In strange news… March 9, 2009 Jill NAMBLA has put a hit out on New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. You would think that being a member of NAMBLA would max you out on the weirdo scale, but apparently there’s always room to grow.
1. Teehee, Frederic Dicker. Srsly, Dicker? Wow. 2. Is simply being a member of NAMBLA an offense punishable by imprisonment? I mean, I’m in no way defending that particular organization. It’s just that the article makes it sound like NY State is rounding up and imprisoning people (on possibly questionable grounds?) simply for being members of an organization. Am I just grossly misunderstanding the article (which, being from the Post, isn’t exactly Pulitzer material)?
I read it as saying Cuomo was trying to keep people who had already been convicted and served their sentences in prison, beyond the length of the sentence, on the grounds that they are very likely to re-offend. That’s how I understood “civil commitment.” But I’m kind of filling in the blanks because I’ve read other places that is a trend in punishing/targeting sex offenders, and the article isn’t very clear. That tactic is obviously controversial from a civil liberties standpoint, but it’s not the same as locking someone up just for being a member of NAMBLA. On a side note, I once had to interview someone from NAMBLA. An adopt-a-highway sign had gone up saying that stretch of highway had been adopted by NAMBLA, and people in the community were upset. When I got the actual application, it had a fake name, phone number and address, so it was never clear if it was a hoax or not. NAMBLA said they weren’t aware of anyone from the organization filing the paperwork, but they didn’t see why it should be controversial if they wanted to adopt a highway. After I turned in my story, my editor couldn’t believe they thought there was no age at which sexual contact with an adult as inappropriate, and she made me call them back and ask them, in excruciating detail, exactly what it was okay and not okay to do with little kids. It was one of the most disturbing conversations I’ve ever had with a real person.
No. She was convinced that I was making a potentially libelous error. Not legally libelous, necessarily, but that I was making an error that would make NAMBLA look worse than they actually were. I think she thought they wanted to lower age of consent laws – lower them radically, far beyond what the vast majority of people would consider appropriate – but she just could not believe they did not believe in age of consent at all or to phrase it a different way, that she thought that surely they must think there is some age that is too young, even if they set the bar way lower than most people. But they don’t. Their “standard” is that the sexual relationship between an adult and a child should be “age appropriate” but there is no such thing as “too young,” the same way there is no age that is too young to start reading to your kid. Like I said, it was a very disturbing conversation. But it was pretty egregious that she made me call them back. When reporters are sharing war stories of horrible editors and horrible things they made them do, this is the story I tell.
Keep in mind that this is the Post. From the story, it sounds as though some jackass on the internet claimed that they were an “official of NAMBLA” that there was $10,000 out there for anyone willing to “shoot Andrew Cuomo in the face!”, which just sounds run of the mill like internet-toughguyism to me. I mean, it’s not exactly a wire transfer to Carlos the Jackal’s unnumbered Swiss account.
I’m with Sophist. There’s no way a random anonymous internet post on some backwater forum actually indicates a real bounty on Cuomo…
NAMBLA probably has the highest ratio of attention from political partisans to actual significance of any organization in history.
This sounds like a 4chan prank to me. Also, what kind of publication is the New York Post? It reads like a supermarket tabloid.
Press Release NY Post Article a Hoax 9-March-2009 NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, flatly denies the ridiculous accusation (as reported in the NY Post on March 9, 2009) that we put a bounty on NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. We have done nothing of the sort to Mr Cuomo or anyone else, now or ever. Unnamed sources talking about vague threats by some unnamed “agent” offering money adds up to precisely one thing – a hoax. There is no truth to the story. Contrary to the many falsehoods which have been directed against us over the years, NAMBLA is an organization dedicated to the changing of laws, not the breaking of them. It is true that we oppose civil commitment. We do so for the same reasons so many other sensible groups and individuals do – it is an end run around everyone’s constitutional and legal protections. Civil commitment programs are an ex-post facto use of mental health facilities as prisons and are based on misinformation about recidivism rates (which study after study by states and the federal government have shown to be very low). We oppose civil commitment because the many millions of dollars wasted in this futile quest to appear tough on crime could be much more wisely spent being smart on crime. We oppose civil commitment because, like all good Americans, our history has taught us to despise witchhunts and to question the ulterior motives of witchhunters. If the Attorney General’s office had actually put any credible effort into investigating this hoax they would have had no trouble disproving the allegations. The fact that someone went running to the tabloid press instead shows that publicity rather than credibility was the only purpose. It also speaks poorly of the NY Post that they printed such an unsubstantiated story. We think the people of New York would be much better served if both the Attorney General’s office and the Post put more effort into distinguishing fact from fantasy. Contact Arnold Schone arnoldschoen@yahoo.com 212-631-1194
@Mike F, Bitter Scribe and Zula I think you’re right. NAMBLA receives far too much attention and only legitimizes their politics of child molestation.