You Couldn't Make It Up

I can only imagine what would happen if this was happening in Britain.

A Dutch court (it's always the Dutch, isn't it?) has refused to ban a political party, the PNVD, founded by three self-proclaimed paedophiles, that seeks to first lower and then abolish the age of consent to sex (as well as legalise all drugs and bestiality, but that's par for the course for Dutch parties, right?). Its chairman is also treasurer of Vereniging MARTIJN which, like the NAMBLA, is an association for the acceptance of paedophilia.

[You'll notice that I've finally figured out how to do hyperlinks.]

So, where do we stand on this one, readers? The judge said the freedom to set up a political party is the basis of democracy, and I agree (see 'Please Do Not Offer My God A Peanut'), yet neo-Nazi parties are banned all over Europe (aside: what's worse, Nazism or paedophilia). The PNVD says it wants to encourage discussion and break down taboos, and surely there's more to be gained from listening to and understanding paedophiles than sweeping them under the carpet, only to dust them off for a good old hysterical witch-hunt every now and then. Incidentally, there were renewed calls a month or so ago for a Megan's Law, which makes the sex offenders list, and the location of known paedophiles, available to the American public, to be introduced in Britain (Sarah's Law as campaigned for by the News of the Screws), which would be wholly ineffective because:

1. Paedophiles would avoid registering (97% do in Britain, 80% do in the US) and instead go underground, abandoning vital counselling and rehabilitation along the way.
   
2. More than two-thirds of sex offences are committed by someone known to the victim anyway, so additional knowledge of the location of 'stranger' paedophiles would be useless.
   
3. ... not to mention the threat of vigilanteism or the invasion of privacy that convicted and released paedophiles would suffer.
   

Of course, this third point depends on whether you believe that paedophiles have human rights, just the same as you and me, are humans, just like you and me, or whether you're of the 'well, they should have thought of that first' brigade. The Geneva Convention suggests they do, every tabloid in the world suggests they don't. Sure, someone can serve five years for GBH and still be a loveable rogue who just went off the tracks, but paedophiles? Well, they 'have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me', don't they?

You see, I feel a certain degree of sympathy for paedophiles. Imagine being unfortunate to have a sexual preference that was completely impossible to fulfill, except by dreadfully injuring a child. Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and realising you could never have sex again, and that even the desire to caused all kinds of self-revulsion because of the pain and suffering it would cause someone else (Marc Dutroux is about as representitive of paedophiles as Jack the Ripper was of prostitutes' clients). For every one 'sick paedo' the tabs scream about, there must be countless others who have willingly undertaken celibacy as the course of least harm. Some, of course, crack, and become the 'sick paedoes', and until there is some rational discussion of the matter, as advocated by the PNVD, and some alternative solution is found, both the witch hunts and the secret abuses will continue.