t know we could do that, have to check it out—and mentioned to his counselor that he had touched a boy inappropriately. Still another “computer solicited a minor”—whom he never met.

Granted, no criminal comes right out and says, “yeah, I sadistically assaulted and tortured a little girl, and hey, I’d do it again, in a flash!” But the Times video does make several points. It shows the church member who says that the church got involved because there is almost nowhere to live that isn’t within whatever state limit has been established from a place where kids congregate. So they found a community that had been built to house sugar cane workers; the workers are mostly gone, but the sugar cane fields remain.

Then there is the public defender of Palm Beach, 35 miles away, who makes the point: there’s a big difference between an 18-year old kid screwing his 16-year old girlfriend and a rapist. But they are both “sex offenders” and they both have a label for life.

There’s also the point that not one complaint of a sex offense has occurred in the sex offenders village.

So there are over 100 sex offenders living in the village of Pahokee, Florida—isolated from the rest of Florida by sugar cane. Right, so who are the people in my neighborhood?  Are kids safe?

Don’t have the answer, but according to the NSOPW website, there are eight sex offenders in my zip code.

OK—anything I need to worry about?

Yeah—a guy who tried to commit rape and sodomy in 1974. Another who intentionally committed child abuse. A couple of men who committed lewd acts, and one who attempted to commit a lewd act. (Sorry, but I can’t quite get my head around that. Was he just about to pull down his pants? Was he intercepted in a grope?) Several have moved in from other jurisdictions, and no details are given.

Mind you, there is a school three blocks away from where I live, as well as a school across the street from where two of the offenders live (if the database is accurate).   

All right—another statistic: one in six women will be raped in the course of her lifetime.

That’s serious—that’s something I’d like to know about. What I’m not interested in knowing is what an 18-year-old kid did with his 16-year-old girlfriend. Assuming it was done consensually, assuming no one got hurt, I couldn’t care less. And the video makes a good point—there’s not a lot of work out there for registered sex offenders. Once you’re on the list, that’s it—you can kiss that promising career in food preparation at Burger King goodbye.

We’ve all gone a little crazy, I think. We have the courts giving sentences to kids having sex with kids two years younger than them. At the same time, we have the Catholic Church, which is reportedly still harboring real sex offenders. And, as well, we have a Catholic bishop who has been convicted of not reporting the case of a predator priest.

Yes, I bring you the sorry case of Robert W. Finn, the bishop of Kansas City, who was convicted last year on one account of failure to report Shawn Ratigan, a priest who had hundred of pictures of the private parts of little girls. The pictures were apparently so shocking that the computer technician who discovered them on the laptop Ratigan had brought in for repair later stated: “my hands were shaking so much, I could barely turn off the machine.”

So what did the bishop do? Transferred Ratigan to another place, and told Ratigan to stay away from kids. And what did Ratigan do? Got right back involved with a youth group. Oh, and went to dinner at a parishioner’s house, and got caught by Poppa, photographing with his cellphone the daughter under the table.

For all of this, the bishop has received a suspended sentence, and has agreed to meet monthly with court officials. But the gay guy—or did the rehab work?—down there in the sex offender village, how much time did he get?

A year in the county jail.

Clothes make the man, it’s said, and it’s evidently true. Who knew that a Roman Collar was a pass to touch any child anywhere at any time?  

Shacked Up, Worse Luck....

Well, if that’s what I’m doing, shouldn’t it be more fun?

Oh, sorry, I forgot you just dropped in to my morning. Which was supposed to start, by the way, by looking into the interesting issue of providing rape kits for Native Americans. Instead it began—discounting the hours between midnight and three, when I was engaged in jellybean-seeking behavior—with Mr. Fernández informing me that Smith, the cat, was in the back bedroom.

Right, got him out, and discovered that there was a pile of wet t-shirts on the stovetop. So I figured that out: we’ve been having rain, which leaks through the roof into the third floor of the building and then into the second floor of the building where we live and then onto the pile of clean white t-shirts. (And why, computer, if jellybean and stovetop are now one word is t-shirt still hyphenated?) OK, put the wet t-shirts in the laundry hamper, addressed a few improving words to Smith, and started about the work of the morning, which is, of course, coffee.

But not before hearing anguished and very loud screams, apparently in English. And it did sound as if the man was shouted “I AM GAY,” and a woman was saying, in Spanish, “se cayó,” or “he fell.” Presumably she was on the telephone, talking to whatever authority it is who deals with alleged gay falling bodies.

Well, that seemed to need investigation, but I was too decaffeinated to get up and walk around the corner (though I say this with no pride). So I did what any other lazy or spineless person would do: looked it up on the Internet.

