| SAY WHAT?!? MEMORABLE QUOTES FROM CELEBRITY ADVOCATES, LEGISLATORS, AND OTHERS IN THE SEX OFFENDER DEBATE List compiled by Derek "The Fallen One" Logue First Compiled August 27, 2009, Updated November 2, 2009 Below are a compilation of various quotes I have collected over the course of writing my book "Once Fallen," the "Shiitake Awards," and the Once Fallen archives. Enjoy! [NOTE: THe quotes are in no particular order, and some quotes may derive from sources no longer available online. However, I have saved copies of original sources whenever possible] “They don’t work. They don't work, and they actually make things more dangerous rather than make them safer” --Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholz, when asked why the state doesn't have laws restricting where sex offenders can live “The only thing that comes close to this is dueling.”-- Utah Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Michael Wilkins, regarding a case involving a 13 year old girl who was considered both a “victim” and “perpetrator” in a sex crime. Her 12 year old boyfriend pled guilty to the same offense, unlawful sex with a person under age 14 "I think this is a clear example of an unintended consequence, which can occur when we go beyond what we call police protocol when handling sex offenders. I understand the concern of parents for their children. But we must not allow hysteria to take place."-- Marion County, Florida Sheriff Ed Dean, responding to the suicide of a handicapped Former Offender after flyers picturing him with the words “CHILD RAPIST” printed in big bold letters were plastered all over the community “When we face it in this situation, why is it so wrong? Let me tell you why it's so wrong. It's so wrong because in these situations, until and unless the lady in Shrewsbury and people of her ilk have the opportunity to do away with the right of confrontation, which I'm sure they'd like to, that 6- year-old's going to sit in front of me, or somebody far worse than me, and I'm going to rip them apart. I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they're 8 years old, they throw up, when they're 12 years old, they won't sleep, when they're 19 years old, they'll have nightmares. And they'll never have a relationship with anybody. And that's not because I'm a nice guy. That's because when you're in court and you're defending somebody's liberty, and you're facing a mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions, you have to do every single thing you can do on behalf of your client. That is your oath and obligation as a trial lawyer, to confront the witnesses against your client, which in this instance will always be a child, who will undoubtedly be permanently dreadfully scarred.”-- Massachusetts State Representative James Fagan, on why mandatory sentences could backfire “We have gotten people fired, we have gotten people kicked out of their homes, we’ve broken up relationships and friendships. The reward in Perverted Justice is peeling back the curtain on these fuckers, we do that. And as we grow (and we’re growing, oh boy, are we growing) we continue to have greater successes in making lives a living hell.”-- Philip von Eide, aka., “Xavier Von Erck,” leader of the cyber-terrorist organization Perverted-Justice.com "I said I was kidding when I was talking to the Senate and I said they were talking about electronic monitoring, which is big and unwieldy for the sex offenders, and that some of these guys, no matter what the law in their state was, would have to wear one for 20 years or whatever. I said implant it in their anus and if they go outside the radius, explode it and that would send a big message. It was a joke. Nobody thought it was funny."-- America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh, in a 2006 press conference to promote his Fox TV show "I hope they bring these grubs to justice. We find out how much guts they've got ... as one of them committed suicide yesterday and another one had a big go, but he must not have had the courage to do it properly. If they all went and did it first up, we wouldn't have this problem. They must be guilty if they commit suicide ... maybe I am too harsh but I've got no time for that."-- Central Queensland, Australia, politico Vaughan Johnson, addressing the state Parliament "I whole heartedly support mandatory sentencing as well lifetime monitoring with strong restrictions and regulations. And as for as I am concerned these people should be thankful we allow them out of prison at all. You can play this card that politicians only do this because they are trying to be tough on crime line but again this discounts the fact they are working to make our communities safer… And I personally don’t believe their is any such thing as a “first time offender”, I believe its just the first time the have been caught. And once they have been caught, then we should refer to them as Registered sex offenders! Have a great day."-- Georgia Republican Steve Davis, addressing a blogger on his personal site "I feel bad for him. I know it's cold outside, but we have to enforce the law. There is no constitutional right to warmth."-- Hamilton County, Ohio Prosecutor Joe Deters, responding to a lawsuit by a homeless Former Offender to stay at an emergency shelter within 1000 feet of a school "I know some folks think it is great that you can go online today and see where these monsters live, block by block – but I look forward to the day when you can go online and see that they all live in one place – in Angola – far away from our kids."-- Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, during a television address "Truly, I don't care if we stomp on his civil liberties. I truly don't."-- Howell, New Jersey, Councilman Mike Howell, in addressing a pending lawsuit over residency laws in his state "I can't get my hands on the guy that murdered my daughter so I've made it my job to make the rest of these sexual offenders and predators' lives miserable, as miserable as I can." -- Mark Lunsford "We're talking about Romeo and Juliet here, not some 36-year-old pervert following around a 10- year-old." -- Mark Lunsford, responding to his son's arrest for a sex crime “Congressman Mark Foley’s resignation is a great loss to Florida is a great loss to Florida and the nation. He has been a hard working, dedicated and effective Congressman. He will be missed.”