The 3 month sentence Tammy Gibson was supposed to start a blawgversation at Doug Berman’s invitation, but it looks like only SJ and Sex Crimes took him up on it. Even Doug wasn’t sufficiently moved to continue his own conversation. But that doesn’t mean that others didn’t have something to say. Quite the contrary.
At Parent Dish, the post on Tammy Gibson unleashed a torrent of comments, over 450 as of this writing, which did not merely support Tammy Gibson’s decision to attack a “sex offender” with a baseball bat, but vehemently urged her to make sure she did the job right the next time around.
For those who maintain the image of mom baking an apple pie, think terminator. There is no issue about whether the mere mention of the word “sex offender” might not mean pedophile. There is no question about whether maternal vigilantism in the absence of harm is justified.
The kinder, gentler moms merely want to castrate them all. The meaner ones want to kill them all and eliminate them from our midst.
The deal is, they aren’t taking any chances. Once labeled a sex offender, it doesn’t matter why, what the person did, or whether he poses a threat. He’s dead meat to the moms. They aren’t interested in explanations, discussions, arguments. If there is any chance, no matter how theoretical, that someone might conceivably pose a threat to their children, screw ’em. They are dead.
Now I, perhaps more than most, have no tolerance for child molesters. I don’t represent them, even though some of my peers think I’m wrong to refuse their cases. But that does not mean that we take a fairly wide swathe of society, place a label on them that bears little relation to any threat to a child, and brand them for life as not merely subhuman, but the object of hatred and violence of well-intended but deadly mommies.
The ramifications of the attitudes expressed in the comments at Parent Dish are quite serious, and deeply disconcerting. As SORA grows, cops hand out fliers and the mindless fear of locals grows out of control, are we due for a bloodbath across this nation?
When the mothers of our nation are ready to slaughter a group of human beings “just to be sure,” perhaps it’s time to revisit just how much hatred our government is prepared for foster in the name of fear and safety.
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Hey Scott,
I’m both a mom, and an attorney who takes child sex crime cases. NOTE, I don’t represent child molesters, either. I represent citizens accused of being child molesters. I am quite confident many (both convicted and acquitted) never committed such a crime, but that had very little to do with their situation, and need for a lawyer. (It also often had very little to do with their trial, unfortunately, as I can observe reviewing the records on appeal).
The thing about these cases is that there is so little truth-finding. There are only gut feelings, and a lot of shades of gray. The fact is that people (read: jurors) would generally rather err on the side of locking up the probably-innocent than to let a possibly-guilty go free. That is mom-thinking. And, I think, our criminal justice system doesn’t work well for these kinds of cases.
We know from science that children do not remember in a manner akin to a photograph, or video. They lay down their memories by hearing and saying things, repeatedly. The more often, the more “true” and more detailed and strong the “memory.” Yet the memory is not usually of events on a particular day, it is a story that is at least part construct, fed in large degree by the influence of those hearing and reacting to the story, or telling it.
And regardless of the truth-value of the underlying charges in any case, perhaps I will set off a barrage of angry comments by saying this: In my view, what the prosecution of these cases does to children is sometimes far more damaging to them than the touch on the bottom they got from the uncle in the first place.
As moms, however, we generally think differently about dangers to our children, than we do when rationally evaluating other types of decisions. We immunize our kids against diseases they are unlikely to ever be exposed to, to prevent a catastrophic illness or unlikely death. We buckle our kids into car seats each time, even though an accident is extremely unlikely, because any accident can lead to catestophic injury. We put helmets on our little skiers, skaters, and horseback riders for the same reasons. We throw out peanut butter that was perfectly good last week because of the tiny chance of salmonella. You get the picture. This is “rational” behavior for moms (and dads).
But, are we correct, that a sexual touching to a child is catastrophic in the same way, enough to employ the same line of thinking? I am on the lunatic fringe, perhaps, but I think not. I was touched as a kid. I have several colleagues who speak frankly about being touched as a kid. It wasn’t catastrophic. It didn’t make us life-long victim objects. And it didn’t tear our mother’s heart out.
It may be worthwhile for me as a mom to give my child the skills in discerning and resisting and safety that are equivalent to the ski helmet and the car seat, but it is not worthwhile for me to entrench, highlight, and detail memories of something as abuse.