The ACLU and NAMBLA

A couple of posts down, this was posted in the comments section...

John, as for NAMBLA... it's so nice of you to just drop a cheap jab and run away (you really should change your name to "hatchet man pundit" -- that was a good suggestion).

When the ACLU defended NAMBLA in 2000 it did so for the same reason they defended right-wing darling Ollie North and the Krishnas -- **free speech**.

NAMBLA is the acronym for the North American Man Boy Love Association. Yes, they have a web site somewhere, but I'm not going to link to it. If there is just one web site that is NSFW, NAMBLA's that site.

The National Review Online site is safe for work. Here is what Delroy Murdock wrote in 2004:

(The American Civil Liberties Union) is defending the North American Man-Boy Love Association in a $200 million civil lawsuit filed by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Curley. The Curleys claim that Charles Jaynes was driven by the literature and website of NAMBLA, an outfit that advocates sex between grown men and little boys, reportedly as young as age 8.

Jaynes did not simply read NAMBLA's materials and ponder its message. He and Salvatore Sicari actively sought a boy with whom to copulate. They picked 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge, Massachusetts. They lured him into their car as he played outside his home in October 1997. When Curley resisted their sexual advances, they choked him to death with a gasoline-soaked rag. Then they took the boy's body across state lines to Jayne's apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire. They molested the cadaver and stuffed it into a cement-filled Rubbermaid container. Finally, they crossed state lines again into Maine, whereupon they tossed Jeffrey Curley's remains into the Great Works River, from which it was recovered within days. Jaynes and Sicari were convicted of these crimes in 1998, for which they are serving life sentences.

So why blame NAMBLA? Is it any more responsible for this atrocity than is Vintage Books, the publisher of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita? Imagine that Jaynes and Sicari had read that 1955 novel about a middle-aged intellectual's affair with a 12-year-old girl. What if these two men found an equally young female who they abused and killed, just as they murdered Jeffrey Curley in real life? Putting aside the fact that Lolita is a work of fiction, would Vintage Books face civil justice?

Probably not, nor would NAMBLA if it limited its output to fictional depictions of "man-boy love." It is difficult to pin imaginary crimes on actual criminals who turn make-believe into mayhem

From CNN in 2001:

Police found publications from NAMBLA in Jaynes' car, where Jeffrey was killed, and a diary in Jaynes' apartment where he had written about seducing young boys and told how NAMBLA changed his life:

"This was a turning point in discovery of myself.... NAMBLA's Bulletin helped me to become aware of my own sexuality and acceptance of it," Jaynes wrote.

"As a result of reading a NAMBLA bulletin, he came to cope with his feelings and his desires and then he came to realize it's OK to rape little boys and that's what he went and did," Frisoli (the attorney for the boy's parents) claims.

So the ACLU is representing NAMBLA, claiming the Curleys suit violates the group's First Amendment rights. I'm not an attorney, but I don't believe the First Amendment protects speech involved in encouraging felonious behavior.

Here's an excerpt from Alan Sears and Craig Osten's The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values

One of NAMBLA's publications is titled The Survival Manual: The Man's Guide to Staying Alive in Man-Boy Sexual Relationships. According to to Frisoli, "Its chapters explain how to build relationships with children. How to gain confidence of children's parents. Where to go to have sex with children so as to not to get caught." Bill O'Reilly of Fox News added that the NAMBLA web site "actually posted techniques designed to lure boys into having sex with men and also supplied information on what an adult should do if caught."
(One paragraph later.)

Incredibly, the ACLU's Massachusetts executive director, John Roberts said,"There was nothing in those publications [of NAMBLA] or web site which advocated or incited the commission of any illegal acts, including murder or rape." ACLU Massachusetts Legal Director John Reinstein added, "Regardless of whether people agree or abhor NAMBLA's views, holding the organization responsible for crimes committed by others who read their materials would greatly endanger First Amendment freedoms.

Then in an incredible leap of logic, Reinstein said, "The Supreme Court has made it clear that a speech or publication is protected under the First Amendment unless it is 'directed to inciting or promoting imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.'NAMBLA's materials are simply not in this category. (Emphasis mine.) While NAMBLA may extol conduct which is currently illegal, its materials fall far short of speech that may be prohibited.

The authors of this book are senior members of Alliance Defense Fund, a group determined to stand up to the radicalism of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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