{"id":5097,"date":"2011-08-23T11:08:49","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T16:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=5097"},"modified":"2011-08-23T11:14:36","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T16:14:36","slug":"when-i-use-a-word-it-means-just-what-i-want-you-to-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/5097","title":{"rendered":"When I Use A Word It Means Just What I Want You To Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see from Jeremy at Good As You that NOM is doubling down on the Gay Rights = Pedophilia<\/em> rhetoric. \u00a0 On the NOM Blog they’re pointing to a post by Joe Carter that babbles that same claptrap about the B4U-ACT Symposium happening in Baltimore<\/a> Brian Brown was a couple days ago…<\/p>\n

Back in June I outlined how to destroy a culture in 5 easy steps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An academic symposium in Baltimore comprised of just such a cluster of professoriate and perverts is meeting today to shift the acceptance of pedophilia from “unthinkable” to merely “radical”…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the euphemism “minor-attracted persons” they are also including Step #2: “From Radical to Acceptable \u2014 This shift requires the creation and employment of euphemism.”… Remember when conservatives were mocked and derided for claiming that Lawrence would lead to the normalization [of] polygamy and pedophilia? Now some of those same people who sneered at us are using the decision to promote . . . polygamy and pedophilia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It looks like they’re fixating on the use of the term “minor-attracted persons” by a group of mental health professionals, but you need to understand while you read it that they know their audience. \u00a0 They are speaking to the kook pews…the ones who don’t know and don’t care what words mean so long as they help win the culture war. \u00a0 Words are weapons, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. \u00a0 And science is the enemy that believes words have meaning. \u00a0 What Joe Carter and Brian Brown know perfectly well, is that “minor-attracted persons” is not intended to obfuscate that meaning, but clarify it. \u00a0 They know this. \u00a0 But they also know their audience.<\/p>\n

There is ephebophilia, which is the sexual attraction to mid to late adolescents…teens 15 and up. \u00a0 There is hebephilia, which this symposium seems to view as the sexual attraction toward teens from post puberty to 14 years (I’ve seen this defined to a higher age range elsewhere). And then there is the ever popular (to the gay haters) pedophilia, which is the sexual attraction to children below the age of puberty. All these terms are used precisely and specifically by mental health professionals, whereas your usual right wing nutcase just says PEDOPHILE<\/strong> for all of it. And without a doubt that’s less because they are idiots with small vocabularies, smaller brains and even smaller regard for whether the words they do know mean anything, and more because they understand that screaming PEDOPHILE<\/strong> at gay people rouses passions and short circuits any possibility of mutual understanding. They don’t want understanding, they just want people to hate Teh Gay.<\/p>\n

And that means science is the hated enemy. \u00a0 More even, then Teh Gay. \u00a0 It is the first enemy. \u00a0 The enemy that must be brought down before all others, or else the war is lost. \u00a0 Because the practice of science uses words for their actual meaning, not their tactical advantage. \u00a0 Because science lets the evidence speak for itself. \u00a0 \u00a0 Because science acknowledges no higher authority then the observable facts. \u00a0 Let’s take a look once more, at the part of this symposium brochure that the kook pews are screaming bloody murder about:<\/p>\n

This day-long symposium will facilitate the exchange of ideas among researchers, scholars, mental health practitioners, and minor-attracted persons who have an interest in critical issues surrounding the entry for pedophilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. The symposium will address critical issues in the following areas:<\/p>\n