I didn't ask you if being gay is wrong. I didn't ask if it's a criminal offense. I didn't ask if gay people need to explain themselves. This is a whole lot of extra crap that has nothing to do with my question. I'm not saying that homosexuality is the same thing as pedophilia, except that I know many people who have told me that they believe that they were born gay. It wasn't a decision. It's just who they are. At one time, being gay WAS illegal. At one time, gay people were extremely oppressed (and in some places they still are.) Only recently have they been allowed many of the freedoms that straight people enjoy. You believe that pedophiles can be cured. What if they are born as pedophiles? You're saying it's an addiction, but can you control who you are attracted to? Can anyone? It's not the attraction to small children that's illegal. It's the action of abusing small children that is illegal. I'm sure there are pedophiles who are attracted to small children but have never done anything wrong. Luke Heimlich is not one of those people. He abused a small girl for years. Can he be cured of acting on his impulses? I hope so. Can he be cured of having those impulses? I'm not so sure. If they are born with the attraction to kids (which I think is possible), I don't believe you can cure that. It's built into who they are.
I'm not the one preaching that they can't nor lumping these individuals into one category.....this is getting silly....seems you have tunnel vision about this kid and assume he's a monster for life.....that's your privilege. You've concocted post after post of extra crap about me being a livid Beaver fan who prides baseball over criminal behavior......eat your own lunch dude it went from talking about the thread subject to talking about me......
you asked if I thought being gay could be cured.......which in itself is a weird question given the subject has nothing to do with gay culture
You keep challenging me on whether pedophilia can be cured. I will make it more simple for you. If I was born straight and I can't be cured of being straight, and gay people were born gay and they can't be cured of being gay, then why do you think that pedophiles can be cured of being pedophiles? Do you think they chose to be attracted to small children? Did you choose to be attracted to women?
The idea that some people are born pedophiles ignores the fact of attraction age changing as people age. A 7 year old is naturally attracted to other 7 year olds. Their attraction to children is natural and right because they are children. As they age, their attraction should mature. For an adolescent or adult to claim they were born a pedophile can't be correct, because pedophilia is essentially a lack of that natural maturation of attraction.
I have no idea what actually happened to heimlich. Again, the real victim in all of this is that little girl. To answer your pedophile question though, someone may not be born that way. Someone could have been molested as a child, which in turn made them think that behavior was ok. Or he is just a sick fuck. And did it on his own accord.
But it is still likely to be associated with another issue that they were born with. My brother in law is severely schizophrenic. We suspect that he is a pedophile. He has the mental maturity of a pre-teen. He has not, to our knowledge, done anything wrong, but we think he is attracted to young girls. He was born with schizophrenia. He can't be cured of it. If he could, trust me, his parents would have done everything in their power to make it happen. I knew a guy from when I was a kid who grew up and was recently convicted of possessing child pornography. He was said to be attracted to infants. How could anyone possibly be attracted to infants? How could he have not matured beyond being attracted to infants? http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/index.ssf/2014/12/oregon_city_man_with_sexual_in.html My point is that it's not always as simple as being a learned behavior that can be corrected.
And my point is that the natural progression of age of attraction makes the analogy to homosexuality badly flawed.
It wasn't meant to be an analogy. I asked him that question for a very specific reason. There are still a lot of people who believe that being gay is a choice. I'm not one of them. I have had some very close friends over the years who are gay. None of them felt that it was a choice. It was just who they are. Riverman kept pressuring me on whether pedophiles could be cured. So I asked a very simple question because I was curious how Riverman would respond. Can gay people be cured of being gay? I didn't ask if it was wrong. I didn't ask if it was illegal. I didn't ask if it was the same thing as pedophilia. I merely asked if he thought that being gay could be "cured." I was just curious how he would respond to that, and he pretty clearly didn't know how to respond. So based on these responses, Riverman believes: People can change. Being gay is not a criminal offense. Consenting adults can make their own choices. Gay people don't need to explain their sexuality. Addiction can be cured. Being gay is not wrong. But did he answer my question? No. And the whole point of my question was to see whether he thought homosexuality was a choice. I wanted to see if he thought it was something that could also be cured. I believe that who we are attracted to is out of our hands. Whether it's from birth, or from a young age, it's out of our hands. How do you cure that? At one point they thought that you could cure homosexuality. They tried things like shock therapy. Now, homosexuality is fairly widely accepted because it's between two consenting adults, but there was a time when it was most definitely not accepted. And at one time, it was perfectly normal for grown men to marry girls that were 12 years old. Hell, in some countries it still is. But in the western world, pedophilia is not accepted, and it probably never will be going forward.
This is such a weird story... 1) wtf, gross.... idc if you're 15 there is no defending that. 2) I feel awful for the victim as this has to be traumatic for her.
No one is defending the act of sexual assault. People are defending the idea that he could possibly be a good person today.
I get to write what I believe....and I've taken a neutral stance here ...as much as you want me to be the argument...I'm not.
10 rounds down, and Heimlich is still MIA from all MLB draft boards. I won't be surprised if he goes completely undafted.
WOW! Maybe he can get a job delivering papers for the Oregonian. They're the ones who wrote the story and he's got an arm to get the paper on any porch.
...just heard on "good authority" that Luke and all of the coaches received numerous death threats in the hours leading up to Game 1 last week -- probably from some of the outrageous posters in this thread
Just going to drop this right here. I'm putting in a few quotes from the article. They are considered experts (I know some of your S2 posters would consider yourself to be experts, but I will trust the real experts over S2 "experts"): "The recidivism rate for juveniles adjudicated of a sex offense is less than 3 percent. Multiple studies across multiple states, including Oregon, all landed in the 2.5 to 3 percent range in terms of re-offense rates — and those percentages are usually figured by arrests, even without conviction." Kevin McGovern is a psychologist who has been in private clinic practice for 42 years in Portland. He is regarded as one of the foremost experts in the Northwest in area of human sexuality, has evaluated sexual abuse victims regarding the damaging effects of their abuse and has worked with thousands of offenders. "Most juveniles who are convicted go through a treatment program monitored by probation officers, and most of them do really well," says McGovern, who runs "Founder of Alternatives to Sexual Abuse" and provides training programs on a variety of forensic topics. "The offense or offenses occur at an early age. They don't have a long, chronic history. Someone arrested at 15 within a family situation — if the charge does not include rape or torture, or if the person does not have serious personality deficits — does extremely well in therapy. Recidivism is quite low.
