Welcome to Katalusis for progressive views on politics, religion, environmental issues,
and popular culture. (Photo of the Mississippi River
from the University Club in St. Paul, MN.)
Showing posts with label Sexual predators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sexual predators. Show all posts
Frank Bruni’s article at the NY Times offers a painful reminder of the vulnerability of young children to sexual predators. Bruni zeroes in on the recent scandal at Penn State University, which he links to similar widespread and prolonged abuse of young boys in the church, Boy Scouts, and other supposedly safe venues.
But if we simultaneously hold in our minds the fact that “1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or other otherwise abused during her lifetime,” we must face the reality that we can’t take for granted the safety of children of either gender – anywhere.
In the Molester Next Door, Bruni writes:
The longest, most exhaustively researched article I ever wrote for a newspaper or magazine was about a child molester who had sexually abused a little boy living down the street. The abuse went on for more than two years, beginning when the boy was 10.
The arrest on Saturday of a former Penn State University assistant football coach — who is accused of sexually abusing eight pre-adolescent, adolescent and teenage boys — brought this all back to me. I wonder if people who know the coach and saw him working with kids will comment on how genuinely nurturing he seemed and how this surely prevented or discouraged suspicions about him.
When I sat down at my computer this beautiful afternoon in the upper Midwest, I intended to respond to the editorial in today’s NY Times titled Reviving Civil Rights. I’ll get to that as soon as I’ve shaken off the effects of a chilling robocall I received minutes ago from the local police department. The recorded message informed me that two sex offenders were moving into my neighborhood, and I’m invited to attend a community meeting this evening to discuss the matter.
The timing of the robocall was not good as the coverage of the Jaycee Dugard case continues. Linda Golston in the San Jose Mercury News reports:
SAN JOSE — Authorities are exploring whether Phillip Garrido could be behind the abduction of another high profile missing girl, Michaela Garecht — with long blond hair, blue eyes and a friendly big-toothed grin, she could pass for Jaycee Dugard's sister.
But they share more than a similar physical appearance. An investigator looking into Michaela's disappearance is struck by the fact both she and Jaycee were kidnapped about two decades ago, yanked from the street into a stranger's car — Michaela from Hayward, in 1988, when she was 7; Jaycee from South Lake Tahoe, in 1991, when she was 11.
Back to the NY Times editorial which I just re-read. The piece mentions fairness in voting, employment, housing and other issues presumably as they impact all groups who continue to experience discrimination in the United States. It singles out prisoners as the group more abandoned than any other under the Bush Administration.
Granted the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping occurred well before Dubya took office, but my usual compassion for prisoners is temporarily on hold as I’m unavoidably reminded of the aftermath of Phillip Garrido’s early release from a 50-year sentence in the 1970s.
The Times editorial board deserves credit for its advocacy of the rights of gays and lesbians:
Gay men and lesbians still largely stand outside the division’s protection. If a hate crime law covering them is passed soon, as appears likely, the division should use it aggressively. Mr. Holder should also press Congress to pass the first federal law against job discrimination based on sexual orientation.
But the board neglects to mention that women are yet to be protected by hate crime legislation. In the 2008 election hanging Sarah Palin in effigy out in West Hollywood was dismissed as a Halloween prank; but the two men responsible for hanging Barack Obama in effigy on the University of Kentucky campus were immediately arrested.
In a week of news coverage that painfully reminds women everywhere that along with our daughters we continue to be vulnerable to sexual predators 24/7, you’d think the NY Times editorial board would have thought to mention specifically our civil rights.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made the rights of women central to American foreign policy. How long will it take for the rights of women to become central to American domestic policy?
Maybe when our dangerously juvenile political leaders and their media allies grow up.
More later. I have to get my act together, so I can attend our community meeting this evening to learn more about the sex offenders moving into my neighborhood.
