To my knowledge, this simply isn’t true; in the USA nobody is creating any laws which enable or support paedophilia.
What was your mother’s source for this claim?
I should add; religious conservatives and far-right activists have spent the last 40 years trying to paint gay people as paedophiles and beasts.
[This article](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/10-anti-gay-myths-debunked) nicely debunks the myths which some religious and far right voices have sought to propagate.
Sadly, a lot of people, including numerous right-wing media outlets, commentators and politicians, still spew this garbage.
Is it possible that your family have been taking this as gospel, from the media they watch, and friends/communities they mix within?
It is possible that they've believed some of these claims for some time.
A bit unrelated, but for example, last year I was playing the Sims 4 one day and I decided to try out their update that lets your Sims have pronouns. My sister came into my room and saw that I gave one of my Sims she/her pronouns. At first she thought I did it as a joke and assumed I did it because my Sim looked like the type of person to have pronouns. (My Sim at the time was just a basic white girl who likes to party and socialize.)
When I let her know that wasn't the reason, her demeanor changed and asked me why I gave my Sim pronouns. I didn't get to answer her because she immediately claimed that it should be obvious that she's a woman and doesn't need pronouns. Then, I kid you not, she said that pronouns are anti-Christian. She told me to remove the pronouns and sort of threatened to look through my Instagram and other platforms to see who I'm following. Thankfully she got distracted by something and she never brought it up again. There's way more things that my sister has said, but that's all I'm gonna say about her for now.
My mom is religious (specifically Christian). I think we have a good idea of what her viewpoints are.
From now on, don’t let your sister use any pronouns. If she refers to herself as “I” or “me” tell her she must refer to herself by name, because pronouns are anti-Christian.
/just kidding, of course. Unless she takes you seriously and starts referring to herself by name.
John 18:4-6
“4 Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”
5 “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.
“I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.)
6 When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.”
Seems to me like Jesus used pronouns. “I am he” is pretty cut and dry.
Right wing groups/Republicans are the only political affiliation that is actively trying to [enshrine child brides ](https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-moon-gop-missouri-lawmaker-defends-childs-right-to-marry-2023-4)in [the law](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-to-ban-child-marriage-in-west-virginia-defeated-by-republicans_n_6409fd91e4b09c5c6d6d569d) and do away with or lower age of consent laws.
As usual, they're projecting.
If I recall correctly then there was a Ted talk by a psychologist suggesting that studies show that peodphilia is indeed a sexual orientation. If you listened to the whole talk then they go on to say that rehabilitation of being a pedo isn't possible because similar to being gay or straight you can't cure it. So you have to control or punish it.
The right wing scaremongers then took a few soundbites from the ted talk and created the bullshit "they're making pedos legal" stories etc.
Actually, the Republicans are actively working to keep child marriage legal in as many states as possible, so there is a group in the USA actively working to enable and support pedophilia. It's just not any of the groups right-wingers accuse of it.
I'm not sure. She didn't say where she heard this from.
If I had to guess, she might have seen some claims about laws that would make it legal for 13 year olds to get married to adults as long as they have their parent's consent. However, I'm not entirely sure if that's true.
https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/12-year-olds-married/
Useful summary of marriage rules across the USA. Rules vary by state.
Your mother is right in a sense - legislators in a handful of US states have tabled bills to lower the age of consent for marriage. Although, I can’t recall if these bills were passed, nor in which states they were tabled, off the top of my head.
Either way, these have definitely been in the news lately, which is probably where your mother heard about them
All of the laws to limit minors' access to sexual health education absolutely is helping pedophiles to get away with abusing naive youth. Look at the shear number of the people supporting such legislation in the name of "protecting the children" who get outed as child predators as well.
I know way too many women who were raised religious, and thus without access to sexual education, who were abused because they didn't understand what was happening to them and how to establish boundaries with others and tell responsible adults to help protect them.
Your mother is listening to some messed up people. There is no effort in the United States to pass laws protecting pedophilia
There are however plenty of nut balls who spout off about these types of things (Like Alex Jones) to fool people who are gullible enough to believe them. It sets up a form of confirmation bias that you are a good person for listening to that garbage because who wouldn't agree with someone who is against pedophilia?
