It is heartening to see a growing backlash against the hysterical and destructive sex-offender laws that do nothing to protect victims. Indeed, the laws themselves victimize innocent people, who are often children, while placing violent sex-offenders in circumstances that maximize chances of their re-offending.

Current sex-offender laws are written to promote careers in politics, academia and law enforcement. The cry of the ambitious, the experts, and the well-paid enforcers is always for more laws! Stiffer sentences! No tolerance...even toward children whose lives are ruined by being placed on registries for crimes like sexting their own photos or mooning a school bus. No one asks: if both legal crackdowns and the number of sexual offenses have soared in the last years, then more law is not a solution; it is an integral part of the problem. Otherwise you are defending a legal parallel of the statement, "the more cure you apply, the worse the disease becomes." This is a definition of the word "cure" with which I am unfamiliar.

The Citizens for Change site notes a particularly interesting backlash, Consequences of extreme social policies are so at odds with the original intents that even many who lobbied for the laws are having second thoughts. The Palm Beach Post ran a remarkable story about a child sexual abuse victim whose victimization led to a legislative crusade against sex offenders. Lauren Book, whose child abuse saga began at age 11 at the hands of a caregiver, runs a nonprofit agency aimed at educating the public about child sexual abuse. Now, she is campaigning against the very residency restrictions that she helped inspire. Touring the sex offender encampment under the Julia Tuttle freeway in Florida, which I have previously blogged about, she said she has come to realize "that forcing predators to live in inhumane conditions will not protect children; in fact, she fears it may do the opposite"

IThe creation of an Untouchable chaste -- AKA "sex offenders" -- does nothing to protect society. Creating tens of thousands (at least) of transients who cannot procure lodging or employment only causes crime. The official attitude toward sex offenders encourages a fear and hatred that makes no one safer. It has nothing to do with discouraging crime. Ask yourself: "When was the last time police informed residents that a murderer or burglar was moving into their neighborhood?" Are they not criminals as well?

Using sex offender as an excuse, those who hate sexual freedom have been able to impose incredibly draconian measures on non-violent people. The repression begins by dealing with rapists, with those who brutalize children because no one wants to protect or defend such scum. Such sex offenders are viewed as non-human and, so, legal 'niceties' like Constitutional due process protections are thrown out the window. A current trend is to extend the sentences of sex offenders after they have completed them; that is, essentially, to impose a second sentence without benefit of trial. The rationale: to make sure society is really protected. In the process, of course, the true protections of a society -- the legal barriers restraining the ravening beast of government -- are swept away...and it occurs without protest because it is "sex offender" who suffer. More accurately, they are the ones who suffer first When due process becomes an optional feature of the legal system -- a privilege granted by government -- then no one has a right to a trial, etc.

Who can defend a sex offender? I can. For example, I passionately defend the boy who mooned a school bus carrying his classmates and, so, was charged as a sex offender when the bus driver ratted him out to the cops. The judge threw out that particular charge because no genitalia had been viewed. But what if they had been? The youngster would have probably been convicted and his record on the registry would have read "sex offender with the act involving over a dozen young children." The kid's life would have been devastated. No decent college would take him. Most licensed professions would have been closed to him. Employers would have shunned him. Where could he live? -- under a bridge with fellow outcasts? At what point does the insane and pointless cruelty of the law end?

The Jesus' General site has an interesting piece -- warning humor! -- entitled "Stone the todger waggers" which discusses the dilemma of the Twin Falls, Idaho Girl Scouts who are thinking about moving to another neighborhood because the present one is rife with sex offenders. JG writes, You can't swing an O'Reilly ReamMaster 5000 around without whacking a dozen perverts. And heck, let's face it, inasmuch as Idaho requires public urinators, blow job enthusiasts, and 19 year-olds who fornicate with 16 year-olds to register along with rapists and child molesters, the state is bound to have an over-abundance of sex offenders....Lets bring back stoning. It'll give communities a way to achieve closure after they discover a theatrical urinator, gobbler, or a pair of teen sweethearts in their midst. And, what the heck, we could give the Girl Scouts the stone and beard concession. (YouTube of Monty Python clip re: a stoning concession.)

BTW, JG's evaluation of "oral sex" as being a de facto sex offense in Idaho is based on that state's Code §18-8304 that lists "crime against nature" as an offence that requires registration as a sex offender. As a JG reader comments, the code provides no definition of "crime against nature" other than a citation for the section dealing with the crime, Idaho Code §18-8304, which provides: Every person who is guilty of the infamous crime against nature, committed with mankind or with any animal, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not less than five years. Since every other crime (adultery, fornication, etc) is defined in that chapter, one must assume that the Idaho Legislature believed that a "crime against nature" (an act that could be performed with people or animals) was so "infamous," it need not be defined. Obviously, they are talking about oral sin, an act so heinous a president was impeached for it.

Perhaps the raging absurdity of criminalizing non-violent sexual acts will cause people to pause...just for a second. Just long enough to take the sort of deep breath that dispels hysteria.