-- The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, on the announcement of Foley’s resignation after the Congressional page scandal broke. The statement was revised within the day after harsh criticism “I never, ever met a false rape claim, by the way. My own statistics speak to the truth.”-- Wendy Murphy, adjunct professor at the New England School of Law and alleged “legal analyst,” commenting on the “Duke Lacrosse case,” later discovered to be a case of malicious and false prosecution “Save a child- Hang a Pedophile.”-- Patches sewn onto the jackets of “Jessie’s Rider’s” biker gang, run by Mark Lunsford, motto he adopted from a T-shirt “Sex Crimes against children is ZERO TOLERANCE, offenders need no mercy....Death is the only resolution....Prison??? Our tax dollars...I can think of better ways to spend our money...what about death for the predators and put the money that would of been used supporting these sickos and rehabilitate the survivors…”-- Judy Cornett, notorious vigilante WALSH: “I think my inability to deal with my problems -- I never went to a therapist for 20 years. I think it just -- my own selfishness, my own stupidity, my own ego, all of those things, and I hurt my children, and I hurt my wife, and she's a good woman, and she, you know, we're working very hard at this I do -- I think [therapy] helps. I think especially crime victims, and it's not an excuse, people that have been through an awful traumas, I think therapy is a terrific thing, and I thought, you know, I'm the tough guy, I'm the toughest guy, I mean, I can deal with this myself -- I couldn't deal with it. And you know, you thinking not hurting somebody, you know, women can be an addiction, and you have to deal with it…” KING: “So you understand men who have that problem?” WALSH: “Oh, I had it for years and didn't think I had it.” -- John Walsh admitting he has a sexual addiction on Larry King Live, July 15, 2003 “My focus is on tougher laws for predators. If you don’t like me because I look at naked women, I don’t care. I’m not putting a black mark on my daughter’s name.”-- Mark Lunsford, in a Citrus County Chronicle article which stated child porn was found on his computer. Not surprisingly, the article was suppressed online) “[Foley] kept his shame to himself for almost 40 years. Specifically, Mark has asked that you be told that between the ages of 13 and 15 he was molested by a clergyman. Foley] does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate e-mails and IMs. He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct Mark was the under the influence of alcohol at the time he sent the alleged e-mails and IMs that I have been informed of… Any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false, categorically false. Mark Foley denies ever, ever having any sexual contact with a minor. Finally, Mark Foley wants you to know that he is a gay man.”-- David Roth, attorney for Mark Foley "One of the things that we have learned is that people seek help for drug use or alcoholism because it is far more socially acceptable. But what's usually lying underneath are sexual behavioral problems. They are not dealing with the root cause."-- Yvonne Cournoyer, Program Director of the Minnesota chapter of Stop It Now!, on the Mark Foley scandal “I think the story behind the story is that this is something that everybody in every walk of life seems prone to doing, no matter what your position.”-- Nancy Sabin, executive director of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, on the Mark Foley Scandal "Sometimes what happens is lawmakers don't want to know the facts, or the facts don't make any difference. There really are two things that affect public policy. One is the facts. The other is the feelings and political pressure. There are legislators who will say, 'Don't confuse me with the facts. I've made up my mind.'"-- North Dakota state Senator Tim Mathern "The attorney general at the time was, 'I'm going to be tough on crime, the governor is soft on crime and soft on sex offenders.' The governor was declaring he was not going to allow any sex offenders out on his watch. The message patients in the program got was, 'It doesn't matter how hard you work or whether you might recover, you're not getting out.' So if you want to undermine a program, that's the best way to do it. Get the chief executive officer of your state to tell them that no matter how hard they work, they'll never get out. At that point I said, 'I can't do this work anymore.'"-- Michael Farnsworth, who stepped down as head of Minnesota’s sex offender program amid a political tug- of-war during the 2003 elections “By their voluntary acts, sex offenders have surrendered certain protections that arguably are afforded to other citizens. Their conviction of felony offenses puts them into a class that has already been deemed to have no expectation of finality in the consequences of the judgments against them ... The fact that Sewell belongs to a class that has voluntarily surrendered certain protections and rights makes the conclusion that Senate Bill 10‟s tier-classification and registration requirements are constitutional even more certain.” – Sylvia Hendon, First District Appellate Court of Ohio presiding judge in Sewell v. Ohio. She is the mother-in-law of Joe Deters, Hamilton County, Ohio Prosecutor, who was the defendant in the case. “I’m not quite sure what a law abiding Ohioan is supposed to do when he sees a green license plate. After all, the sex offender driving the car has already done prison time, has gone through counseling, has been judged OK to live in society, is not allowed to live close to schools, playgrounds, etc. Do you ignore the license plate? (In which case, what’s the point of it?) Do you give the driver the finger? Ram his car? Give a polite nod? Or What?” --Peter Tannen, “Ohio challenges Florida for ‘Most Bird-brained State’ Title.” long Island Press, March 22, 2007. Editorial regarding Ohio's proposal for green sex offender car tags. "I worry about casting the Scarlet A, instead of on Hester Prynne, around Hester Prynne's family." -- Republican Bill Seitz, majority whip in Ohio's House of Representatives, who helped pass Ohio's 1000 foot residency restrictions, on Ohio's green sex offender car tag proposal. "Everybody wants to out-tough the next legislator. 