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…

Excerpted from Despite Furor, Schools Back Gay History Month, by Susan Snyder, published Oct 12, 2006, in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

…Critics panned the move as political, “confusing” for children, and one that has no place in the schools.

“What were you thinking? What were you thinking?” Ann Martin, the grandmother of three students, said, admonishing the commission with her hand and calling for new calendars to be issued.

Others asked what the district would recognize next.

“Fornication pride month? Pedophile pride month?” quipped Rashad Faheem Shabazz.

Continue reading in The Philadelphia Inquirer…

Excerpted from Aurora Teacher Charged with Sex Abuse, by Kate Hawley, published Oct 16, 2006, in Chicago Tribune:

A first-year science teacher and coach at Cowherd Middle School in Aurora was arrested Friday on charges of sexually abusing a student.

Robert Steck, 37, of the 900 block of Shady Lane in Aurora, was indicted by a Kane County grand jury on 10 counts of criminal sexual abuse, one count of indecent solicitation of a child and four counts of sexual exploitation of a child.

The abuse is alleged to have happened in the school and in Steck’s home between Aug. 1, 2005, and July 30, 2006, when the accuser was in the 7th grade, said Assistant State’s Atty. Justin Fitzsimmons. The boy is now 14…

Kane County State’s Atty. John Barsanti said the boy’s guardian reported the abuse after hearing troubling stories including an allegation that the boy had spent time in a locked classroom with Steck.

“This seemed odd. Red lights went off for her,” Barsanti said.

Steck had taught at Cowherd just one year, said district spokesman Clayton Muhammad. Before joining the district, Steck worked in a non-teaching position at Mooseheart, a residential facility and school for children in need in Batavia, Muhammad said.

Continue reading in Chicago Tribune…

Excerpted from Aurora Coach Charged With Abusing 14-Year-Old, by Mike Puccinelli, published Oct 16, 2006, by CBS Chicago Channel 2:

…The teacher and assistant wrestling coach is accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old student.

…Parents at Cowherd [Middle School] say they never had any indication that a teacher was under suspicion of fondling and exploiting a naked teenage boy.

…If he’s convicted, Steck faces up to 35 years in prison.

Steck encouraged the boy to join the wrestling team. He would then have the student disrobe for weigh-ins and that’s allegedly when much of the abuse occurred.

Continue reading at CBS 2…

Excerpted from Bishop Tobin Says Same-Sex Marriage Is ‘Spiritually Harmful’, published Oct 18, 2006, by Catholic News Agency:

Same-sex marriage is not an issue of civil rights, said Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence in a recent letter to the editor.

“There’s never a right to do something wrong,” he said. “Human freedom is not unbridled license; it must be grounded in truth.”

The bishop’s letter was published Oct. 14 in the Providence Journal, Rhode Island’s largest daily newspaper, after a Rhode Island lesbian couple — Wendy Becker and Mary Norton — was legally married in Massachusetts on Oct. 8, reported NBC 10.

In the letter, the bishop said same-sex marriage is “spiritually harmful to individuals and families and erodes the foundation of society”.

“Homosexual acts are contrary to the law of nature and gravely immoral,” the bishop wrote. “The state has no business encouraging immoral behavior or ratifying illicit unions.”

Excerpted from Gender Confusion in the Kindergarten?, by Dr. Albert Mohler, published Oct 18, 2006:

Some cultural developments represent massive shifts in consciousness and worldview. These developments can only be explained by a dramatic reshaping of our moral sense and understanding of basic reality.

Such is the case with news coming from both coasts indicating that “transgendered children” are now enrolled in kindergarten programs…

Let’s be honest here — these stories represent a breathtaking shift in the way human beings view sex, sexuality, and gender. The whole transgender issue, now a major focus of public interest, is proof of this. But the fact that these two articles deal with “transgender children” diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” at the age of 5 represents something altogether more shocking. “Gender fluid” children in kindergarten?