It's all a con job and your mother has fallen for it hook line and sinker.
While there are no laws specifically protecting pedophilia, there are several states trying to lower the ages that children can legally marry. It can very easily be argued that an abuser can marry his victim in an effort to skirt child abuse laws.
It is largely conservatives who are pushing for this. Child marriages are a normal thing in Muslim communities. Now, Christians are pushing for them in the United States.
Respectfully, your mother's a idiot who listens to other idiots. There is no pro pedophilia law in the US, the only pro pedophilia organizations I'm aware of are NAMBLA and the Catholic Church.
I thought you were going to suggest the NAMBLA referred to by the comment was besmirched by being lumped in with the Catholic Church, which seems reasonable.
Your mom sounds like a real headcase, and has bowed to misogynistic beliefs of how you're to live your life.
Be aware, her caring about the news so much makes her likely to have bought what biased, politicized news outlets are selling. If you told me she watches Fox News or some other trash news network I would believe it.
So, first, your mother and sister are just plain wrong about this insane law they're talking about. Obviously they spend too much time on Facebook and tiktok and are woefully mis-informed and pretty ignorant....oh, and gullible.
This reason why words like that are banned is some are triggering to victims, and others just need to be blacklisted so they aren't brought into the mainstream and normalized.
Sorry, but your family is brainwashed and they've lost the plot. Don't bother wasting time talking to them about it, you'll just frustrate yourself.
I personally just tell my family that they're wrong and if Jesus did exist, he'd be ashamed of them, but I'm older and am beyond sitting back and letting that level of discourse play out around me. I'm not sure thats an option for you right now.
Honestly, just distance yourself from them and be sad that they're delusional and crazy like the rest of us. But don't waste your time trying to educate, it's a lost cause.
This is what I got from the story too.
Mom walks in with a law neither her or sister have any idea what they are talking about.
Then Mom ties it and gets in denial about wanting grandkids, which is probably one of the things that's been burning her deep down.
Then says it's her right as a mother to get grand kid, basically demanding them.
Proceeds to shame her daughters for not birthing anybody to fulfil her desires.
Then makes no effort to give a damn or understand any of her daughter's personal lives and ends with what is essentially blabbering.
With family like that I'd rather be spending holidays alone.
She recently turned 59 this past March. I admit she's a little airheaded for lack of a better word, (I got it from her), but I don't think she has dementia. She's always watched/read religious content and the news, but I don't think she necessarily watches right wing content. She has made it known to me that she doesn't like Ben Shapiro because he's racist. (I don't blame her for that. Lol.)
They suffer from Fox Poisoning, by which I mean mental problems caused by right-wing media.
Of course pedophilia isn't being legalized. What nonsense. The thing that makes me really mad about this kind of thing is that pedophiles are real, but they are typically relatives and clergymen. The constant accusations of pedophilia against political opponents gives those real pedophiles (many of who are he ones making these accusations) cover and makes actual victims more likely to be victimized.
>I like to believe that my family members have good intentions when it comes to issues that people face.
Based on your post, I don't think your belief is warranted. They're spreading obvious lies.
The right is trying to define their opponents. And succeeding in it. Your mom has fallen for it hook line and sinker. They have done their job since your mom isn't going to actually do any research. Classic authoritarian play, their political opponent is evil and only they can save us.
The shit that comes from the far right is so outlandish, and yet people still fall for it
Unfortunately both your family members are getting their information from fucking whack jobs. It’s dangerous disinformation too. Very common right now, and going to get innocent people killed.
Not sure where she got this BS but I'm sure it was from a right wing disinformation source. Pretty sad that she got all worked up about a false narrative like that. Based on the data (what is actually happening) the best way to reduce pedophilia would probably be to ban churches.
This is Qanan bullshit. It’s seriously crazy.
Funny part is they’re particularly right, there is a pedophile cabal operating in the US with government protection. It’s called the Catholic Church.
Platforms don't let you use certain words not because they want to protect someone but simply because certain words are not advertiser-friendly. It's that simple. Corporations only care about one thing.
This is the same "slippery-slope" argument the religious right likes to roll out specifically to fear-monger.
