Gay is NOT = Paedophile
My dad is, in general, someone who believes in equality for all races, religions and sexual orientations.
Yet the other day, I overheard him telling my brother to be careful cos there are all kinds of people these days ……. These gay men in all the catholic churches , all the gay priests.
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It seems like these days, secularists blame the Catholic Church, religious faithful blame gay people (And yes, I realise i’ve just committed the same crime of generalisation and hence have turned secularists, faithful and gay people against me with a single sentence! so i should qualify and say that it’s the media that seems to portray that. Hmmm have I made an enemy out of the media people too???shucks.)
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At the end of the day, this is a matter of respecting people’s freedom to believe in whatever they choose, and to love whoever they want; it is about protecting people from being abused, about bringing justice to those who have violated others while not unjustly categorising the innocent together with the guilty. All at once.
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The guilt of the abusers do not lie with the Catholic Church & followers, neither does it lie with gay people.
The guilt lies with
- the individual people who abused the trust of the Church, the followers, and the children
- the individual people who turned a blind eye to justice and covered up the crimes
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Just as there are heterosexual abusers and heterosexual good people, there are also homosexual abusers and homosexual good people. Within any institution or setting or organisation, we need to ask if the loopholes allow easy exploitation by either heterosexual or homosexual abusers (ie. individual people seeking opportunities to abuse victims)
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We also need to recognise the RESPONSIBILITY that ALSO lies with
- the government and law enforcement officers, whose job is to protect the citizens of all race, religion, age, etc, rather than to protect the image and sanctity of institutions
- the citizens, whose responsibility it is to call governments and institutions to question and checks
- the families, whose responsibility it is to believe in and protect their children, rather than seemingly incorruptible institutions of any kind.
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This means that everyone of us is responsible for ensuring such abuses do not happen in our local institutions.
Responsibility belongs to all.
But guilt, belongs only to the guilty.
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In many of these countries eg. Ireland, the government and people’s preference to protect the image of the Church had resulted in the delays and obstruction of justice for decades. The disbelieve on the part of parents made victims of their own children over and over again.
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[...] Religion – Irreligious: Singaporeans: Apathetic about inter-faith dialogue? – Mathia Lee: Gay is NOT = Paedophile [...]
Gay not=paedophile but gay can also be paedophile. The question is whether there is a higher incident of such crimes committed by gay men. Are they more likely to be paedophiles?
I’m not saying research such as the one below are right or wrong but they are the source for the widespread belief (or misinformation?) that gays are more likely to be paedophiles:
Freund K et al. Paedophilia and heterosexuality vs homosexuality. J Sex Mar Ther 1984;10:193-200
If you look up the paper, the researchers found that 35% of paedophiles are gays while only 2% of men are gay. If the paper is right, gays are 17 times more likely to be paedophiles.
I’m not saying all this to say that gay people are bad but I’m a realist. We all aspire to be more equal, less prejudice and more accepting….however the reality might not allow it.
Dad believes in equality for all races, religions and sexual orientations but he knew out there in the real world, this is not the case. Believing in something doesn’t mean we cannot be cautious about it.
I feel rather disappointed with Joe Lee’s claim to be a realist. As one, he should also consider other forms of differentiation: eg. how many paedophiles are Westerners? How many Catholic priests, as opposed to other clergies, are paedophiles? How many paedophiles are male? Which jobs are likelier to have paedophiles? etc.
Apparently, 90-95% of paedophiles in the UK are male; a fair number of these are also teachers. That’s astounding, isn’t it? I’m not saying that all men and all teachers are bad, but, since this is Joe’s way of knowing anything, he ought to be careful around them.