Is Paedophilia a Real Danger?
What’s next? So many changes have occurred in society that even a few years ago would have been unthinkable – a few are positive, many are negative – and one issue that is ‘unthinkable’ today may soon become the mainstream.
A hint of this came from an unexpected source last week. The last thing you would expect to become an issue during the Scottish Parliament election is paedophilia. But social media in Scotland this weekend carried a number of disturbing allegations and outraged denials.
At first they were so unbelievable that I did not believe them, but having looked at the evidence I believe that there are, at the very least, serious questions to be answered.
The influential, informative, and controversial pro-independence website, Wings Over Scotland, modestly describes itself as ‘the world’s most read Scottish politics website’. It is run by Stuart Campbell, a former video games journalist who adds ‘Rev’ to his name, although he is not a minister in any recognised denomination. Despite his many shortcomings, Campbell has the uncanny knack of ferreting out stories that get left behind in much of the media and this weekend was no different.
He linked to a document entitled the ‘Feminist declaration on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women’, a document drafted by the Women’s Rights Caucus, a global coalition of over 200 organisations working to advance women’s human rights internationally.
Whilst railing against the patriarchy, heteronormativity and advocating, amongst other things, an extremist abortion policy, recognition of ‘sex work’ and removing the ‘discriminatory’ link between this and trafficking, it makes two statements which are quite breathtaking.
Their aim is to:
“Eliminate all laws and policies that punish or criminalize same-sex intimacy, gender affirmation, abortion, HIV transmission non-disclosure and exposure, or that limit the exercise of bodily autonomy, including laws limiting legal capacity of adolescents, people with disabilities or other groups to provide consent to sex.”
And to:
“End the criminalization and stigmatization of adolescents’ sexuality, and ensure and promote a positive approach to young people’s and adolescents’ sexuality that enables, recognizes, and respects their agency to make informed and independent decisions on matters concerning their bodily autonomy, pleasure and fundamental freedoms.”
The UN categorises adolescents as those between 10 and 18. If words have any meaning, and in this post-post-modern world it is questionable whether they do, then this is clearly calling for ‘the right’ of those aged 10 and above to consent to sex, which is regarded as a fundamental freedom.
The Scottish Election
So what does this have to do with the Scottish election? The document was produced and signed by amongst others International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (the ILGA), and organisation that includes many groups like Mermaids, LGBT Labour, LGBT Humanists, National Union of Students LGBT Campaign, Stonewall Scotland, Stonewall Equality, Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement – LGCM and LGBT Youth Scotland.
Many of these groups are government-funded, and so the question has been raised: why is the government funding groups that have put their name to a document that advocates the removal of all laws limiting adolescents having sex?
A reasonable question, one would think, but it turns out that even to ask the question invites fury. Alba Women (the women’s section of the new Scottish independence party), who first raised this at a large women’s conference, have had their Twitter account suspended for reporting it.
Stonewall Scotland categorically denied campaigning for lowering the age of consent, but as yet have not dissociated themselves from the organisation which signed this on their behalf, nor demanded that it be retracted. Are they really saying that their slogan ‘acceptance without exception’ does after all have some exceptions? One would hope so!
A Caution
Part of the fury is from those who consider that even raising such concerns is somehow equating homosexuality with paedophilia. Christians need to be very careful here not to do that, nor to hint at it. Many homosexuals are as horrified at this as the rest of us, and many heterosexuals are child abusers. It is absolutely wrong to lump together a whole group of people because of one ideology practised by some of them.
Where Queer Theory Leads
However, you don’t avoid one evil by ignoring others and so we need to see that this is clearly the direction Queer theory leads in. Its aim is the absolute freedom to do as you please, with whoever you want, whenever you want. It is a philosophy (read Foucault and Butler) which believes absolutely in the individual’s freedom to do whatever they want, free from the artificial restrictions of society. Speaking of Foucault, it is not without significance that accusations have recently come to light of him apparently raping boys as young as eight years old when he lived in Tunisia in the 1960s.