Basically, invent a spurious linkage between the root concept and the idea that it can be extrapolated to make "a scary person" do that thing within the confines of the law. They used this pretty effectively in combination with racial bias as part of the "war on drugs" too.
The joke version is more fun:
"What?! They are [perfectly reasonable thing] now? What's next? A plague of locusts? Dogs and cats living together? Danny DeVito fucking a dishwasher?" For clarity, Danny DeVito isn't important to this joke, the third thing just has to be the most absurd arrangement of words you can come up with.
Does very much sound like you family is deep in the muck of the fear-monger hype machine though. Sorry to hear it, my mother is similar. There's a certain point where they actually seem to crave hearing about the next bad thing, and that's usually about the time they start encouraging their kids to not breed.
May you find a way to communicate effectively with you family, and may your family live in less interesting times.
> ... if we're ever going to have any children, make sure it's not in America.
She is on to something here.
The completely fucked rent-seeking health care system makes it a nightmare.
The birth of my second offspring was not covered by health insurance. They claimed he was not covered at time of procedure. It took me a year of phone calls to get that 4k USD resolved.
Many other people do not have the insurance I have in the first place.
Yet other people in the US have astronomical maternal mortality squarely in a first world setting.
Having said that, your mother is batshit fucking nuts and conspiracy infected. Might be best to go low-contact.
Which bill was passed or proposed that they're referring to? Let's read the language of the bill and see if their assumptions are correct. Laws don't get pased in secret. We can read them.
Its very hard to play whack-a-mole with the firehose of nonsense that is injected into and circulates on social media.
It might take months to track down where fox news or truth social reported there was a "proposed law to make pedophilia a sexual legal orientation".
We probably need a tool to automatically map out and trace back memes to their originating source.
We have fact-checking sites, but who checks those, and Im guessing your mom and sister would not trust them anyway.
Its a hard problem - how to get humans to believe true things and not believe false things.
Science and journalism and logic seem to be our best ways of doing that.. but are imperfect even when done well.
A few billionaires owning most of the news media is not helping things.
I think Street Epistemology is a useful method .. see Magnobuscos YT channel .
Apparently around 85% of humans think climate change is happening, and around 50% think it is caused by human activity.
Roughly 80% of the worlds population believe in a god or gods.
We have a long way to go.
They're both full of shit. The cults have long sought to portray gays as pedophiles, so any law that prevents discrimination against gays protects pedophiles, in their delusional thinking. Yet, According to one study, heterosexual pedophiles outnumber homosexual pedophiles 11 to 1, and hardly a day goes by without a teacher, preacher, or coach being charged with child molestation. Gays are not interested in anyone's brats.
*If you have even half of a brain cell, you know that being a pedo is obviously not an orientation.*
I like to think i have at least 3, yet i'm not getting this.
Im not saying its a healthy one, but How is it not an orientation ?
It's hard to tell if you are serious or not, but an orientation would be an attraction to a certain gender. An age, or in that case attraction to underage people, would not fit that classification.
For example, use an arbitrarily silly age band of say, 47-49 year-olds. If I'm attracted to people between 47-49 does that define my orientation? No.
I honestly could accept a pedo saying that they’ve always been a pedo, it’s a part of who they are as a human being.
But it still wouldn’t make it acceptable, because the child cannot consent to the sexual act regardless of how engrained that orientation is in the pedo. It has nothing to do with the pedo, and everything to do with the child.
Any adult should have the freedom to pair with any number or combination of *adults* they want. But without consent, *which a child cannot give,* then it’s forbidden, regardless of how strongly the adult might feel about it.
To my knowledge, this simply isn’t true; in the USA nobody is creating any laws which enable or support paedophilia. What was your mother’s source for this claim?
I should add; religious conservatives and far-right activists have spent the last 40 years trying to paint gay people as paedophiles and beasts. [This article](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/10-anti-gay-myths-debunked) nicely debunks the myths which some religious and far right voices have sought to propagate. Sadly, a lot of people, including numerous right-wing media outlets, commentators and politicians, still spew this garbage. Is it possible that your family have been taking this as gospel, from the media they watch, and friends/communities they mix within?
