Posting  #149 – Tom’s Thoughts

By:  Tom of Maryland
Date:  10/14/09

The RSOL State Affiliates share articles, reports/studies and ideas back and fourth daily. After the RSOL of Virginia sent out two TIME Magazine articles an affiliate sent out this response.

Should Sex Offenders Be Barred From Kid-Friendly Churches? October 13, 2009:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1929736,00.html

A Move to Register Sex Offenders Globally, September 7, 2009:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1920911,00.html

If our nation/states, our society, allow these laws, policies and other sorts of insanity to continue, then those labeled sex offenders will not be allowed anywhere in which they could in any foreseeable manner be perceived as capable of coming into contact with a child or children.  This is essentially the aim of the whole (registration/tracking) movement:  to make life absolutely impossible for sex offenders.   These laws are nothing short of legalized harassment.  They are intended to humiliate, subjugate and classify people as unworthy or incapable of living in normal society.     There is almost a built-in, tacit assumption that the sex offender really should be in prison [or will return eventually]. 

The problem we are facing is not merely sets of laws and policies, but attitudes and beliefs which are irrational, unfounded and very much uninformed.  Many people have developed a lynch mob mentality and see no problem with circumventing or simply annihilating a sex offender's constitutional rights for what they consider a greater good (the so-called protection of children).  They don't seem to understand that if some people lose their rights, then nobody is really safe from hatred, retaliation, vigilantism or even government oppression.

Honestly I think the attack on church attendance is a bold statement that suggests that some people consider it ethical to do whatever is necessary to keep sex offenders in their place.  This is an obvious, flagrant violation of constitutional rights.  Even the discussion of banning a person from church because he is a sex offender is irrational at best.  I'm sure WalMart, Toys R Us, McDonald's, amusement parks, beaches ... would all follow soon thereafter.

I probably shouldn't be writing anything now.   The closer it gets to Halloween the more resentment I seem to build up.  I realize I will be hiding in my house, in the dark, in the quiet like Anne Frank.   I will wait until all the children are gone before I turn on lights and act like a normal person.  Sometimes it's hard to believe this is the United States of America.

Tom