There, of course, I got distracted, though I haven’t lost track of the rape kits for Native Americans, nor should you. But it seemed important to read about Abercrombie & Fitch (just FYI, the computer has no red squiggles for the last two proper nouns, but try writing Chausson, Messiaen, or even Gonoud—what a world, hunh?) Abercrombie & Fitch have come right out swinging—they don’t want ugly people in their stores. Nor, for that matter, do they want fat people in their clothes, so they settle that by simply not making anything larger than medium. Oh, and want to work in Abercrombie & Fitch? Better look the part, because otherwise forget it.

That, of course, set me wondering, since I spent seven years attempting to pass as a human resources person. Can you get away with that? Especially in Puerto Rico, which has strong, some-would-say-absurdly-protective laws? And what happens when a young and dazzling Abercrombie & Fitch salesperson, his brain inflamed by the alluring shirtless men on all the shopping bags, spends a weekend drooling and guzzling chocolates? He comes in on Monday with zits blazing across his face—is he fired? Sent home, or to the dermatologist? Set to work in the back room?

None of this, of course, is sufficiently important to devote an hour to, much less the 497 words I have spilled. What I really meant to tell you about, beyond the rape kits for Native Americans, is that our old nemesis, Phyllis Schlafly (YES!—both names got the red squiggles! At last!) is still kicking.

If you don’t know Schlafly—and no, computer, I’m not adding her; that would be a form of self-pollution—I congratulate you. You are young, and probably working at Abercrombie & Fitch. Let me describe her social views as that of a lady just stepping out of her cave.

She almost single-handedly killed an amendment, back in the seventies, that seemed pretty innocuous—it would have granted equal rights for women. I know—I can hear the collective gasp of horror from the blogosphere, but relax, it didn’t happen. Schlafly, who got an MA from Radcliffe and her law degree from Washington University, stepped right up to the plate, and pointed out the errancy lurking behind those seemingly innocent words.

It was all, she said, a plot by the homosexual agenda—guess we know who that is!—to convince us all that homosexuals were normal and let them get married. Now then, you—product of a degenerate age—may in fact think that homosexuals are normal and should get married, but Phyllis, dear Phyllis, is standing firm. As she did forty years ago, when she succeeded in getting five states that had ratified the amendment to unratify / deratify / disratify / you-know-what-I-mean the amendment. It was wonderful—in the sense of to-be-wondered—the arguments that spewed out of her. Stay-at-home moms would be denied social security! Women would be drafted! Public unisex bathrooms!

Well, she killed the ERA, she and her rabble-rousing crowd, and she’s still at it. And in a way, it’s comforting that she’s still around, still as ridiculous as ever. What would it be like, waking up to a world where Schlafly gets up on the podium, waves the flag, and roars out her support for marriage equality? Would I want this woman for a friend?

At any rate, she has now made it clear for all of us—tradition holds that sodomy is worse than rape. This, presumably, would mean “illegitimate” rape as opposed to “legitimate” rape—a concept propounded by Todd Akin, and vigorously defended by Schlafly.

And now she’s urging the Republican Party to stand firm, not to give an inch, hold their ground! Yes, Minnesota—that seething cesspool of sin—is poised to become the twelfth state to approve marriage equality, but that doesn’t faze Schlafly: she’s faced bigger bullies on her block than that before.

And the old, lovely voices are raised again. Here’s Dobson:

“Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage, Dobson said at a 2004 rally in Oklahoma. “It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”

Next comes Sandy Rios:

“They are clamoring for gay marriage,” said Rios of LGBT activists. “Of course it isn’t just gay marriage, it’s instruction, explicit instruction in public schools, it’s really I think the rape of our children’s innocence.”

How about Tony Perkins?

The month of June is Gay Pride Month. Now, I have not yet seen where they have declared Adultery Pride Month, I have not seen where they have declared the Drunkenness Pride Month.

I could go on, but why bother? What really concerns me is not this ridiculous woman, but her son John, who is gay. Oh, and living at home with Mamma, or at least was in 1992, when he was outed. And, in a lukewarm way, he defends his mother’s positions, saying that she is doing good work, and stating that "efforts to convey the (Republican) Convention and the platform and speakers as bigots and gay bashers is (sic) completely inaccurate. The concept of family values should not be threatening to gays and lesbians. Most gays and lesbians have good relations with their family, as I do."

And Schlafly says the same thing: “We deeply resent the insinuation that we have treated homosexuals unkindly personally,” Schlafly and her friends wrote. Oh, and she said something else: homosexuality "is not a big subject around (the Schlafly family)."

I’m very sure it’s not. It’s one of the oldest forms of repression—a refusal to talk about it. And it leads to certain crazy places, such as this quote by John Schlafly:

John Schlafly, asked if he supports his mother's signature issue of the week -- a constitutional ban on gay marriage -–stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts.

"I think the traditional definition of marriage has served our society well, and it shouldn't be changed," says John Schlafly, choosing his words slowly. "That was the law in every state, and still is except for certain court decisions. I don't see why there's anything wrong with it."

"It doesn't prevent gays from living their personal lives any way they choose," he said quietly, "Gays have all the same civil and political rights as everyone else. The rights guaranteed by our Constitution."