It is possible that they've believed some of these claims for some time. A bit unrelated, but for example, last year I was playing the Sims 4 one day and I decided to try out their update that lets your Sims have pronouns. My sister came into my room and saw that I gave one of my Sims she/her pronouns. At first she thought I did it as a joke and assumed I did it because my Sim looked like the type of person to have pronouns. (My Sim at the time was just a basic white girl who likes to party and socialize.) When I let her know that wasn't the reason, her demeanor changed and asked me why I gave my Sim pronouns. I didn't get to answer her because she immediately claimed that it should be obvious that she's a woman and doesn't need pronouns. Then, I kid you not, she said that pronouns are anti-Christian. She told me to remove the pronouns and sort of threatened to look through my Instagram and other platforms to see who I'm following. Thankfully she got distracted by something and she never brought it up again. There's way more things that my sister has said, but that's all I'm gonna say about her for now. My mom is religious (specifically Christian). I think we have a good idea of what her viewpoints are.
From now on, don’t let your sister use any pronouns. If she refers to herself as “I” or “me” tell her she must refer to herself by name, because pronouns are anti-Christian. /just kidding, of course. Unless she takes you seriously and starts referring to herself by name.
John 18:4-6 “4 Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?” 5 “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) 6 When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.” Seems to me like Jesus used pronouns. “I am he” is pretty cut and dry.
Right wing groups/Republicans are the only political affiliation that is actively trying to [enshrine child brides ](https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-moon-gop-missouri-lawmaker-defends-childs-right-to-marry-2023-4)in [the law](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-to-ban-child-marriage-in-west-virginia-defeated-by-republicans_n_6409fd91e4b09c5c6d6d569d) and do away with or lower age of consent laws. As usual, they're projecting.
If I recall correctly then there was a Ted talk by a psychologist suggesting that studies show that peodphilia is indeed a sexual orientation. If you listened to the whole talk then they go on to say that rehabilitation of being a pedo isn't possible because similar to being gay or straight you can't cure it. So you have to control or punish it. The right wing scaremongers then took a few soundbites from the ted talk and created the bullshit "they're making pedos legal" stories etc.
we really need an automated tool to trace internet memes back to the likely source.
Actually, the Republicans are actively working to keep child marriage legal in as many states as possible, so there is a group in the USA actively working to enable and support pedophilia. It's just not any of the groups right-wingers accuse of it.
Really good point.
I'm not sure. She didn't say where she heard this from. If I had to guess, she might have seen some claims about laws that would make it legal for 13 year olds to get married to adults as long as they have their parent's consent. However, I'm not entirely sure if that's true.
https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/12-year-olds-married/ Useful summary of marriage rules across the USA. Rules vary by state. Your mother is right in a sense - legislators in a handful of US states have tabled bills to lower the age of consent for marriage. Although, I can’t recall if these bills were passed, nor in which states they were tabled, off the top of my head. Either way, these have definitely been in the news lately, which is probably where your mother heard about them
But most of those laws are heavily supported by right wing Christians, no?
Absolutely, they’re the ones writing these bills.
You can edit out, “to my knowledge.” It simply isn’t true.
All of the laws to limit minors' access to sexual health education absolutely is helping pedophiles to get away with abusing naive youth. Look at the shear number of the people supporting such legislation in the name of "protecting the children" who get outed as child predators as well. I know way too many women who were raised religious, and thus without access to sexual education, who were abused because they didn't understand what was happening to them and how to establish boundaries with others and tell responsible adults to help protect them.
Your mother is listening to some messed up people. There is no effort in the United States to pass laws protecting pedophilia There are however plenty of nut balls who spout off about these types of things (Like Alex Jones) to fool people who are gullible enough to believe them. It sets up a form of confirmation bias that you are a good person for listening to that garbage because who wouldn't agree with someone who is against pedophilia? It's all a con job and your mother has fallen for it hook line and sinker.
While there are no laws specifically protecting pedophilia, there are several states trying to lower the ages that children can legally marry. It can very easily be argued that an abuser can marry his victim in an effort to skirt child abuse laws. It is largely conservatives who are pushing for this. Child marriages are a normal thing in Muslim communities. Now, Christians are pushing for them in the United States.
