I did a little surfing on the net and came back with this. While it appears most gay publications either condemns child molestion or is silent on the matter, there does seem to be a definite foot hold within the community. This is the first I have heard of it.
The little research I did seems to dispel some wide spread conspiracy and makes many of the writers' conclusions seem unfairly inflamatory.
However, any element, however small, within a community who are willing to tolerate their articles and give them a platform to promote sex between minors and adults is sick!
If we accepted sexual behaviour between children and adults, we would be far more able to protect our children from abuse and exploitation than we are now."
- ~ Jane Rule, lesbian feminist. "Teaching Sexuality"
- in Flaunting It, Vancouver, New Star Press, 1982.
"Pederasty and Homosexuality" Transcript of a speech in honor of Mexico City's Lesbian and Gay Cultural Week, by one of NAMBLA's founders, David Thorstad. More than 600 people showed up for the talk: standing room only, and many had to be turned away.
- "Pederasty is the main form that male homosexuality has acquired throughout Western civilization - and not only in the West! Pederasty is inseparable from the high points of Western culture - ancient Greece and the Renaissance".
"In those cases where children do have sex with their homosexual elders... I submit that often, very often, the child desires the activity, and perhaps even solicits it, either because of a natural curiosity... or because he or she is homosexual and innately knows it. ... And unlike girls or women forced into rape or traumatized, most gay men have warm memories of their earliest and early sexual encounters; when we share these stories with each other, they are invariably positive ones."
~ Larry Kramer, writer and founder of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP),
in Reports from the Holocaust, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.
"NAMBLA Walks With Me." Gay Pride Parade, 1986.
~ Harry Hay, pioneering gay activist (founder, Mattachine Society and Radical Faeries).
"Those who oppose intergenerational sex believe that a kid's life is ruined if he or she has sex with an older person. Exactly what takes place is irrelevant"... - ~ Cris Guttierrez
- writing in Frighten the Horses, San Francisco, Issue # 10, (Fall, 1992).
"I would have been so much happier as an adolescent if NAMBLA had been around when I was 9, 10, 11, 12, 13".
~ Samuel R. Delany, noted science fiction writer,
Queer Desires Forum, New York City, June 25, 1994.
JIM KEPNER
Jim Kepner, pioneering gay activist, journalist and founder of the International Gay and Lesbian Archives, addressing NAMBLA's General Membership Conference
Kepner's career as a founder of today's gay movement began at 19 years of age when he learned that many of our cultural heroes -- such as Sappho, Socrates, Francis Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde -- were all part of a vital gay tradition. Click here to read Kepner's own story.
Kepner recognized that boy-lovers play an important role in gay history, which he outlined at NAMBLA's General Membership Conference in 1986. He said, "Too many in our movement, victims themselves of prejudice and discrimination, pass those hatreds and fears to drag queens, pedophiles, bisexuals, leather men and women, transsexuals, and many other minorities within our community. We talk nicely about diversity, but practicing it is more difficult." His statement has been widely quoted on the internet. As a gay historian, Kepner also recognized the importance of Walter Breen's work, Greek Love (published under the pseudonym, J. Z. Eglinton).
Although his health was fading, Kepner marched the entire parade route for the Spirit of Stonewall march in New York City in 1994 with NAMBLA and 10,000 others to affirm the unity of all lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and gay people against oppression.
"When I was 12 and 13 years old I would have joined NAMBLA in a minute, because I knew I was gay and I wanted to go out and get laid, not just read The Gay Mystique all my life; I needed personal contact. - ~ Scott O'Hara, publisher and editor of STEAM magazine.
Spirit of Stonewall Press Conference, Stonewall Bar,