“Two top Texas leaders want to put child predators to death. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and state Attorney General Greg Abbott called Tuesday for tougher laws on sexual predators who solicit minors online, including requiring the death penalty for repeat offenders who prey on minors. ‘It takes only seconds for sexual predators to reach our children online,’ Dewhurst said. ‘But it may take a lifetime to recover from sexual victimization.’ Dewhurst and Abbott are both Republicans running for re-election next month. Under Dewhurst’s plan, Texas law would toughen penalties for certain sex crimes involving minors: Allow prosecutors to seek consecutive prison sentences for online solicitation of a minor and boost the penalty for adults who solicit children under 16. Increase penalties from sexually explict online communications between an adult and children 14-16 years old. Expand reward programs for reporting offenders. Require companies to comply with a 48-hour time period to respond to subpoenas, search warrants or court orders. Create a clearinghouse in the attorney general’s office of Internet service providers’ contact information… Both Dewhurst and Abbott are running for relection.” — NBC5i (US)

(Thanks to Furpo for the link.)

It is difficult to deny that pedophilia has become a critical issue in contemporary society. It used to be that you could marry a thirteen-year-old, and a guy who espoused the “old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher” principle was simply considered a dirty old man. But in recent times that has changed. Historians have shown that a myth of “innocence” has arisen since the 19th century and changed the conception of childhood. At the same time, that myth has been increasingly difficult to sustain in the face of the Information Age: children learn sexualized behaviors from television and the internet; fashion designers use models who are nubile or nubile-looking; impoverished countries produce floods of child pornography that is easily distributed via the internet; predators gain easy access to children via chat rooms; etc.

It is inevitable that pedophilia and sex crimes against children will occupy a more prominent position in the public debate. There will be conservatives, like these Texans, who advocate harsher penalties. There will be liberals who, without espousing pedophilia itself, will argue for civil liberties that have the ugly side effect of shielding sex criminals. (You can’t endorse free speech without simultaneously endorsing the right of some creep to say, “I love little girls.”) And finally there will be fringe groups who view themselves as the pedophiliac equivalent of the gay rights militants of the 1970s and 1980s. They will advocate “responsible” or “loving” or “mutual” adult-child relationships. NAMBLA already does this, and just recently in the news there was a Dutch group of pedophiles trying to form a political party.

What you make of it all probably depends on your political inclinations. Really it’s a messy situation with no clear-cut solution. You can understand why there ought to be harsher penalties. If anyone were to assault your own children, you’d be the first in line to vote for the violent execution of sex offenders. On the other hand, most child abuse occurs in the home, among family members. It’s not so easy to vote for harsher penalties when it’s your seventeen-year-old son that’s been sodomizing his little brother. How do you cope with that?

In all likelihood, you can imagine that there will be intense public debate fueled by a few high-profile cases, the JonBenets of the 2000s and 2010s. And this public debate will result in a more extreme version of the laws as they are now — a patchwork of inconsistent precedents that vary from state to state. Today some precincts will give you a slap on the wrist for the same sex crime that Texas will kill you for tomorrow.

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