Closer to home, British gay campaigner Peter Tatchell wrote an infamous letter to The Guardian in 1997 where, after pointing out that several of his friends as children had sex with adults from the ages of nine to thirteen, he went on to say that whilst he condemned paedophilia, society should acknowledge “the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted or harmful”.
A couple of decades ago after a debate on same-sex adoption, some men who identified themselves as Tatchell supporters, told me that they did not believe in the age of consent, and that if they were babysitting my children (aged seven and eight) at the time, they would teach them to sexually explore, because it was “only natural”. I was horrified – and to be fair, so was my debate opponent (himself gay), who stood with me to argue against such evil.
When I wrote to a national newspaper informing them of Tatchell’s aim to reduce the age of consent to 14, I was told it would not be published as it was ‘homophobic’. Then, as today, the cry of homophobe can be used to shut down any discussion.
At the end of the 1960s and during the early 1970s – the Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter years – it actually looked as though paedophilia might become an accepted sexuality. The National Council for Civil Liberties, whose legal officer was Harriet Harman (future deputy Labour leader), even had the Paedophile Information Exchange as one of its members. But for some reason, in the mercy of God, by the end of the decade paedophilia had become the great sin – and has remained so.
Are Things Changing?
But are things now changing? There are a number of straws in the wind, of which the ‘Feminist Declaration’ is just the latest.
Paedophilia is increasingly being recognised as a sexual orientation. For example in 2015 an academic conference at the University of Cambridge heard several speakers arguing in favour of paedophilia. In the same year, the American Psychological Association in an edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders called paedophilia a “sexual orientation”. They later withdrew the designation.
Chillingly, there are more than 100,000 websites offering child pornography, some have argued that we are returning to a Greco/Roman/Pagan time where pederasty was considered a normal behaviour – and they think this is a good thing.
The way that these changes occur is always the same. At an academic level some ‘experts’ start proposing theories that go against the current view and claim that it is ‘researched and proven’. Then activists start to agitate for their particular ideology – attempting to make it the next civil rights ‘equalities’ issue. Meanwhile there is a softening up of the general populace (who are usually considered to be too dumb to understand the sophisticated arguments) through soap operas and films.
The Sexualisation of Children
One area that should greatly concern us is the sexualization of children – whether through media, fashion or school. I would suggest that any parent should insist on reading what their children are being ‘educated’ in. When the Scottish Education Secretary John Swinney was asked by the Scottish Family Party to explain why his new sex education programme included teaching primary school children how to touch themselves and about anal and oral sex, he refused to answer.
One reason that paedophilia is more likely now than a decade ago is because of the issue of consent. When you state that a 7-year-old child has the right to consent to change their gender, then it is harder to argue that they cannot consent to sex. We are in a very dangerous position and, having rejected Christianity, I believe we are in grave danger of not progressing to a secular Nirvana, but regressing to the Greco/Roman/Pagan world.
What can the Church do?
What can the Church do? We can advocate for children. We can ensure our own house is in order. We must understand what is going on in the wider world and the direction our increasingly godless culture is going. We must ask government not to fund organisations who support the removal of laws on adolescent sexuality.
We must keep a watchful eye on what is taught to our children in school under the guise of ‘sexual health’, which is far too often a Trojan horse for teaching a sexual (im)morality which is little more than groomingWe must ensure that in our churches a biblical sexual ethic is taught and practised. We must learn to speak out boldly – and not leave it to the Jordan Petersons or Doug Murrays of this world. And we must pray. “Great is the darkness that covers the earth … come Lord Jesus!”
As a footnote I wonder which church leaders and politicians will dare to take on this subject and expose this evil? I note that many of our church leaders feel free to pronounce on every issue (others of course stay silent on every issue). Is there any issue in society more important than protecting our children? Speak up!
