Talk:North American Man/Boy Love Association

• Talk:North American Man-Boy Love Association/archive1
• Talk:North American Man-Boy Love Association/archive2

Misleading (POV?) Paragraph Addition & Other Problems

A recent addition to the article states: "Contrary to NAMBLA's assertions that the gay and lesbian rights movement has abandoned the "sexual rights of youth...." I would like to see a source for this claim that NAMBLA has supposedly made.

Additionally, I think it would be helpful to expound on what the age-of-consent in those countries were set at for both heterosexual and homosexual sex in order to elucidate just how young a gay person has to be in order not to have his rights championed by gay groups. Is it 16? 18? Or some other arbitrary age? In any case, Adam's edit is more than slightly absurd, since the issue in those age-of-consent battles was not the sexual rights of youth at all, but rather the equality issue. [1] [2] [3] [4] (notice the lack of discussion on the sex rights of youth, and how age is only mentioned in the context of equality between heterosexuals and homosexuals). Hopefully, Adam will rewrite his recent contribution to reflect this.

Adam has also recently decided to try to sneak into the introduction that NAMBLA is being sued for the murder of a ten-year-old. Unfortunately, he didn't visit the link I voluntarily appended to the Curley v. NAMBLA section, which contains the judge's opinion dismissing the case.

What is more, Adam has inserted all sorts of detailed information about the various people being sued by the Curleys as part of the individual wrongful death suits that were initiated concomittantly with the unsuccessful lawsuit against NAMBLA. While this is factual and no doubt has a place on wikipedia, the place is not an article on NAMBLA. I would suggest starting an article about the specifics of Curley v. NAMBLA. Perhaps a good name for it would be - gasp - "Curley v. NAMBLA". Corax 05:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Corax 05:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NAMBLA is a North American organization, really just an American organization. The age-of-consent laws in other countries are immaterial to NAMBLA's history. Regarding the large amount of material Adam Carr found, I do believe that an article on Curley v. NAMBLA may be merited and that the information can be summarized here. However, just because the case was dismissed does not make the material uncovered during the pretrial motions invalid. We are not trying a case, we're writing an encyclopedia article. Cheers, -Willmcw 06:01, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with you on the paragraph Adam added, and suggest that it just be removed alotgether.

I've created Curley v. NAMBLA, although it's (obviously) at a very basic stage right now. The question is what to take out and what to leave. Corax 06:12, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

• I have not inserted "all sorts of information" about named individuals. I have given information about their role in NAMBLA.
• The case has not been dismissed. The court found that NAMBLA per se could not be sued since as an unincorporated association it did not meet the criteria to be sued under Massachusetts law. The wrongful death suit against all the named individuals, as NAMBLA office-bearers, is continuing.
• The "sexual rights of youth" material is a response to allegations that Corax himself has made many times over the past week, but I don't particularly care whether it is included or not. Adam

---

The motion to dismiss for NAMBLA was granted. NAMBLA as an association, which is the topic of this article, is no longer being sued. Individuals are being sued. This means that the statement "NAMBLA is being sued" is erroenous, which is why I removed the comment. If you want to start an article on each of the members and keep tabs on their bowel movements, that's fine. To insert this excess amount of detailed information regarding one specific case at one specific time would bog the article down and throw it out of proper proportion.

This article is not a channel for you to debate with me. If you really wanted to have a debate, which I'm not sure you are prepared to do without the safety net of screaming "POV!", I would be more than happy to oblige. As it stands, the paragraph in question will be removed because it contains an unsourced and highly suspect claim, followed by rebuttals that, had it not been for your misrepresentations of the issues, would not have been adequate. Corax 06:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It would is appropriate to include a paragraph on the NAMBLA officers being sued. It is a legal fiction to say that NAMBLA is unrelated to them. NAMBLA has a policy which claims that sexual exploitation, etc, are grounds for dismissal. Absent any indication that NAMBLA has expelled these or other members or officers, it is apparent that NAMBLA is implicitly endorsing their behavior. -Willmcw 07:06, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that the behavior for which they are being sued is advocating the political position which forms the raison d'etre of the group, I would be surprised if the members were expelled -- or if the group did NOT endorse their behavior. Corax 07:36, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps so. Is there any indication that they have ever expelled any members for being convicted of offenses, such as rape, that are listed as expellable offenses? If not, that condemnation would seem to exist only on paper. -Willmcw 07:42, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Um, well, they are not actually being tried for their personal behaviour. They are being sued for being corporately responsible for Curley's death because Curley's killers used information on how to entrap children which (it is claimed) they obtained from NAMBLA. It is quite possible that if they Curleys win their case the NAMBLoids could be charged with criminal conspiracy, but that has not yet happened. The purpose of listing them here is to illuminate NAMBLA's structure and organisation. Adam 07:14, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

Of course, NAMBLA doesn't publish information on how to "entrap" children. It does publish, along with advocacy for legal reform, accurate information on the nature of current laws which regulate relationships between adults and minors. One would hardly expect them not to do this, and it is their detractors, employing the usual right wing tactic of labeling things they don't like as "advocating and promoting," who call NAMBLA's publications by derogatory names like "The Rape and Escape Manual."

• Well, we will see what Judge O'Toole has to say about that in due course. Adam 09:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is the height of silliness to suggest that people should obey laws, but that telling them precisely what the laws are is the moral equivalent of helping them evade those laws. I don't think such semantic games have any place in a neutral article.

