Catholic Prostitutes. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid 508 people for sexual favors, rendering them all, instead of victims, into prostitutes. This was never about anything but money. The "victims", who had sex — ohmigod! nobody would ever have sex against his or her will! — with priests or other church personnel, sometimes for years(!), are now being paid for services rendered. Pretty expensive lays, I'd say.
+
I am tired of these people, many of whom had sex over and over again with their "abusers", claiming utter innocence. A statement by one of the attorneys today said that this payment is a reassurance to the "victims" that they did nothing wrong. No, they didn't. Sex isn't wrong. Inflicting sex upon the genuinely unwilling is wrong, but trivial. Just say no — or shout it, or fite it if you don't want it. But don't have it "against your will" — again and again — and then submit a bill.
+
The time for these "victims" to have spoken out was immediately after the "offense", not years or even decades later, sometimes well after the "offender" has died, so cannot defend himself from false accusations. And the penalty for the offense should have been public exposure and possible (brief) imprisonment for the offender. Criminal acts deserve criminal punishments, not civil lawsuits.
+
Justice is about retribution and restitution. Payment for pain and suffering is a civil-law, not criminal-law construct. These asserted assaults were criminal matters. Restitution in criminal law constitutes paying people back for money stolen, or expended to recover from a crime. Civil law monetizes harm, and this society monetizes too much. The best things in life are free. So are the worst. Life is not about dollar signs and zeros separated by commas. Everybody in this country has come to see any life problem as a chance to rake in big bucks, and that is not healthy.
+
As for getting paid for sex, we have a name for people who demand money for sex. Actually, we have several names for such people. "Victim" is not one of them.
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,616 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 6:55 PM