NOM’S CHILD RAPE PROBLEM

NOM’S CHILD RAPE PROBLEM

by Scott Rose

The National Organization for Marriage is jumping on the bandwagon, demanding Google alter search results, such that the link to Rick Santorum’s campaign site should appear above results containing his nickname.

          We must not forget, or ever allow NOM to forget, that Dan Savage redefined Santorum in response to Santorum’s 2003 interview with Associated Press reporter Lara Jakes Jordan.  The first topic of that interview was the Catholic Church’s crimes of enabling child rapists. Santorum dismissed the subject by duplicitously alleging that all instances of priest-on-child sexual violence had been matters of consensual relations between adult and teenaged homosexuals.

          Santorum was parroting a line the Church used at the time and often attempts to use still.  That line of propaganda denies that 1) certain priests raped pre-pubescent children including females; 2) certain nuns raped children, including males; 3) it is not appropriate for Rick Santorum to allege that teenage rape victims were having consensual relations with the priests that raped them; 4) statutory rape laws do not apply to heterosexuals exclusively, and; 5) many courts of law have found that the Catholic Church is liable to its child rape victims.

          What this all amounts to is that the National Organization for Marriage is actively giving political support to somebody who seeks 1) to shield child rapists from prosecution, and 2) to prevent rape victims from seeing justice done. That Santorum concurrently seeks to demonize gay people is secondary to the issue of his seeking to enable and to empower child rapists. There have, for example also been female rape victims of Catholic priests.

          The Church deceptively claimed to have enacted adequate reforms, yet additional Church child rape crimes keep coming to light. A March 4, 2011 New York Times headline read “In Philadelphia, Fears That Abusive Priests Are Still Active.”  In an indictment involving the Philadelphia Archdiocese, 37 of the priests named can not be prosecuted because of the statutes of limitations.

          Maggie Gallagher’s close associate in political gay-bashing, Archbishop Timothy Dolan when in Wisconsin successfully fought against proposed legislation that would have lifted the statutes of limitations on the prosecution of child rape cases there. After scoring those successes, Dolan was promoted to New York and made President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is notorious for fighting against similar proposed legislation in New York.

          Apparently, the National Organization for Marriage sees nothing wrong with shielding child rapists from prosecution. In vain does one look for statements from NOM demanding that Archbishop Dolan politic in favor of the lifting of statutes of limitations on the prosecution of child rape. This is a big money matter to the Catholic Church and it will fight tooth and nail to keep those statutes of limitations in place.

          It also is a signal indicator of the National Organization for Marriage’s utter depravity. Though the anti-gay hate group is adamant that each child has a “right” to two opposite sex, heterosexual parents, (and that therefore, gay Americans must be denied the civil right to marry), it apparently believes that the complaints of the Catholic Church’s child rape victims can all be written off with the fraudulent assertion that all of those child rapes were “consensual.” NOM certainly is seeking to protect and to defend Rick Santorum against the negative nickname he was assigned in part because of his obnoxious statements about the Catholic Church’s child rape crimes. If this is how NOM promotes child welfare, then nobody should allow their children near any NOM board member, employee or supporter.

All decent Americans must relentlessly and uncompromisingly demand to know whether the National Organization for Marriage supports or opposes the lifting of the statutes of limitations for the prosecution of child rape. And we must demand that, until we have a yes or no response from NOM.  Then, if NOM alleges it favors lifting the statutes, we must demand that it demand of Archbishop Dolan that he support the political effort to get the statutes lifted. If Dolan can send a menacing letter to President Obama over marriage equality, warning of a "national conflict," then he can get involved politically with lifting the statutes of limitations on child rape or face a national conflict over them.  NOM does not hesitate to coordinate politically with the Catholic Church against marriage equality, it must here be noted.  On what moral grounds would NOM refuse to coordinate with the Church towards lifting the statutes of limitations for child rape prosecutions?  NOM does allege an interest in child welfare and the family. It therefore is justified for us to inquire whether NOM acknowledges the overwhelming and negative impact of Church child rape on the victims’ families.

Alternately, if NOM says it does not support the lifting of those statutes of limitations, then we must let the public know that the National Organization for Marriage abets the Catholic Church and Rick Santorum in shielding suspected child rapists from prosecution and in otherwise enabling child rapists.