It’s from an anonymous source on a website—I have no way of knowing if indeed John Schlafly did say it. But I was going to bemoan my fate, I who have shacked up these thirty long years with Mr. Fernández. Who called, just as I was starting this post, to ask me what I wanted for dinner. “Pizza,” I said, of course. “Wrong, you want fish,” he returned. Right, so I got that out of the freezer. Then Mr. Fernández went on to tell me the wet t-shirts would rot in the hamper. Right, so I started the laundry.

Then I wrote, “Well, if that’s what I’m doing, shouldn’t it be more fun?”

I was feeling put-upon, I admit it. But just now it occurred to me, and I’m over it.

That gay falling body?

Think it was John Schlafly.        

Despair, Impatience and Sin

 Susan strikes again, with words as keenly chiseled as a reredos:

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Religion is the greatest obstacle to living a godly life. Like all human institutions, religions are corrupted to suit human purposes, which are overwhelmingly about power and money, and subject to the fears and superstitions of the ignorant. So what's a person who loves God, his/her fellow creatures and the planet to do? Julian of Norwich recognizes only two sins: impatience and despair. Those are the two tough ones. I'm impatient for human beings to get our act together, and I despair that we ever will. One small ray of hope: things like war and the death penalty are at least controversial now, and we don't pack up the family and a picnic to view public hangings as a form of entertainment.

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Well, yes. Despair and impatience come all to easily to me as well. And yesterday, as I wondered about “legitimate” rape, it was all the more difficult to keep from sin.

OK—let’s try to be fair.  I’m sure—I’m at least trying to be sure—that Akin meant something other than there is “legitimate” rape. He probably meant what used to be called forcible rape. A maiden is sleeping virtuously in her bedroom at night, her flannel nightgown covering all her nasty bits. An intruder jimmies the window, steals into her bedroom, and puts the gun to her temple. Her pupils constrict in terror.

That sort of stuff.

This is in contrast to the “other” kind of rape. A woman goes to a bar by herself. She’s wearing her best clothes, looking good. She meets a guy, he buys her a drink, they talk. She flirts. At some point, in the car going to his apartment, or in the apartment itself, it turns nasty. She says no, he overpowers her.

What happened?

Rape.

But to all too many people, there’s still that voice—“she lured him on”—in the back of their heads.

However, the representative seems to have gone further. Apparently, he really believes that in cases of “forcible” rape the woman’s body will reject the spermatozoa, and she will not get pregnant.

I tried, Susan, I really tried to give this argument the benefit of the doubt. It’s said that more male children are born in times of war than peace. Is it true? Well, I looked it up and, yes, it appears so. I also remembered a story I read in my Walmart days of women being more receptive to a stranger’s sperm than to her regular partner’s. Therefore accounting for more pregnancies as a result of a casual fling than in a monogamous relationship.

Too tired to look that up….

Or rather, I realized that it wasn’t the point. My belief? The senator doesn’t want anyone to have an abortion. Period. As a result of rape, as a result of poverty, as a result of a life- threatening condition—zip. NO ABORTIONS!

OK—but why twist science to justify it?

Oh, and by the way, the representative is on the House Committee of Science, Spaceand Technology.

Does this inspire confidence?

And then I began to wonder about how men have justified rape in the past. One of the myths common in my childhood was that no woman could be penetrated against her will. The idea was that the vaginal opening was a sphincter, which would automatically snap closed if needed. So any penetration meant implicit consent.

And then I remembered the book that changed it all—Against Our Will. Yup, Susan Brownmiller. Anybody remember her?

What she said was quite simple. Rape is an act of aggression. No is no. There’s no difference between the maiden sleeping in her bed and the girl out for a good time in a bar.

She went further. Here—as always!—is WikiPedia:

Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women, and that men use, and all men benefit from the use of, rape as a means of perpetuating male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear.

Wow! When I read that in 1975 it set my head spinning. Me, a gay guy benefiting from rape?

“Of course you’re racist—you’re living—we’re all living—in a racist society,” said a black lover of mine, when I asked him if he thought I was racist. And Brownmiller, I suspect, would argue much the same. At the age of 55, a perfect Kinsey 7—I’m a pretty safe guy for a woman to be around. But the fear of rape changes every woman’s life, and mine as well.

Right—so they were strong words to hear. I read Against Our Will several times and eventually understood it and agreed with it. And after the initial shock, I no longer reacted defensively to the notion that all men benefit from the use of rape.

And now, I yearn for the earnest directness of the late sixties, seventies. Brownmiller came slugging out with her book, knocked us out of the water, changed the dialogue, maybe changed our beliefs. 

And now we have this little weasel trying to pull us back into the rap again.

So no, Susan and Julian of Norwich, I shall not sin. I’ll just say what should be said of all bad thinking and dishonest motivation.

Ne fas!