• The article doesn't say that. Adam 09:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article says "But even radical gay rights activists do not endorse NAMBLA's policy of abolishing age-of consent laws altogether."

This is misleading, in that what NAMBLA seeks to abolish, are age-of-consent laws which criminalize absolutely solely on the basis of age, have no possibility of making reasonable exceptions, and provide the minor no due process in the legal proceeding. NAMBLA's critics try to equate abolition of this consent climate with the creation of an absolute age-of-consent of zero, trying to imply that any and all sex acts between adults and children of any age would be unprosecutable.

• NAMBLA's policy is quoted in the article. It calls for the abolition of age-of-consent laws without qualification. If NAMBLA mean something other than that, they should say so. Adam 09:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • An "age-of-consent" is just as arbitrary a rubber stamp as an "IQ-of-consent" or a "hatsize-of-consent." Repeal of regressive age-based consent laws would still leave minors with the plethora of other protections against sexual abuse and exploitation enjoyed by all other groups in society with a possibly diminished capacity to make sexual decisions. It is fine to state NAMBLA's policy that we should do away with age-based consent laws. It is not fine to misinterpret what implementation of this policy would imply. Getting rid of age-based consent laws would not give adults a "right" to have sex with young children, any more than it would give them the same right to have sex with the retarded, the unconscious, the brain-injured, or elderly nursing home residents. Hermitian

This is equivalent to suggesting that the fact that we don't have an age at which we absolutely take away drivers licenses, with no possibility of appeal, means that there are no legal barriers to semiconscious 90 year olds plowing through the town square.

An example of an alternative consent climate is the one in the Netherlands, where the age of consent is 16, but between 12 and 16 it cannot be prosecuted by the police without the permission of the child or the child's guardian. This permits minors and their decision support helpers to make judgment calls as to which relationships are positive, and which are exploitative.

There are numerous other more "user-friendly" consent laws in various countries around the world.

NAMBLA has stated that they think such laws are reasonable, and would certainly not be opposed to similar consent law changes here in the US. So the whole meaning assigned by NAMBLA's detractors to "abolition of age-of-consent laws" is a bit of a red herring. It does not mean rampant buttsex between toddlers and 50 year olds.

• The stated policy would not preclude that, provided the toddler "consented." If NAMBLA is not in favour of that, they should rewrite their policy acordingly. Until they do, we are entitled (indeed obliged) to quote their policy as it stands. Adam 09:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One of the big battles in the US Gay movement is whether radical gay culture, which spawned NAMBLA, ACT-UP, Queer Nation, and other such organizations, is a unique and special thing worth preserving, or whether gays are better off being "just like everyone else", with a focus only on long-term monogomous relationships between adults. In this country, the latter view has prevailed, and attempts by gays to mainstream, while being nipped on the ankles by right wing charges of recruitment and child abuse, have marginalized not only groups like NAMBLA, but even gay icons like Harry Hay and Larry Kramer. What has emerged is a new brand of fuzzy-sweatered family-friendly homosexual, who would never have impure thoughts about muscular teenagers, and can live next door to the Cleaver family. This new movement immunizes historical gays from child abuse charges, and makes sure any underage sexual partners are quietly played by adult actors when the stories of their lives are (re)told. Even Batman has upgraded to an adult Robin.

Will this work? I think the ILGA flap showed the efficacy of appeasement as a viable political strategy. The gays will make themselves family-friendly, and adults-only, and the religious and political right wing will laugh at them, and kick them down the stairs for their efforts.

Lesbian Feminist and Adademic Camille Paglia, one of the few NAMBLA supporters who doesn't get accused of "just wanting to have sex with little boys," characterized NAMBLA's problems as follows.

"You have to realize it's an amazing public relations problem for gay activism, because the far right would like to stereotype all gay men as child molesters and they would like to identify homosexuality with pedophilia. So, what I've done, and this is why I'm not very popular with a lot of gay activists, is say: To try and sweep that issue under the rug simply for political gains against the far right is not a good idea, because this pedophiliac eroticism is deeply, deeply, deeply imbedded in the history of male homosexuality, and to try and erase it or deny that it's there is unwise."

Ultimately, the issue isn't whether NAMBLA is right or wrong, or which kids should have the right to engage in what kinds of sex, and with whom. It's whether NAMBLA is a live grenade threatening to explode near the wobbly bits of the adult gay civil rights movement, and ultimately, this is the larger context in which all NAMBLA-bashing needs to be interpreted.

Hermitian

• That is all your opinion, and you're welcome to it. Adam 09:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Prejudice vs. propaganda and prejudice as propaganda

I can not get into more detail right this moment, but it had strike me as if the prejudices are overcoming the fact that NAMBLA exists and is a factual reality. Therefore, the inclusion of the material in this Wikipedia is mandatory. And the more the information about it, the better.

In the Spanish version of this Wikipedia I am having lots of problems trying to defend even the existence of the equivalent of the Childlove movement article (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_de_los_amantes_de_ni%C3%B1os) mostly because some illiterates say that given the fact that such movement is not depicted as that (i.e. as if a webpage would be named or entitled "Childlove movement") then the movement does not exist. Well, here we have a factual reality: NAMBLA exists, is, and even if you dislike it, you have to face its existence. Otherwise, all this exercise called "Wikipedia" can be addessed as a new form of a politically correct censorship.--Santi