Now that you’re done arguing about children having sex, can we get back to the issue of how none of that — regardless of your or my point of view — allows pedophilia to be legal, regardless of its specific criminal status, so long as age-of-consent laws continue to exist?

And how the destruction of age-of-consent laws definitely does not fit anywhere within the ’5 easy steps’ outlined in this article?

And how gay rights have no impact on said consent laws?

Or are you finally going to concede that this article is just a smokescreen tactic to try and make it easy to justify repealing gay rights on the false premise that it will legitimize pedophilia?

“There are some issues that are too simple for intelligent people to understand. Most moral issues are like that. The problem isn’t distinguishing between right and wrong. That is not always as plain as day, but usually it is. The problem is finding a way to justify doing the wrong thing. And once you think you have found it, the people still arguing for doing the right thing may be dismissed as “simplistic.”

Emphasis mine.

“kids who are “choosing” sex are not doing so of their own free will, but for all the wrong reasons”

You seem to be mistaking the idea of free-will with the idea of making mistakes. Are children doing it for the wrong reasons, or are they being brainwashed to do it? You make it sound like there is some sort of conspiracy to put brain-control chips in kids so that they’re compelled against their will to go have sex.

“Is underaged sex good for kids? No”
I don’t disagree; I think even most young adults are insufficiently mature to handle the emotion consequences and physical risks of sex. But that’s not really a good reason create additional risk by refusing to educate. Still, this is still irrelevant to the issues of pedophilia or consent.

“disciplining a child”
Again; completely irrelevant to pedophilia AND consent, but still, let’s play with this nonsense. How exactly to you discipline a child so that they won’t have sex without your parental say-so? It’s not exactly something they’re usually going to do in the den while you watch Fox and Friends.

Threaten to take away their internet privileges? Or ground them, with the aid of a deadbolt? Oh, maybe lock them in a basement, and don’t let them out until they write a 10 page, Biblically referenced essay on purity? (Or perhaps you’d perfer ‘Obeying your parents’.)

No, no. Wait. In this modern age of the internet, I’m betting you’d just sidestep the punishments entirely. Why bother, when you can get artisan chastity belts made to deliver! Why I bet your stunning, obedient nuclear family doesn’t even poop without approval from the head of the house, right? What fantastic parenting.

Sarcastic mockery aside, do you have any clue how unfeasible it would be for you to actually control this sort of thing? And more importantly, do you even care about addressing the MANY, MANY flaws against the original topic at hand? I’ll give you some time to reread my posts — I’m sure you’ll find a few dozen salient posts to pick something from.

“I am so grateful this political view is finally about finished.”
Funny; I was thinking the same thing.

I did not say that. I said that refusing to educate children about the realities of sex is harmful.

Yes, because you are not contesting parental authority at all when you give out “homework” whereby the kids are to map their route from the school to the nearest Planned Parenthood.

I am so grateful this political view is finally about finished. You spend our children way too casually.

You might want to examine your motives for why you feel the way you do about the need to justify behaviors that, whatever noble motive you ascribe to them, in reality amount to encouraging and promoting the view that underaged sex is normal and can be healthy if condoms are used.

It’s not good for the kids. In fact, there is growing evidence that it’s really harmful to the kids. The reason we have an age of consent is because kids really cannot choose sex. Your arguments conspicuously ignore the fact that available evidence strongly suggests the kids who are “choosing” sex are not doing so of their own free will, but for all the wrong reasons.. And calling me “unreasonable” doesn’t change the fact that it’s really very straightforward, very cut and dried:

1. Is underaged sex good for kids? No. There is no reason to think that it’s good for kids – whether they use a condom or not.

2. Is it possible to teach kids about sex in the public schools in a truly neutral way? No: the teachers are not interested in doing so, they are pushing an agenda just like you are – and even if they weren’t, since it is part of the moral education that rightfully belongs to the parents, the teachers are inevitably setting themselves up in a contest over values with the parents, which is itself destructive to a child’s discipline

The single most important factor in disciplining a child is consistency, and the triangulation perpetrated by teachers eager to contest parental authority is probably the single biggest contributing factor to the premature sexualization of children.

