The Weekly Standard apparently disavows its previous contention that the popularity of lusting after the under-age is primarily a function of the gay rights movement. Now, it’s a hetero problem. Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. But isn’t there a distinction to be drawn between what is the sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children, and the attraction to under-age, post-pubescent teens? This is a distinction the social right were keen to make in the Church’s child-abuse scandal, with some reason. And it seems odd to say that adult lusting after teens is somehow newly chic. Not so long ago, in many states in this country, such “pedophilia chic” was known as marriage. Jon Rowe asks:
[I]s this behavior a product of post-60s sexual modernity? Hardly. In the heyday of social conservatism-the South in the 1950s-marriages between adult males and girls as young as 12 were allowed. Some prominent celebrity examples-both Loretta Lynn and Jerry Lee Lewis were involved in marriages where one party was an adult male and the other was a 13-year-old girl. We can assume many non-celebrity examples as well.
This is another example, by the way, of how civil marriage has changed beyond recognition even in this century. It recently celebrated what we would now call statutory rape (and some state marriage laws still do). Should we never have changed that particular rule? After all, 5,000 years of tradition and all that …
A TWO-FER: I win the “most annoying right-of-center blog” contest. Yay! And I come fourth in the “most annoying left-of-center blog” contest over at RightWingNews.com. I’m crushed. But then I also win the “most over-rated blog” competition. Did Mickey vote?
A GAY EVANGELICAL: One of the most celebrated of evangelical theologians was once Roy Clements. Until he was “outed.” Yes, the evangelical world is more complicated than some would like to argue. Here’s a link to Clements’ web-page and publications.
The Dish 