Ted Strickland: Tough on Foley and House Leaders, But What About His Own Record?

In 1999, the American Psychological Association published a study on the impact of child sexual abuse which concluded that:

…Lasting psychological harm was uncommon…Two thirds of SA men and more than one fourth of SA women reported neutral or positive reactions…

Classifying a behavior as abuse simply because it is generally viewed as immoral or defined as illegal is problematic…

…CSA [child sexual abuse] does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis…

One possible approach to a scientific definition…is to focus on the young person’s perception of his or her willingness to participate and his or her reactions to the experience. A willing encounter with positive reactions would be labeled simply adult-child sex, a value-neutral term. If a young person felt that he or she did not freely participate in the encounter and if he or she experienced negative reactions to it, then child sexual abuse, a term that implies harm to the individual, would be valid. Moreover, the term child should be restricted to nonadolescent children ( Ames & Houston, 1990 ). Adolescents are different from children in that they are more likely to have sexual interests, to know whether they want a particular sexual encounter, and to resist an encounter that they do not want. Furthermore, unlike adult-child sex, adult-adolescent sex has been commonplace cross-culturally and historically, often in socially sanctioned forms, and may fall within the “normal” range of human sexual behaviors ( Bullough, 1990 ; Greenberg, 1988 ; Okami, 1994 ). A willing encounter between an adolescent and an adult with positive reactions on the part of the adolescent would then be labeled scientifically as adult-adolescent sex, while an unwanted encounter with negative reactions would be labeled adolescent sexual abuse…

HR 107 was introduced in Congress to condemn these findings.

Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH) was one of thirteen congressmen who voted “present” (rather than “yea” or “nay”) on HR 107 (which passed with 355 yeas). The other twelve were:

• Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
• Rep. Thomas Allen (D-ME)
• Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA)
• Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
• Rep. William Delahunt (-MA)
• Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA)
• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Rep. E.B Johnson (D-TX)
• Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI)
• Rep. James Moran (D-VA)
• Rep. Fortney Stark (D-CA)

(SOURCE: Thomas Legislative Information)

The following was excerpted from ‘Foley problem’ Surfaces for Ohio Democrats, published Oct 11, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio

In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, questions are circulating below the radar screen in Ohio about the past record of Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland on pedophilia.

Strickland is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Ohio running against Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

The issue surfaced Dec. 15, 2005, when the left-leaning Athens News reported on an anonymous letter-writing campaign to Democratic voters citing Strickland’s vote as “present” and not in support of the 1999 House Concurrent Resolution 107 that condemned an American Psychological Association study supporting “nonnegative sexual interactions between adults and adolescents.”…

In the Democratic primary, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Flannery openly challenged Strickland on his HCR 107 vote. Flannery still has posted on his gubernatorial website Strickland’s July 27, 1999, speech on the House floor explaining his refusal to condemn the APA pedophilia study.

Mr. STRICKLAND: Mr. Speaker, it troubles me that sometimes in this Chamber we stand and say things that we ought not to say. We criticize people that we have no right to criticize.
We recently voted to condemn a scientific study and an organization, an organization that has done as much as any organization in this country to fight child abuse.

…The HRC 107 controversy resurfacing in the last month of the Ohio gubernatorial campaign also has brought back another controversy over sexual misconduct that first was launched by Flannery, Strickland’s Democratic challenger.

On March 17, during the primary campaign, Lynn Hulsey reported in the Dayton Daily News that Flannery had accused Strickland of hiring from 1997 to 1999 a male congressional and campaign staffer who had been convicted of exposing himself to children. As Hulsey wrote:

According to Athens police, the man’s case stems from 1994, when he was arrested for public indecency after several children reported he’d exposed himself. Police records show he was found guilty, although the exact charge is unclear.

Flannery also accused Strickland of taking the man with him to Italy after his 1998 congressional campaign. Again, Hulsey wrote:

Strickland said campaign workers planned to treat themselves to the trip if Strickland won, but as it turned out only Strickland and the man were able to go.

Hulsey reported Strickland had learned of the sexual misconduct charge against his employee late in the 1998 campaign through an anonymous letter, but he discounted the letter since it was sent anonymously. Hulsey quoted Strickland as saying “perhaps” he should have pursued the matter more aggressively, but at the time he took no action. The man left Strickland’s office of his own accord in 1999, after the reported trip to Italy with Strickland.

Americans for Truth comment:

Interestingly, Ted Strickland offered a different standard for House leaders…

Another Ohio lawmaker, Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon, faulted House leaders for an inadequate response last fall to a complaint they received about Foley…

“I think we need to find out what he knew and when he knew it before we can make that decision,” he said.

…Among Strickland’s endorsers is the choice of Ohio’s openly pro-homosexuality PAC, the Equality Ohio Campaign Fund, or EOCF. In endorsing Strickland, EOCF emphasized his service as a minister, a psychologist and a professor, commenting:

Representative Strickland has long been an ally of and advocate for LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bi-sexual-Transvestite) people. He maintained a 100% rating with the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard while in Congress. He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA).

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…