As a further footnote it should be noted the compliance of the Scottish media in covering this up and keeping silent. The Times and the Scotsman both carried reports for example denying the story by claiming that adolescents does not mean children and that anyway it was about sexual health. Anyone who has actually read the Feminist Declaration knows that that is not true (I suspect the journalists are not lying – they just havn’t done their homework).
In another development the Scottish Greens Rainbow group has issued a statement which condemns the reports (but not the Feminist Declaration). One of the co-convenors of that group is a man called Eilidh Martin whose posts are gross and perverse in the extreme (so much so that I am not going to post the link here). Patrick Harvie knows who this man is and what he has tweeted yet still wrote to commend him after he appeared on the last Scottish leaders debate, asking a question. It’s strange if a Tory politician were to tweet about wearing diapers as a sexual turn on, and the other forms of perversity (including more than a hint at paedophilia), the media would be all over it. But you will not hear a word about this. Instead those who have exposed this story will just be accused of transphobia….it is really creepy and dangerous. Who will call our politicians and media to account?
Steve Chalke, Peter Tatchell, Julie Bindel and the Creeping Normalisation of Paedophilia
Sir Keir Starmer’s apology only reveals the intolerance of our so-called ‘diverse’ society – CT
If you werent such a dangerous divisive arsehole this claim might be funny.
This nonsense has been thoroughly ridiculed and debunked elsewhere.
When it first came out I thought it was only a matter of time before you spouted it as truth.
IF it has been throughly debunked elsewhere you will be able to tell us which of the facts in this article are wrong. So feel free to do so. Or do you just resort to abuse because you can’t and you don’t want it to be true? I have presented evidence now you show where it is wrong. And think for yourself instead of just googling someone who agrees with you and resorts to the same abuse.
If indeed there is a ‘dangerous devisive arsehole’ in this conversation Bob, I think perhaps it is selfevedent by the vitriol in your rhetoric, who’s charactor more closely resembles your words and it’s not Rev Robertson!
My dear boy, Mark,
That comment undermines the inestimable, esteemed lawyer in you. Such a disappointment to find you have feet of clay.
More pertinently, do you robustly denounce paedophilia even as you denounce David?
Or does your worship of secular Scotland trump all else?
Dear David
Thank you very much for your article. What you state and refer to in this article is bang on the mark, if I can use such terms in this very serious, and to many of us a very distressing time in our history!
At a local level here in our islands I have been involved in a very lengthy and sometimes exasperating debate on the introduction of revised materials and guidance for teaching in our schools of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (rshp.scot) This new teaching resource is in the view of many of our Councillors a promotion both of different forms of sexual orientation and the normalisation of pornography. Fortunately the majority of our Councillors voted to commend the Scottish Catholic Education Services resources for the teaching of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood rather than this newly revised scheme – rshp.scot; the underlying narrative which they state themselves in these resources is that children and young people “can be what you want to be!”
You are therefore correct in stating that we have to be watchful as to the content of what is being taught in our schools “under the guise of sexual health.” In my opinion, there is a deliberate attempt of introducing into the minds of our children and young people the “normalisation” of different forms of sexual activity at an impressionable which will inevitably have an adverse effect on themselves and society at large.
The refrain that Paul uses in the first chapter of Romans, “God gave them up,” is a very sad refrain but one that has much to say tour day.
May I thank you once again for your “voice in the wilderness” and hope that your cry to our church leaders, who sadly, to a large extent have lost their “voice,” would not go unheeded. The more shouts we hear the stronger the voice!
May God bless you in your work.
Calum Maclean
50 Upper Coll
Isle of Lewis
I was incredibly shocked at the other person’s comment. It is indicative of the darkness that goes on in this world that they fail to acknowledge the evil that is present and so dangerous to our children. I am a public school teacher, and I can tell you that our children are being groomed for immorality, earlier and earlier sexuality, teaching them to be excepting of everything without critical thought, and believe that the population needs to be culled. Many of my students and colleagues are fans of the new Sabrina the Teenage Witch program. It’s a shockingly evil program. It doesn’t even try to hide it’s satanist agenda. I think it appeals because the underlying philosophy is to do what feels good, without regard for others. I do pray, “Great is the darkness that covers the earth. Come Lord Jesus.” God bless you for your work for the kingdom. Don’t be discouraged.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-allowed-pedophiles-to-foster-children/a-53839291
David
After “impressionable” please insert “age”
Also in second last paragraph”tour” should read “to our”
I should have given this to my wife BEFORE I pushed “send” rather than AFTER!!