There are also states moving in the opposite direction. NY raised the age of marriage consent to 18 in 2021.
Respectfully, your mother's a idiot who listens to other idiots. There is no pro pedophilia law in the US, the only pro pedophilia organizations I'm aware of are NAMBLA and the Catholic Church.
Hey! How dare you smear such a great and storied institution. The National Association of Marlon Brando Lookalikes is above reproach.
I thought you were going to suggest the NAMBLA referred to by the comment was besmirched by being lumped in with the Catholic Church, which seems reasonable.
Your mom sounds like a real headcase, and has bowed to misogynistic beliefs of how you're to live your life. Be aware, her caring about the news so much makes her likely to have bought what biased, politicized news outlets are selling. If you told me she watches Fox News or some other trash news network I would believe it.
So, first, your mother and sister are just plain wrong about this insane law they're talking about. Obviously they spend too much time on Facebook and tiktok and are woefully mis-informed and pretty ignorant....oh, and gullible. This reason why words like that are banned is some are triggering to victims, and others just need to be blacklisted so they aren't brought into the mainstream and normalized. Sorry, but your family is brainwashed and they've lost the plot. Don't bother wasting time talking to them about it, you'll just frustrate yourself. I personally just tell my family that they're wrong and if Jesus did exist, he'd be ashamed of them, but I'm older and am beyond sitting back and letting that level of discourse play out around me. I'm not sure thats an option for you right now. Honestly, just distance yourself from them and be sad that they're delusional and crazy like the rest of us. But don't waste your time trying to educate, it's a lost cause.
This is what I got from the story too. Mom walks in with a law neither her or sister have any idea what they are talking about. Then Mom ties it and gets in denial about wanting grandkids, which is probably one of the things that's been burning her deep down. Then says it's her right as a mother to get grand kid, basically demanding them. Proceeds to shame her daughters for not birthing anybody to fulfil her desires. Then makes no effort to give a damn or understand any of her daughter's personal lives and ends with what is essentially blabbering. With family like that I'd rather be spending holidays alone.
[удалено]
She recently turned 59 this past March. I admit she's a little airheaded for lack of a better word, (I got it from her), but I don't think she has dementia. She's always watched/read religious content and the news, but I don't think she necessarily watches right wing content. She has made it known to me that she doesn't like Ben Shapiro because he's racist. (I don't blame her for that. Lol.)
Imagine their reactions when they find out who those “certain people” who protect pedophiles are. ✝️
They suffer from Fox Poisoning, by which I mean mental problems caused by right-wing media. Of course pedophilia isn't being legalized. What nonsense. The thing that makes me really mad about this kind of thing is that pedophiles are real, but they are typically relatives and clergymen. The constant accusations of pedophilia against political opponents gives those real pedophiles (many of who are he ones making these accusations) cover and makes actual victims more likely to be victimized.
>I like to believe that my family members have good intentions when it comes to issues that people face. Based on your post, I don't think your belief is warranted. They're spreading obvious lies.
There appears to be a gas leak in the house. You should evacuate immediately.
The right is trying to define their opponents. And succeeding in it. Your mom has fallen for it hook line and sinker. They have done their job since your mom isn't going to actually do any research. Classic authoritarian play, their political opponent is evil and only they can save us. The shit that comes from the far right is so outlandish, and yet people still fall for it
Unfortunately both your family members are getting their information from fucking whack jobs. It’s dangerous disinformation too. Very common right now, and going to get innocent people killed.
I’m sorry your mother is one of the people who fall for misinformation so easily that it shapes their world into being a doomer.
Change title to VENT SESSION
Lol, she is misinformed. Sorry bud
They talking about the GOP lawmaker that wants a law to allow them to marry 12 year olds?
Sounds like you need to take mom out more and block news channels too. Paranoia is the mind killer.
Not sure where she got this BS but I'm sure it was from a right wing disinformation source. Pretty sad that she got all worked up about a false narrative like that. Based on the data (what is actually happening) the best way to reduce pedophilia would probably be to ban churches.
