The Politics of Paedophilia

Under the Human Rights Act, paedophiles must now be allowed unsupervised meetings with their own children; apparently, to prevent them would be a breach of their right to a family life. Most reasonable people would say that by committing these appalling crimes they have forfeited such rights. However, contributors to a recent BBC discussion programme passionately defended this new interpretation of human rights – the same ‘human rights’ lobby that relentlessly criticized Pope Benedict in the run-up to his UK visit, for not dealing with paedophile priests.

Thankfully, the Church now takes child protection seriously, but this sea-change pre-dated the Pope’s visit  in fact he has been the driver of the new approach. In ignoring this, such critics showed they were more interested in attacking the Church, undoubtedly as a proxy for Christianity. They were aided and abetted by the BBC in their pre-visit coverage; indeed, the media generally gave a platform to any critic of the Church, with or without legitimate criticism – even to homosexual rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who presented a Channel 4 programme attacking the Pope, despite his own support for lowering the age of sexual consent. The BBC itself noted that paedophile offences rose by 60% from 2010 to 2011. No progressive voices have been raised against this appalling phenomenon, but as one prominent female Left/liberal remarked of a paedophile kidnapping case, the most important thing was not to let it affect our attitude to criminology; in other words, paedophiles must be protected. Although the progressive middle-class Left/liberal worldview  as distinct from the working-class political stance that owed more to Methodism than to Marx – is in a minority, its views are extremely influential, magnified by the BBC and transmitted worldwide. Moreover, since Christianity has been marginalised it has become the moral conscience of the nation. A few years ago it directed much elitist mirth at a working-class demonstration that confused a paediatrician with a paedophile, surely a judgment against the same well-educated progressives who have engineered the dumbing down of education for the poor. Once again the most important thing was not the protection of children but the protection of paedophiles who, it was solemnly asserted would go underground if parents were allowed to know that paedophiles who were in the community were in their community. In truth, the most important thing is that paedophiles challenge the Left/liberals worldview: their crimes are not driven by materialism, and they are almost impossible to reform. This reality will not produce an about-turn in the Left/liberal approach, however; indeed, it is more likely to push it even further, because to admit defeat would be to admit the unthinkable  that there is a moral dimension to the problem; that inappropriate behaviour might actually be sinful behaviour.

At this point most Left/liberals would simply change the subject; but they could be co-opted for the paedophile rights campaign by more ideologically committed progressives, who will argue that not to do so will threaten sexual rights, especially homosexual rights. In view of the fact that the enthusiastic espousal of homosexual rights is now the litmus test of the true Left/liberal, they may become the useful idiots of the New Culture Wars, legacy of the Frankfurt Schools long march through the institutions. The Left/liberals keen interest in individual freedom rather than the welfare of the family, characterised by the campaigns for birth control, abortion, divorce, and homosexuality, has been concealed by the virtuous fig-leaf of helping the deprived, even though stable families are the bedrock of all freedoms, especially for the poor. Arguably, these libertarian measures were achieved under Labour administrations elected by working-class voters more interested in social justice than personal liberation, but the same libertarian measures have undermined those working-class communities, and now the bankruptcy of the Left/liberal approach to poverty, to the family and to criminology, which the August riots revealed, is becoming harder to deny. Having achieved an exponential increase in the numbers of the deprived, the Left/liberal may move on to defending a new underdog – the depraved. And if the Daily Mail is against it, then the Left/liberal is usually for it; sadly, that is the level at which the nations moral conscience now operates.

The 1970s fever of sexual rights politics extended to paedophiles rights; doubtless even the National Council of Civil Liberties (now Liberty) was influenced by the pathetic but harmless old men in raincoats image projected by paedophile groups. However, one unintended consequence of the sexual revolutions emphasis on freedom for consenting adults was to emphasize that this must exclude children. Ironically the homosexual equality campaign benefited from this argument, but the campaigns very success has led to calls for full acceptance of homosexuality; ergo that children must be taught about it in sex education classes that already treat children like mini adults and downplay the age of consent. In a further development, a conference seeking to eliminate the stigma suffered by minor-attracted adults has been seen as part of a move to normalise paedophilia by Dr. Judith Reisman, who in Kinsey, Sex and Fraud famously unmasked Alfred Kinseys work on sexual proclivities as fraudulent and personally motivated. Kinsey popularised the view of a spectrum of sexuality, with one kind of orientation shading into another, rather than clear-cut divisions between the acceptable and the non-acceptable. The influential bio-ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer maintains that prohibitions against bestiality and paedophilia are the result of cultural conditioning, which of course includes religious conditioning; that they are not necessarily harmful, and that, as with homosexuality, they may be allowed in the future.

The Bible does not explicitly mention paedophilia; there was no age of consent in Bible times, but since the point of marriage was reproduction the relevant age would have been puberty. Christians have seen offences against children as being covered by Leviticus prohibition of incest, reiterated by St Paul to the Romans and the Corinthians. The Judeo-Christian approach continues to see sexual activity outside of marriage as wrong, but this is becoming an increasingly minority position, and the fact that Christians may be virtually the only organised opposition to the campaign for paedophiles rights will allow its proponents to argue that all opposition is right wing fundamentalist Christian and proceed to bully it mercilessly. This would deter the average Left/liberal from speaking out and would help gain the support of the growing band of Atheist Darwinists. It is significant that while the Bible emphasizes reproductive sex, the consistent thread in sexual liberationist campaigns is non-reproductive sex. It may seem strange that Darwinists, with their emphasis on nature should be against reproduction, but scratch the average Darwinist and you will find an old-fashioned Malthusian eugenicist who believes that the population must be drastically cut for the sake of the Planet – which means cutting the numbers of poor/non-white people. Peter Singer has argued that some intelligent animals are more deserving of rights than, for example, mentally disabled humans, and that the world is threatened by overpopulation. As Steven Moshers Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits demonstrates, explicit sex education has been promoted in developing countries in order to drive down birth rates  the same sex education that is pushed at children in this country, especially in deprived areas. It is significant that a disproportionate number of abortions are carried out on non-white women in this country and in America. The campaign for paedophile rights may represent the latest round in the battle against population; even if it does not succeed, by diverting attention it will help consolidate the principle gain of the sexual revolution: abortion rights, thus the vested interests of the Left/liberal may play a vital role in the campaign to make paedophilia a political issue, either by omission or commission. This will make them the useful idiots not only of militant Atheists but of truly right-wing eugenicists and population controllers. The public may dismiss this campaign as so distasteful and bizarre that it will never happen; however, as Chesterton maintained, people say a certain scheme is only in the air, but a hatchet blow can only be parried while it is in the air.

Sadly, no church or religion is immune from the plague of paedophilia, but at least Christianity can be judged by its own moral standards; by what standards can Atheist Left/liberals be judged? Their values change with the times; the truth is eternal. Left/liberals are fearless in promoting unpopular causes, but very often they are prompted by the intellectual snobbery that believes the unpopular must be right, because only a few can possibly have access to this higher knowledge. In contrast, Christians should be fearless in risking unpopularity by saying and doing what is right, among the intellectual and political elites who are so influential in running our country and shaping our culture. God has revealed the truth to all men so clearly that even those who deny it cannot ignore it. That is what makes it so dangerous.