Regards
Calum
“Eliminate all laws and policies that punish or criminalize… HIV transmission non-disclosure and exposure”
Assuming the text is real and not a hoax, does this part mean someone could deliberately fail to disclose to a sexual partner that they are HIV positive and then not face any legal consequences if they infect them?
Of course, Foucault himself was so perverted he was allegedly a “bug chaser” – a person who is so utterly depraved that he or she deliberately seeks out HIV positive partners:
https://charmthebear.blogspot.com/2007/07/st-aids-in-singapore-jul-25.html?m=1
This is surely at the extreme limits of human sin. Surely it is not possible for us in our human depravity to sink any lower?
This is real – and that is precisely what it means…
Thanks for clarifying. When I made that other comment about Foucault a few weeks ago:
“… I did read another rumour about his activity in the past…”
https://theweeflea.com/2021/03/27/an-open-letter-to-jordan-peterson-ct/
it was the “bugchasing” allegation I was referring to at that time. I have seen the allegation made both on the internet and in published hard copy books so the information is readily available, yet academics, philosophers and social activists continue to laud him despite this accusation of perverse behaviour of the worst possible kind imaginable. At the very least it needs to be investigated and confirmed or denied and, if true, his work must be reassessed in the light of his debauchery or mental health problems.
Not to take away from the vety seriois discussion at hand but there is some breaking UK political news that I think will probably interest you: If you aren’t already aware, the famous British politician, Shirley Williams (Christian writer Vera Brittain’s daughter) has just passed away, aged 90.
Also, back here, more chatter about China and the risk of war from the former government defence industries minister, Christopher Pyne:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-12/christopher-pyne-potential-conflict-china-politics/100064226
This is horrendous. It is especially awful to think that if these goals were achieved it would make it all the harder to protect the vulnerable especially children (10 year olds+) who were the victims of sexual abuse. I have come across accounts of those who have been sexually abused as children who inevitably for one reason or another, feel a sense of attatchment, affection or even love for their abuser. This would make it so much harder to successfully prosecute the perpetrator in these situations.
I wrote this in September 2016: “I have previously communicated to homosexual activists that SSM would lead to the gradual acceptance of other paraphilias, on the basis that their slogan of ‘love, non-discrimination, and equality’ can be applied to all other human relations. They responded by saying that ‘consent’ can’t apply to paedophila and bestiality. I simply pointed out that homosexuality was once abhorred by society in general but has gained a foothold. So why can’t the same apply to other paraphilias if similar social engineering is employed? I write this as the Queensland Government has recently legislated the lowering of the age of anal sexual consent to 16 years. The move reminded me of the past attempt by homosexual activists to reduce the age of all sexual consent to 12 years of age. One wonders how much further they will go and when!”
‘One area that should greatly concern us is the sexualization of children – whether through media, fashion or school.’
For those in Australia a shout out to the charity ‘Collective Shout’ which does wonderful work countering the sexploitation of children: https://www.collectiveshout.org. Well worth your dollars and your support.
Foucault’s whole philosophy stemmed from his thoughts about language, labels and power after he spent time in a lunatic asylum because of his sexual perversion. He was contemplating why it was that some humans had authority over others to lock them up and how these authorities (white hetero males) had obtained the right to categorise his homosexuality as a mental aberration. In other words, he was trying to justify to the world that he was normal and dudn’t deserve this treatment.
The thing is, if these allegations are true, and he was also a paedophile and/or a “bugchaser”, then by any reasonable person’s standard, he clearly *was* sexually insane (if that word still has any meaning left at all) and the authorities were absolutely justified in locking him up (as much for his own safety as anyone else’s!) and the entire foundation of his philosophy instantly collapses into the dust!