'I'm tough on crime,' 'No, I'm even more tough.' It's all about ego and boastfulness." -- Patty Wetterling on MPR “But, you should know that I intend to fight as hard and as long as I can to prevent other people from becoming victims of such reckless actions as those taken by your employees, which were set in motion by a self-appointed group acting as judge, jury and executioner that was encouraged by an out-of-control reality show.” -- Patricia Conradt, sister of Bill Conradt, who committed suicide during a botched arrest attempt during the Dateline NBC show "To Catch a Predator" "We decided we're not going to go into full compliance. We're going to look at it over the summer, because we've been told to expect some changes to Adam Walsh... If they're off the registry, as far as we're concerned, they've met their requirements. We're not going to go back and punish them a second time." -- Utah Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, on Utah's response to the controversial Adam Walsh Act "This is one of the most morally compelling pieces of legislation that I have ever filed. We rarely have the opportunity to do something that takes people out of a living hell." -- Texas state Representative Todd Smith, when passing the "Romeo and Juliet" bill in 2009. "[The Romeo and Juliet Bill] was intended to more narrowly define who could seek a court's exemption from sex offender registration, I believe the bill fails to adequately protect young victims." -- Texas Governor Rick Perry, in vetoing the 2009 Romeo and Juliet law "I think this is an open invitation for any pedophile or sex offender to molest any kid they want in Massachusetts because, you know what, its open season. And the courts, time and time again, send that message." -- said Laurie Myers, president of Massachusetts Community Voices, responding to the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court's 2009 ruling the GPS law could not be applied retroactively "What Mr. Troyer should be thinking is that if everybody went out and beat up a sex offender, we might have a lot less sex offenders. This is the point. Home run and bravo to Ms. Gibson." -- 590 KLBJ radio personality Lisa Fritsch, a "Christian," applauding an unprovoked vigilante attack in 2008 "Is there anything left we can do to sex offenders with a few days left in the session?" -- Louisiana State Rep. Danny Martiny, R-Metairie, during the closing days of a 2006 legislative session "Adults project the eroticized desire outwards, creating a monster to hate, hunt down and destroy... What happened to me is a perfect example of the hysteria my book is about." -- Judith Levine, author of the book Harmful To Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex "These are a group of people who are the sickest of the sick. They are truly perverts and it's not curable. Instead of civil detention, we ought to make sure...these pedophiles...are locked up forever." -- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who plans on running for President in 2012 "Once you're on a publicly accessible registry, you're life is pretty much shot." -- US Representative Bobby Scott, during the March 10, 2009 Congressional SORNA Hearing “You ban somebody from the community, he has no friends, he feels bad about himself, and you reinforce the very problems that contribute to the sex abuse behavior in the first place. You make him a better sex offender.” -- Robert Freeman-Longo “There is so much money to be made scaring the hell out of Americans about sexuality that no one on the gravy train can afford to slow it down. Any outsider who questions this juggernaut is immediately labeled insensitive, anti-family, immoral, or a pedophile.” -- Dr. Marty Klein, from "America's War On Sex," p. 47 “Current predator policy—to identify, stigmatize, and exclude—distorts the true nature and extent of sexual violence, focuses on a small fraction of the problem, ignores the great majority of victims and their trauma, and does little or nothing to deal with the root causes of sexual violence.” -- Eric S. Janus, “Failure to Protect,” p. 146 “Once a person is caught in the spotlight of a predator commitment, everything an individual says or does is subject to interpretation… Some aspects of these trials are Kafkaesque. If a person acknowledges there is a risk he will offend, this is taken as an admission of his dangerous propensities. But if he states he will not re-offend, this is taken as a lack of insight and is counted as a risk factor.” Good behavior is actually considered a risk factor, i.e., “manipulation” -- Eric S. Janus, “Failure to Protect," p. 33-34 “Current youth policy and parenting advice teeter between high anxiety child protection and high anger child punishment. It would appear that children are fragilely innocent until the moment they step over some line, at which point they become instantly, irredeemably wicked. One striking pair of contradictory trends: as we raise the age of consent for sex, we lower the age at which a wrongdoing child may be tried and sentenced as an adult criminal. Both, needless to say, are ‘in the best interests’ of the child and society.” -- Judith Levine, "Harmful To Minors," p. xxxi-xxxii "My intent personally is to make it so onerous on those that are convicted of these offenses . . . they will want to move to another state." -- Georgia House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R) |
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