"There you go again, Mike Thomson, gay-bashing!"
I beg your pardon, when I speak of gay predators, I am not gay bashing. During the recent scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, "pedophile" was the mis-applied term to certain gay men who used their positions of trust to prey on young male teens. All you have to do is watch about a day's worth of Fox or MSNBC to see that this is becoming a national problem. The recent scandal with Mark Foley and the Congressional pages brought the issue of gay predators to the forefront.
Small sleepy southern towns have always had their resident "queens" and "butches". Many of these men and women are well respected and honorable and live lifetimes without any trace of scandal. Some, however, are not so benign in their lifestyles... Given the current climate and attention given to child sexual abuse,the spotlights are shining on sexual predators. If you were a gay or lesbian sexual predator where would you hunt your teenage prey?
Gay and lesbians sometimes "hide out" in small communities and some are married - with children. Successful gay/lesbian predators will seek occupations or professions where they have the greatest opportunity to interface with young teens and have the least risk of exposure and apprehension.
I am reminded of the story of a manager with a social services agency who was in a position of trust and power with young youthful offenders. These young men had no control over their situation or what was done to them by the manager who turned out to be a gay sexual predator. Charges were eventually brought against the manager. He lost his job, but guess what? Because of his "connections" in the small Alabama community, he now works in a position where he has an enormous amount of exposure to young people everyday. He never experienced jail time or went on a sexual offender list.
Sexual predators of all kinds - gay or straight - can find "cover" in power positions in prisons, youth detention facilities, and law enforcement - district attorney offices, police management, and jailers. They are also found in semi-power positions in schools, colleges, day care centers,church run facilities,sports organizations, etc.
In one small town I am familiar with, a magistrate i.e. a person who recommends individuals for criminal charges, was recently brought up on criminal lewdness charges for having one of his teenage female clients strip for him in his office while he photographed her with his digital camera.
If you or any member of your family fall victim to one of these predators, you should... wait - let me give an example of how this could happen in your family. I love to give examples in fable form - they're more easily understood:
Your son Jimmy, who plays football and has an excess of male hormone, goes to an "after game" party where beer and some "weed" are present. The police swoop in. Jimmy is caught with a "roach" in his hand. He is taken to the person in your community who has the power to bring charges or drop them. First, the "authority" figure tells Jimmy what a serious situation he's in if charges are brought - now this is good - Jimmy should definitely know how serious this could be to his future.
But then Jimmy's situation gets worse. The "authority" figure eases up a bit and begins telling Jimmy how "well built" he is. He might go so far as to massage Jimmy's biceps. At that point Jimmy might "deck" the authority figure thereby causing more problems for himself, or a very frightened Jimmy might acquiesce and let the massaging continue. I won't go on - I think you get the picture...
So what do you do if this happens to your Jimmy? It's definitely a pickle of a situation. Who do you trust? How many like-minded "authority" figures are in cahoots in your local system. In the Roman Catholic Church they discovered, in some cases an entire hierarchy of gay church officials, protecting each other. This can happen in local government also. The only thing you can do is go to the State Attorney General's office.
In Alabama the Attorney General has a number for complaining about public corruption and white collar crime. That number is 334-353-8494. Some advice before you call - write everything down - dates, times, places, and culprits.
Until next time...
Read Mike Thomson's comical serial short story entitiled Harold's Secret Life
4 comments:
The lady who was the predator's replacement at the social services agency is a bad as he was. They just haven't caught her yet!
My daughter turned down a sports scholarship to a junior college because of the lesbian situation. It was pretty bad!
There is a man in my town that befriends young boys and pays them to do work for him. These boys are usually school drop outs. He lets them spend the night. When my daughter didn't come home one night, I found her at his house. I threatened to expose him if he didn't make her leave. I told my boss about it. A short while later, I lost my job. This man was on the advisory board at the facility where I worked.
We can agree that sexual predators are a symptom of a cultural cancer that appears to be present in every layer of society (not just in occupations involving authority over youths), but to hear you tell it, one would think there were more gay sexual predators than straight ones.
Try not to muddy the waters, bigot.
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