WASHINGTON, June 9
Backing away from a controversial article that had said child molestation with "willing" children may not be harmful, and may, in some cases, even be beneficial, the American Psychological Association unveiled Wednesday a resolution condemning all "sexual relations between children and adults."
"After much pressure, the APA has begun to undo the damage wrought by its publication of a badly conceived article that has been hailed by such groups as the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA)," said FRC's Chief Spokesperson Janet Parshall. "It's a good first step, but now the APA needs to root out the pro-pedophilic academicians who are trying to normalize child abuse. And the APA should write to NAMBLA and strongly urge them not to use this article as justification for molesting young boys."
In a June 9 letter to Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), APA Chief Executive Officer Raymond D. Fowler pledges to create legal briefs attacking misuse of the article in the courts, and he includes a board-approved resolution in which the APA "repudiates and disassociates itself from any organization or publication that advocates sexual interaction between children and adults."
"NAMBLA should stop celebrating and touting this trashed study as justification for their perverse sexual desires for young boys," said FRC Senior Director of Legal Policy Jan LaRue. "We especially appreciate that the APA's general counsel is preparing amicus brief materials that could be adapted for use in any court of law to challenge any efforts to use the data in this or any other study to justify, condone, or normalize sexual interactions of any sort between children and adults. This has tremendous legal significance."
DeLay, along with Reps. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) and Dave Weldon (R-FL) had denounced the article at a May 12 press conference hosted by FRC. The article, which was published in the July 1998 edition of Psychological Bulletin, is "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples," by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman.
In his letter, Dr. Fowler, who had earlier defended the article on national television as "a good study," now acknowledges that the article is "inflammatory" and includes opinions "inconsistent" with APA's policy on child protection issues. He admits that APA "failed" to "evaluate the article based on its potential for misinforming the public policy process."
"Pressure from Dr. Laura Schlessinger, child protection organizations, and many pro-family legislators, along with support from past and present officials of the American Psychiatric Association, forced the APA to take a second look and admit their mistake," said Robert Knight, FRC's Senior Director of Cultural Studies. "We commend them for doing so and urge them to prevent such future occurrences. The publication of a detailed critique in the Psychological Bulletin is another important step that should be taken in this corrective process."
"Without everyone's focused attention on this issue, children victimized by child molesters would have been even more vulnerable," Dr. Laura Schlessinger said Wednesday. "While this seems to be a clear win, we have to maintain our vigilance and strengthen our collective will to defend families and children from those who would do them harm."
"By publicly rejecting the dangerous and faulty conclusion that children are capable of consenting to sex with an adult, the House of Representatives sends a strong message to pedophiles that can be summed up in five words, 'Stay away from our children,'" Family Research Council's Chief Spokesperson Janet Parshall said Monday. "This resolution acknowledges that children are a precious gift to parents and that Congress should do everything within its power to ensure parents are able to carry out their sacred duty to attend to the spiritual, physical and mental needs of their children."
The House passed by a vote of 355 to 0 Monday H. Con. Res. 107, which expresses the sense of Congress rejecting the conclusions of a recent article published by the American Psychological Association. The article titled "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples," was printed in the APA's Psychological Bulletin last July and suggested that sexual relationships between adults and children are less harmful than believed. To boost public awareness of the study and its implications, FRC sponsored a press conference that brought together radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-TX), Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) and Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) along with representatives of national child protection groups and pedophile victims. During this event, Rep. Salmon introduced H. Con. Res. 107.
"It's encouraging to see Congress act swiftly on such a threat to the family," Parshall said. "When the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which advocates laws to permit sex between adults and 'consenting' children, hails a study on its Web site as 'good news,' you can bet it translates into bad news for children. The Congressional vote today will intensify the heat already under the APA's feet to renounce the pedophile study and to ensure that other junk science is not published in its prestigious journals."
In a recent letter addressed to FRC's Executive Vice President and Senior Director of Legal Studies, APA Chief Executive Officer, Raymond Fowler, reiterated the organization's stance against pedophilia and committed to submitting the article in question to rigorous scientific scrutiny. In addition, the APA intends to publish a number of manuscripts that counter the conclusions of the aforementioned article.
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