People might take his side and argue homosexuality is not a mental illness and some sick souls in positions of power are trying to justify paedophilia now as we see in this article but who is going to argue that something as depraved as bugchasing is normal?
If Heidegger has a dark cloud hanging over himself now because of his Nazism, Foucault’s reputation is surely likewise tarnished. His entire philosophy HAS to be reassessed in the light of the fact that he was probably sexually insane.
“His entire philosophy HAS to be reassessed in the light of the fact that he was probably sexually insane.”
It may seem abhorrent but it’s not really that insane. If he really was a ‘bugchaser’ (someone trying to contract HIV), and not a ‘gift giver’ (someone trying to spread it) isn’t it just a thrill seeking long slow suicide? There are unfortunately just as many parallels in heterosexual activity.
Unfortunately there are so so many great writers and thinkers who were thoroughly unpleasant people – Yeats, Dickens, Salinger, Waugh, Golding, Highsmith, Pound, Locke, Dickens – paedophiles, adulterers, fascists, racists, rapists. In fact sinners, just like us.
Thank you David for highlighting this issue. I am still bruised from trying to raise the issue that paedophilia would be the next morality issue. I was shouted down in a church meeting when I raised this concerning PSHE and RSE teachings coming into schools about 3 years ago. The UN lists the goals in this sexual revolution and introducing children to sexual activity at young ages is part of the plan. A really shocking one is for nursery staff to m*sturbate babies and toddlers as children are born s#xual beings. This is straight out of the Alfred Kinsey book when he was found to have been paying people to perform these experiments. Then you have Teen Vogue normalising a#nal sex to teenagers, doing their part for the new world order.
The church needs to wake up and realise that God makes moral boundaries to keep us safe from the wolves prowling around us.
Re Paedophilia , is Matthew 18 : 6 an invitation to such people ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skOpDB3Fa-8 ) to commit suicide ?
I can’t see our all-wise and benevolent secular overlords ever deciding that paedophilia is now legal, but I can see them redefining what it actually means by lowering the age of consent or pointing out that the word technically only applies to pre-pubescent children. When that happens the Internet is likely to collapse under the sheer avalanche of newly-legalised adolescent porn.
With drug taking – much of it went on in the privacy of the home or other hidden environments until it became so widespread and acceptable that when it became more public the authorities chose, after some token gestures, to admit they couldn’t stop it. It is widespread not because any law has made it acceptable but because society has got used to the idea and don’t feel strongly enough about it to bother opposing it.
Likewise with paedophilia – it will not matter if laws are formally passed allowing it or not. It is being promoted increasingly overtly in the media, the unthinkable/unspeakable/unacceptable has become thinkable and speakable and is on the way to becoming acceptable – not because the majority will accept it but because they and their representatives will not resist it sufficiently – and be sure a coterie of lawyers will arise eager to make a buck out of promoting the human rights/civil liberties of their slimy clients. Thousands of children are doomed to sexual abuse because too few will be bothered to protect them – The UK already has the template in the disgraceful abandonment of young teen girls to grooming gangs in many cities who were given a pass by the police and social workers to safeguard “community cohesion”.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-allowed-pedophiles-to-foster-children/a-53839291
And still the deluded vote for the snp. Even today the latest election ‘bribe’ is that they are including so called ‘Right to Die’ in their election manifesto.
Paedophilia is rife across all church denominations so maybe you should be looking to start changing within your own religious institutions, David? That’s not to say other religions are clear of it because they aren’t, but this article strikes me as rather disingenuous because you’re turning a massive blind eye to the massive child sex abuse that goes on within the churches. If you wrote about that first rather than pretending it isn’t happening then you might actually have a bit of credibility.
1) I don’t pretend it doesn’t happen. 2) It is not rife nor ‘massive (don’t believe every meme you read). But delighted you are opposed to paedophilia.