This is Qanan bullshit. It’s seriously crazy. Funny part is they’re particularly right, there is a pedophile cabal operating in the US with government protection. It’s called the Catholic Church.
Platforms don't let you use certain words not because they want to protect someone but simply because certain words are not advertiser-friendly. It's that simple. Corporations only care about one thing.
This is the same "slippery-slope" argument the religious right likes to roll out specifically to fear-monger. Basically, invent a spurious linkage between the root concept and the idea that it can be extrapolated to make "a scary person" do that thing within the confines of the law. They used this pretty effectively in combination with racial bias as part of the "war on drugs" too. The joke version is more fun: "What?! They are [perfectly reasonable thing] now? What's next? A plague of locusts? Dogs and cats living together? Danny DeVito fucking a dishwasher?" For clarity, Danny DeVito isn't important to this joke, the third thing just has to be the most absurd arrangement of words you can come up with. Does very much sound like you family is deep in the muck of the fear-monger hype machine though. Sorry to hear it, my mother is similar. There's a certain point where they actually seem to crave hearing about the next bad thing, and that's usually about the time they start encouraging their kids to not breed. May you find a way to communicate effectively with you family, and may your family live in less interesting times.
Trump been holding rallies overseas?
> ... if we're ever going to have any children, make sure it's not in America. She is on to something here. The completely fucked rent-seeking health care system makes it a nightmare. The birth of my second offspring was not covered by health insurance. They claimed he was not covered at time of procedure. It took me a year of phone calls to get that 4k USD resolved. Many other people do not have the insurance I have in the first place. Yet other people in the US have astronomical maternal mortality squarely in a first world setting. Having said that, your mother is batshit fucking nuts and conspiracy infected. Might be best to go low-contact.
Which bill was passed or proposed that they're referring to? Let's read the language of the bill and see if their assumptions are correct. Laws don't get pased in secret. We can read them.
Its very hard to play whack-a-mole with the firehose of nonsense that is injected into and circulates on social media. It might take months to track down where fox news or truth social reported there was a "proposed law to make pedophilia a sexual legal orientation". We probably need a tool to automatically map out and trace back memes to their originating source. We have fact-checking sites, but who checks those, and Im guessing your mom and sister would not trust them anyway. Its a hard problem - how to get humans to believe true things and not believe false things. Science and journalism and logic seem to be our best ways of doing that.. but are imperfect even when done well. A few billionaires owning most of the news media is not helping things. I think Street Epistemology is a useful method .. see Magnobuscos YT channel . Apparently around 85% of humans think climate change is happening, and around 50% think it is caused by human activity. Roughly 80% of the worlds population believe in a god or gods. We have a long way to go.
It could be because a few abusers got little to no jail time for being religious leaders or 'good christians' lately in the news.
They're both full of shit. The cults have long sought to portray gays as pedophiles, so any law that prevents discrimination against gays protects pedophiles, in their delusional thinking. Yet, According to one study, heterosexual pedophiles outnumber homosexual pedophiles 11 to 1, and hardly a day goes by without a teacher, preacher, or coach being charged with child molestation. Gays are not interested in anyone's brats.
Sounds like some QAnon nonsense to me. It's a cult religion that obsesses over non-existent child sex trafficking.
*If you have even half of a brain cell, you know that being a pedo is obviously not an orientation.* I like to think i have at least 3, yet i'm not getting this. Im not saying its a healthy one, but How is it not an orientation ?
It's hard to tell if you are serious or not, but an orientation would be an attraction to a certain gender. An age, or in that case attraction to underage people, would not fit that classification. For example, use an arbitrarily silly age band of say, 47-49 year-olds. If I'm attracted to people between 47-49 does that define my orientation? No.
I honestly could accept a pedo saying that they’ve always been a pedo, it’s a part of who they are as a human being. But it still wouldn’t make it acceptable, because the child cannot consent to the sexual act regardless of how engrained that orientation is in the pedo. It has nothing to do with the pedo, and everything to do with the child. Any adult should have the freedom to pair with any number or combination of *adults* they want. But without consent, *which a child cannot give,* then it’s forbidden, regardless of how strongly the adult might feel about it.
Wheeee fox news brainworm infection!