But of course it’s more fun to hurl rage at the “prudes” and the evil “religious right” types (“Christofascists” is what they were called at the last public school I was involved with) than it is to actually take care of children, isn’t it?

Sorry to break it to you, but I had a friend who was really messed up by the experience of being raised by white people.

And I’m not talking about racialized victim politics. I’m talking about there being something inherently barbaric about forcing a black child to act like a white kid who just happens to have a really dark tan. This particular family was Jewish, and the reality is that Jewish families are really into their genealogy, and seriously defined by their genealogy. This poor kid had to participate in all the prayers, rituals, holidays, etc. where “we” celebrate “our” history – neither entitled to be part of the “we”, nor given any option for opting out, nor given any particular assistance for how to cope.

Then, of course, there’s the reality that even white kids in Jewish adoptive families have noted: some Jews have the hugest hearts in the world – but others view Gentiles as ‘other’.

It is not ‘racist’ to note that real cultural differences create real obstacles in adoption. There’s a reason there is growing international concern about international adoption, and whether “being rescued” really justifies dropping all the usual standards a child is entitled to.

You might argue that it’s still better than languishing in a foster home or third world country – and maybe you’re right, or maybe you’re not. But if you want to adopt a black kid, then instead of calling the social workers “racist” for observing a problem that is in fact a real problem, you could be part of finding a solution. Preferably a solution that doesn’t involve expecting the black (or foreign) kid to simply suck it up and “be” whatever the rich white parents happen to want from their bought-and-paid-for kid.

Blake wrote:”Gay marriage relies on prioritizing the rights and needs of parents as first, “over” that of the child. The child is bumped down to second class.”

No more than do laws that allow heterosexual married couples to divorce and allow unmarried heterosexual people to have sexual intercourse… We don’t hear anyone pushing to outlaw those things though do we?

That’s absolutely not true.

It’s true that we encourage divorce (because of the same erroneous reasoning: the idea that “kids are resilient”, and therefore hurting them doesn’t really hurt them all that much).

But while our divorce laws stink – and worse: are poorly enforced – in divorce children are explicitly protected against the sorts of behaviors gays claim as a “right”.

The child of divorce still has a legally protected relationship with both real parents, and custody decisions are made according to the “child’s best interest” standard.

“If there is a surplus of children available for adoption in the United States, why are so many families prepared to go through the arduous process of international adoption?”

I hate to tell you this, but as someone who has gone through two international adoptions, I can testify that interstate adoptions within the U.S. can be even more arduous.

First, within the U.S. the social workers who oversee adoptions have historically done everything to counter interracial adoptions, for reasons that were basically racist (“white parents cannot properly raise a non-white child in a racist society”). Their foreign counterparts have tended to lack this bias, so completing an adoption in a foreign country have bypassed this racism. This may be no longer as important, since Bill Clinton spoke out against the practice when he was President, but I assume it still goes on.

Second, legal technicalities are of greater import in interstate adoptions than in international adoptions. When I adopted abroad, unlike today, U.S. citizenship was not automatically conferred on my children. If I could not prove them to be impoverished by local standards then the U.S. government could delay their immigration by two years. If worse came to worse I’d have shuttled back and forth to a cheap apartment in a foreign country. But if I had adopted within the U.S., and my lawyer made some paperwork mistake, and I had crossed state line with my child without correcting that mistake, then the adoption would have been permanently invalidated and I would have lost my child.

Given these facts, and the fact that I would not take a child into my family with a threat of loss even after a court has finalized the adoption, then it was international adoption that made the most sense.

No more than do laws that allow heterosexual married couples to divorce and allow unmarried heterosexual people to have sexual intercourse… We don’t hear anyone pushing to outlaw those things though do we?

Really? Can you name those people because that sounds pretty far fetched and a lot like something one would just say because it sounds good and is extremely difficult to disprove. But if you can back it up, we’re all ears.