Re: Depends on what you mean by 'accepted'

You are blindly ignoring the fact that there are degrees of reaction. Shutting us out is one thing; actively pursuing a campaign of violence and genocide against us is quite another, and while it hasn't gotten to that point quite yet, is there anyone here who doubts the potential for the moral panic to reach that level? I suspect a lot of what the future holds for MAPs will depend on the degree to which we are deemed a threat, and pursuing the goal of child liberation strikes me as wholly counterproductive in that regard.

Willfully agreeing to keep quiet on a platform as important on many levels as youth lib not only makes us look like hypocrites, but it also means giving into fear. In fighting for change, I have agreed to work within the law and in a manner completely in harmony with the democratic principles I hold dear, and as such, if society sends the gestapo after us simply because we support a certain set of civil rights for a specific group of people, then they are effectively dropping their veneer of being civilized, and when that happens, they will end up losing many allies among the general public.

You are blindly ignoring the fact that there are degrees of reaction. Shutting us out is one thing; actively pursuing a campaign of violence and genocide against us is quite another, and while it hasn't gotten to that point quite yet, is there anyone here who doubts the potential for the moral panic to reach that level? I suspect a lot of what the future holds for MAPs will depend on the degree to which we are deemed a threat, and pursuing the goal of child liberation strikes me as wholly counterproductive in that regard.

Social progress and the advancement of any minority cannot occur with some degree of risk. There is an old saying that may apply here: "fortune favors the bold."

But we are NOT the gays, no more than the gays were the blacks, and on down the line.

And that is precisely the pro-choice point: despite the differences between all of these minority groups, there are nevertheless many parallels as well, and all of their struggles for emancipation followed recognizable patterns. You readily acknowledge the differences between the blacks, women, and gays in their respective struggles, but never do you suggest that these differences automatically cancelled out any similarities, nor did they suggest that any one of these emancipation struggles was any less valid than any of the others.

We're a completely different minority with a completely different set of conditions and circumstances. The rights of minority groups can only extend so far, and we are riding somewhere in the gray area between homosexuals and serial rapists.

That is total and utter nonsense. Society may indeed feel that way, but no one in this community that I am aware of are supportive of non-consensual sexual activity. In fact, it's quite obvious that the word "rape" is often misused by the law and the media.

Now, don't take that the wrong way. I'm not comparing us across the board to rapists; I'm just pointing out that there are certain groups you cannot extend full rights to without violating the rights of others. Children are indeed a special case unlike adults in some quite fundamental ways. I know the red herring argument that follows: but women are different from blacks, and gays are different from straights, and so on. None of that addresses the reality that children's differences from adults are completely different and we have not settled as a society whether those differences require the specific legal protections. If/when that is settled, it'll be a different story, but it is reckless to pursue that course with so much at stake and so little understood. Nuff said about that.

Actually, the real red herring in your above argument is when you imply that not enough research has been done to suggest that youths and MAAs/MAPs should be awarded their full rights without violating the safety of younger people. When you say that giving full rights to MAAs would violate the "rights" of children, you are twisting the term "rights" to mean what are often referred to in progressive circles as negative rights, i.e., freedom from rather than freedom to; it's actually the negation of rights, not the protection of them. Enough studies have been done which make it clear that consensual sexual activity between adults and younger people are not typically emotionally damaging to the younger person and MAAs/MAPs are not, by and large, dangerous, unbalanced, or manipulative individuals and are often quite gentle and caring--not always, of course, but more than often enough to suggest that across the board prohibitions aimed at all of them because of how a few may act is far from justified. More still needs to be understood, of course, but what is already understood is highly significant and should not be ignored and brushed aside, which is exactly what the media and the general public have done, and this is precisely what the anti-contact MAAs have done. There is also much evidence based on objective studies and various actual cultural examples (e.g., the Sudbury school environments) that children and teens alike have much greater capabilities than are currently recognized and accepted due to the societal conditions and strictures they are presently forced to live under, and that much of their perceived inherent limitations in terms of competence are based on the manner in which they are currently raised and forced into dependence, much as the differences between women and blacks in comparison to white men were once thought to be far more pronounced than they are today due to the way those groups were raised in society. These are things that you and others on your side of the issue should consider but always seem to (conveniently) overlook.