12 January 2006

Victim of sex offender witchhunt

Lloyd Walsh, a Dunedin bus driver is a single father of two kids, he is 50. He is a convicted sex offender.
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As a result, he has lost his licence, because the law denies sex offenders the right to drive buses.
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Quite right too, I hear many of you say. The National Party, ACT and even Labour all support a tough stance on sex offenders. Many even believe a public register with his name on it, so everyone knows that he committed a "sex offence" (whatever that may be, they're all dirty perverts!) and when he moves the local community should be warned. I bet some even wonder whether he should be allowed to have custody of his children – a man, alone with two children, who knows what he might do! Terrifying really. After all, once a man commits a sexual offence, he is a danger to children and women everywhere.
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Particularly when the offence was to have sexual intercourse with a girl under 16. That’s it, he’s a pedophile, a pervert, hang him high by his testicles. There is nothing lower than a sex offender is there? I can see the MPs nodding their heads and tut tutting, Lloyd Walsh needs ostracising and nobody need forget what he has done.
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Really?
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Well it was his first and only offence, he was 16 at the time and his girlfriend was 15, in fact two days away from her 16th birthday. You might still think – who cares!! It’s wrong. Well tell that to him and his kids. He is out of a job now, because so many supported Nanny State used an elephant to crack a nut. He committed a victimless crime, there was no rape, there was no exploitation - he is no pedophile, but the witchhunt about sex crimes now has its latest victims - Lloyd and his children.
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Labour had legislation to amend the Crimes Act to remove such an offence, it would have meant that a 16yo with a 14yo was legal, and would have seen a two year exemption from the age of consent, largely because there was some recognition that young people of similar age experimenting sexually and consensually. More importantly, the criminal law is there to protect them from rapists and predators, not from their peers engaging in consensual activity. It is not the business of the law to criminalise consensual teenage sexual experimentation.
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However, it didn’t matter, the Victorian era outcry and caterwauling from the interfering do-gooders was that this was perverted and would encourage teenagers to have sex, despite the evidence to the contrary. Tony Ryall, in a vile display of scaremongering claimed that keeping the law as he claimed "the law should protect children from sexual pressure and support families in their efforts to provide boundaries for their young people" As if a teenage couple think about the law before they get intimate, as if hormone ridden teenagers get encouragement from a law change? Ryall wasn't thinking about policy - he was thinking about scaring parents away from voting Labour and voting National. It is not Ryall's business whether or not a teenage couple get intimate. Well Lloyd Walsh's children don't have a father with a job anymore, that's Ryall's family values as he pandered to the Christian Heritage/Destiny NZ voter.
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So when you next think about cracking down on sex offenders – decide what you mean. Do you mean rapists? Do you mean adults that molest children, not teenagers fooling around together? And ask, why don’t you care about violent offenders? The ones who beat up children, stab adults, attack old ladies – why does it matter whether or not it is sexual?
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And ask yourself, did you really mean that Lloyd Walsh can’t be a bus driver because he had sex with his similar age girlfriend when he was 16?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just to clarify....A pedophile is someone with a sexual interest in pre-puberesent children so having sex with a 15 year old girl doesn't qualify.I an NOT saying its ok and that its not wrong depending on circumstances however, just that its not pedophilia as defined.

Libertyscott said...

Yes, I know that, but the public treats anyone under the age of consent as a child - except when they commit a crime, then nobody wants to treat them as a child.

Vincent A. Orlando said...

amen. Teenagers have all the responsibilities and none of the priveledges of being an adult.

Anonymous said...

Well said! This witch-hunt mentality makes me sick. And what are our officials doing making people register as "sex offenders" for urinating in public, streaking, having sex in their cars. etc?!?! Can you imagine how many people have done things like that in their lifetime and our now demonizing people for getting arrested and prosecuted for doing the same thing? It's all so hyprocritical and disgusting. These ridiculous laws have got to be changed. We can't keep throwing this awful "sex offender" label at normal, harmless people who did something silly and stupid.