Continue reading at Albert Mohler…

Censured Democrat Congressman would get boys drunk, take them to his apartment, then make his move

“In his deposition, the male page who had allegedly traveled to Europe with Representative Studds, testified that…they engaged in sexual activity every two or three days during this trip.”

Q. After you met Congressman Studds, did you and he get together again after that?
A. Yes. Shortly thereafter … I was invited to go out to dinner with him and I did. The dinner took place at his apartment in Georgetown…..
Q. …[W]hat happened at that dinner?
A. Well, we sat around and talked about abstract and general questions, all types and descriptions, until four in the morning, drinking vodka and cranberry juice, at which time I was told by the Congressman that he was too drunk to give me a ride home and so he said, ‘Why don’t you sleep here?’ and I did.

AN Americans For Truth SPECIAL REPORT
By Peter LaBarbera

The death Saturday of former Massachusetts Rep. Gerry Studds (D) is an untimely one for Democrats hoping to use the Mark Foley scandal to dethrone Republicans in the House of Representatives. While the prospects of political rehabilitation are bleak for Foley, Studds was re-elected six times after it was revealed that he had sex with a 16- to 17-year-old page—and tried to seduce two other minor boys—as a Congressman in 1973 (Studds was 36 at the time).

News stories on Studds’ death at age 69 report on his censure by Congress in 1983 for having a “consensual” sexual “relationship” with the underage boy, but this begs the question: is it a “consensual relationship” when the adult predator plies his underage targets with alcohol or abuses his authority by taking one on a trip to Europe—both of which Studds did?

The sad truth is that Studds, although brilliant and talented in other areas of his life, was a pervert who never apologized for his predations on innocent and impressionable boys. In fact, once discovered, Studds manipulated the scandal as way to gain sympathy as a supposedly aggrieved “gay” man. In other words, in his own mind Studds was the victim, not the corrupted boys.

Of course, the media are mostly buying it. Press stories have highlighted the alleged injustice of Studds’ male “husband” not receiving pension benefits because the federal government does not recognize their Massachusetts “marriage.” (The federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines spouse and marriage in federal law as between a man and a woman, may have saved the taxpayers more than $114,000 in this case; Studds’ estimated annual congressional pension is reportedly $114,337.)

CONTINUE READING THIS AFT SPECIAL REPORT

Call the State Dept. main switchboard at 202-647-4000 and ask to be connected to Condoleeza Rice’s office to leave your comments about her pro-homosexual remarks during the swearing-in of openly homosexual Mark Dybul as global AIDS ambassador.

The following is excerpted from Rice’s Approving ‘Gay’ Remarks Rankle GOP Base, published Oct 16, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…Rice and first lady Laura Bush spoke for the administration at the Oct. 10 swearing-in at the State Department where Dybul was accompanied by his male partner, Jason Claire. Rice, during her comments, referred to the presence of Claire’s mother and called her Dybul’s “mother-in-law.”

According to the State Department transcript, Rice said:

Thank you. Thank you very much. I am truly honored and delighted to have the opportunity to swear in Mark Dybul as our next Global AIDS Coordinator. I am pleased to do that in the presence of Mark’s parents, Claire and Richard; his partner, Jason; and his mother-in-law, Marilyn. You have wonderful family to support you, Mark, and I know that’s always important to us. Welcome.

The use of a term normally reserved for legally married heterosexual families rankled Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, who called Rice’s comments “profoundly offensive,” according to Agape Press.

The secretary’s remarks, he said, fly in the face of the Bush administration’s endorsement of a federal marriage protection amendment.

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

Another tragic, untimely death…

Excerpted from AIDS Activist Jeff Getty Dead at 49, published Oct 15, 2006, by Associated Press:

Jeff Getty, a prominent AIDS activist who in 1995 received the first bone-marrow transplant from a baboon to treat the disease, has died. He was 49.

Continue reading at Forbes…