Heretics News Agency (live draft)

This is the live draft for Heretics News Agency on NewgonWiki, a News Aggregation service maintained by and for MAPs and Allies. It will provide material for roughly 2-weekly news aggregator updates to the Heretic TOC blog, with small (copyright compliant) excerpts and in some cases, editor comments. This will allow regular comment threads to continue on the blog, at times when there are no posts from Tom O'Carroll, or his guests.

As this is the draft copy, it covers the period 15 March - 15 Jun 2023. At the end of this period, it will be archived and refreshed.

Please post your news story at the top of the list, with any excerpts and comments attached as per normal.

Material for update ~ 31 March

• Senators push Pinterest exec for answers on pedophiles’ alleged use of platform

Comment: "Despite political divisions, the "bipartisan" neocon-neolib "self-regulatory" online child-protection circus continues. This time, they have set their sights on "sexually suggestive image boards of otherwise innocuous images", which must mean that desperation has hit a peak in the era of self-made youth erotica. Blumenthal has form when it comes to rabble-rousing for evidence-devoid, age-based censorship, but now it appears his efforts are directed towards protecting the institution of childhood, rather than actual young people. Some may remember his campaigns against MySpace and other platforms almost 20 years ago. These were also based on half-truths.

• How SCOTUS Promoted Pernicious Myths About Sex Offender Registries

"This Sunday marks the 20th anniversary of Smith v. Doe, a Supreme Court decision that approved the retroactive application of Alaska's sex offender registry, deeming it preventive rather than punitive. That ruling helped propagate several pernicious myths underlying a policy that every state has adopted without regard to its justice or effectiveness. Writing for the majority in Smith, Justice Anthony Kennedy took it for granted that collecting and disseminating information about people convicted of sex offenses made sense as a public safety measure. But that premise was always doubtful. The vast majority of sexual assaults, especially against children, are committed by relatives, friends, or acquaintances, and the perpetrators typically do not have prior sex-offense convictions. That means they would not show up on a registry even if someone bothered to check. It is therefore not surprising that research finds little evidence to support Kennedy's assumption that publicly accessible registries protect potential victims. Summarizing the evidence in a 2016 National Affairs article, Eli Lehrer noted that "virtually no well-controlled study shows any quantifiable benefit from the practice of notifying communities of sex offenders living in their midst.""

• Man charged with murder for killing former sex offender with a shovel and an antler

"A Minnesota man was charged with second-degree murder Friday after he bludgeoned a previously convicted sex offender to death with a shovel and a large moose antler. The suspect, 27-year-old Levi Axtell, believed that the victim, Lawrence Scully, had been stalking his then-22-month-old daughter on her walks back home from a local daycare since 2018. [...] Axtell made public posts on social media expressing violent thoughts towards people like Scully starting in 2020. He posted a photo on Facebook featuring someone holding a gun with the caption, “Only cure for pedophiles. A bullet." He added additional thoughts in the comment thread below the photo, saying, "People always ask me why I hate pedophiles. They assume I've been abused. But really I think being protective is just an Axtell trait." [...] He told law enforcement that he grabbed a shovel off of Scully’s porch and used that to hit the victim in the head “15-20 times” before he “finished him off” with several more blows from a moose antler in the vicinity."

Comment: "The Daily Mail also picks up on this story. The back-slapping he has received since murdering his victim appears to be a disturbingly open celebration of his mental illness, and hateful delusions."

• San Francisco Teacher Sparks Outrage with Disturbing Tweets in Support of Inappropriate Conduct

"A San Francisco Bay area teacher went viral on Twitter last weekend after posting a lengthy thread arguing that sex between a child and an adult is not “intrinsically harmful.” Zara Degeneres, a self-described “pagan witch,” faced widespread condemnation from parents. According to her LinkedIn page, she specializes in “teaching sex-positive values to middle and high school students through sex education."

Comment: The article goes on to quote her. This story also made a number of other minor outlets, and Townhall (1, 2, 3).

• Sexuality has nothing to do with pedophilia. Stop conflating the two

"It’s eerie to see a man who was once looked upon as a leader in our community, now sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial for 56 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography charges. I feel as though this entire city has been betrayed. This situation has also made me worried about the backlash the gay community could unjustly incur because of Wojahn’s alleged actions. Wojahn is a gay man, which is an inextricable part of his identity. However, it doesn’t mean his abhorrent behavior is an inextricable part of the LGBTQ+ community. [...] Wojahn’s sexuality has nothing to do with his arrest — a fact these outlets choose to ignore. This reporting poses a tremendous setback in developing an open, inclusive environment for the entire LGBTQ+ community in College Park, and potentially across the country. The LGBTQ+ community has been fighting the harmful stereotype of being child abusers since the 1970s. When the Save Our Children movement emerged as a powerful anti-gay group, it worked to overturn an ordinance that prevented housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Their leader, Anita Bryant, asserted that homosexual teachers would likely molest children. Since then, the trope of gay men committing pedophilia has pervaded both media and politics."

Comment: "Is the desperation among the gay community in the "Grooming" era, and their attempts at revising history something we can monopolize upon? Perhaps some conservatives should swat up on historical examples of LGBT-MAP unity, as this would appear to be a useful angle of attack."

• California ‘Teacher of the Year’ faces 14 charges in child sexual abuse case

"A teacher in National City who won a Teacher of the Year award in August was arrested and booked into county jail for an “inappropriate relationship” with a 13-year-old former student, police said. Jacqueline Ma, 34, was a teacher at Lincoln Acres Elementary in National City — just south of San Diego — where she taught fifth and sixth grades. On Monday, a “concerned parent” reached out to the National City Police Department saying she was afraid her 13-year-old was being treated inappropriately by Ma, according to a news release. The next day, detectives developed probable cause to arrest the teacher. [...] The teacher is charged with seven counts of possession of child pornography and four counts of sexual exploitation of a child. She is also charged with two counts of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child. Finally, Ma is charged with attempting to dissuade a witness from testifying."

Comment: "More wasted talent. How comical, we are still "counting" the amount of CP someone has in 2023. Even if you are against CP, the amount someone "has" is pretty much meaningless in the digital age where things are called up and downloaded in an instant."

• Age of Consent and Child Porn Debated at 8th Circuit

""In this case there was no abuse. The underlying conduct was legal," Gilg said, pointing out the age of consent in Nebraska is 16 – the age of the girl when when she met Rouse at Omaha hotels for sex over a five-month period. Gilg argued the sexual acts Rouse engaged in, along with images taken during those acts, deserve First Amendment protection. [...] Senior Judge C. Arlen Beam, a Ronald Reagan appointee, remarked that Rouse’s sentence for distributing the videos was “somewhat nonsensical” and “troublesome” for what he sees as an “innocuous offense.” Beam noted Rouse and the teenager only sent the videos to each other and did not disseminate them publicly."

• Paris Hilton Says She Had an 'Inappropriate' Relationship with 8th Grade Teacher: 'He Made Me Feel Noticed'

"all the girls in my class were crushing on this handsome young teacher" [who had a] "very Abercrombie" [look] "Everyone loved him, including the nuns" / "I've got a crush on you." [he said] / "He made me feel noticed in an important, grown-up way" / "He flattered and teased me and said that all the other girls were talking about me behind my back because they were jealous." / "and we talked for hours about how amazingly mature, beautiful, and intelligent I was, how sensual, misunderstood, and special" / "I climbed into the passenger seat. Teacher pulled me into his arms and kissed me" [her parents then came home and saw Hilton and her teacher in the driveway] / "Somehow, people [at school] seemed to know." / "I don't know if there were any repercussions to the teacher or if there was any attempt to prevent him from choosing another little girl," / "My parents never volunteered any information, and I never asked, but I assume the fear of bad publicity would have prevented them from making a scene or pressing charges." / "I never allowed myself to talk or even think about what it really was or why I climbed out the window to kiss that stupid pedophile. It took decades for me to actually speak the word pedophile," / "Casting him in the role of child molester meant casting myself in the role of victim, and I just couldn't go there." / [what hurt her was] "the fact that I had enjoyed something that was, in reality, utterly vile." / "Even now, knowing in my grown-up mind that no child is ever to blame for inappropriate adult behavior, my face is literally burning as I sit here telling you this terrible secret," / "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to fully shake it off. But it's a key part of my story."