Posted on 04/30/2005 5:19:33 PM PDT by Brilliant
MIAMI BEACH -- Students at South Pointe Elementary School learn and play in a desirable South Beach neighborhood, where luxury condominiums are replacing older apartment buildings. They're blocks from the beach and glamorous nightclubs -- and a state-mandated 1,000 feet from anywhere a registered sex offender may live.
But Mayor David Dermer says that buffer isn't big enough.
Prompted by the recent slayings of two young girls elsewhere in Florida, allegedly by registered sex offenders, he is pushing a city ordinance to extend that protective zone to nearly half-a-mile. That would effectively ban convicted sex offenders from Miami Beach, except for a few small areas, and be part of a trend statewide and elsewhere to limit their movement.
Dermer wants to prohibit convicted sex offenders whose victims were under the age of 16 from residing within 2,500 feet of any school, school bus stop, day care center, park or playground....
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Better yet, how about dead.
Another politician pushing poorly thought-out legislation to make political points in the aftermath of a tragedy.
1/2 of a mile from any playground, school, etc etc etc.... I'm betting that rules out at least one jail or courthouse too.
Ever hear of the McMartin preschool case? Fortunately, the prosecutions were unsuccessful.
I have not, please enlighten me.
You're obviously dealing with way too advanced concepts for most politicians.
"How about that they can't live further than less than 500 feet from a prison warden's office?"
I'm in favor of that too... much better idea than the one proposed.
I live near the State of Michigan's Big House. I once talked with the psychologist in charge of group therapy for sex offenders. In a thick accent, he said, "There are many people who should never be allowed out of prison."
famous case of hysteria run amuck. Innocent people were indicted based on evidence created by the bias of experts and ginned on my a MSM.
One of those, opps sorry nevermind MSM situations. Of course the lives that were destroyed are just a footnote.
I think one of the problems the left has on this issue is that it requires them to admit that there are sexual practices that are always wrong.
You had a number of witch-hunt "ritual abuse" cases in the 80s in which innocent people were sent away for long periods of time for crimes which not only had they not done, but which in fact had never happened. Shrinks were claiming to be using "recovered memories" in pulling accusations against people, mostly day-care center workers, out of children and using that crap as evidence in trials. The most infamous of such cases were prosecuted by the office of one Janet Reno who was working as district attorney of Dade County Floriduh at the time.
"I think one of the problems the left has on this issue is that it requires them to admit that there are sexual practices that are always wrong."
Worse yet...
According to the left, Gays and Lesbians are "born this way", and therefore their sexual conduct is okay. Any bias against them is therefore a civil rights issue. Any hint that they can change is decried as somehow barbarian or bigoted.
If that is true, then pedophiles are "born this way" too. It follows that their behavior is okay because that's the way God made them. And, any idea of changing them is hopelessly ignorant.
So, the left must figure out if "born this way" is really a moral justificaiton for sexual behavior, and/or if sexual impluses can be modified. If the answer is no, they need to decide that such people need to be jailed forever (or executed).
What do they mean "no room," Just how much room do the ashes of sex offenders take up?
Perversion in SodoMiami though, why the epicenter is SoBe!
Miami Dade taxpayers are forced to fund the Winter Party and the White Party via the Miami Dade Tourism Bureau. The two annual week long parties are described as "beach parties where 5,000 (this year they say they expect 10,000) scantily clad buff bodies dance to the beat of the music on Miami’s Sex-tac-u-lar South Beach. But hey that goes on in South Beach every day of the year!
See what goes on at the beach in front of the little kiddies who live there! Hope the nannies (who probably work for two daddies) close the windows of the beach condos for the sake of the children!
"Perversion in SodoMiami though, why the epicenter is SoBe!"
so let me get this correct (can't say "straight)....
It's okay if you're wired from birth to be a gay or lesbian, but it's not okay if you're wired to be a pedophile, right? I mean, it's okay and natural to be prewired as a gay, but not okay if you're a pediphile? (end sarcasm)
Perhaps that whole "born this way" argument, used by gays and lesbians to justify their activities, isn't really a good justification for anyone's sexual actions?
Public-Sex Issue Threatens to Open a Pandora's Box of Civil Liberties
The Miami Herald, Inc.; Sunday, February 9, 1997
Eugene J. Patron Herald Writer
Sex is something almost everyone agrees is a private and personal thing. And yet people never seem to tire of making sex and sexual practices a public issue. Discussions about sex -- sex with whom, how, where, when and why -- abound in courtroom dramas and are plastered on tabloid headlines. Lately, however, the subject took center stage at a Miami Beach City Commission meeting.
While the vast majority of gay men in Miami do not have sex in public places, it is common knowledge in the gay community that Flamingo Park is a popular "cruising" area where men meet men late at night and, often enough, have sex. Or, at least, that was the way it used to be before the current campaign to end public sex in the park.
Last January, after police raids on gay nightclubs, gay community members met with city officials to soothe relations. As part of these meetings, a Gay and Lesbian Community Agenda task force was formed. One issue raised by the police: They were getting complaints from people living in the Flamingo Park area about men having sex in the park at night. The police asked the task force if the gay community would do something to address the problem.
After months of discussions, the task force in November began distributing fliers to men in or around the park with the snappy title What You Do is Your Business, Where You Do it is Ours. The fliers went on to warn that starting in early December, police would begin to arrest those found illegally loitering in the park.
To no one's great surprise, men pushed out of the park began circulating in the nearby alleyways and driving in their cars around parking lots adjacent to the park. In response, the crackdown on illegal loitering was expanded to these areas.
Speaking at a Miami Beach Commission meeting last month, task force leader Gary Knight urged commissioners to convert the parking adjacent to Flamingo into residential parking only at night. This, he said, would stop men who drive over from Miami looking for sex. Commissioners put off the request for a later meeting after receiving the wrong maps from the city's parking department and hearing a number of comments from residents who are both in favor and against the proposal.
Why gay men have a taste for public sex has both historical and psychological roots. Before homosexuality was decriminalized, it was illegal to operate an establishment catering to homosexuals. So, for many men, the only way to meet one another was in certain public areas (gay women tend to socialize in more private circles).
Today, with numerous gay bars and clubs, that need for men to meet in public has greatly diminished. But for many, the thrill of meeting men in public, and even having sex in public, remains.
The laws against having sex in public are plain. However, laws about loitering have always raised serious questions about civil liberties. Being caught with your pants down is one thing. Being stopped, questioned and arrested for walking near the park at night is something else.
Certainly, the majority of men walking around alleys near Flamingo Park at 3 a.m. probably have another, more lewd intent, than supposedly looking for a lost cat. Yet that does not reduce the police's needs to be judicious with their power to make on-the-spot calls of where the line between personal freedoms and personal interest lies.
This issue of individuals being judged by intent, as opposed to their actions, has great historical precedent for gays and lesbians. Before World War II, it was rare to think of a group of people linked together by their sexuality. Men or women were labeled as deviants or perverts when caught in the act of having sex with someone of the same gender.
Then, during the war, military psychologists began screening military personnel and booting thousands from the service for fitting the dubious psychological profile of a homosexual. Suddenly, a new class of people was born, one that was not based on their actions, but on their presumed intent. In effect, gay people were not allowed to define who they were for themselves, but told in unflattering terms: This is who you are.
For both the gay community and the city of Miami Beach, the issue of public sex and having men chasing men around alleyways and parking lots has become more than just an embarrassment. It threatens to open a Pandora's box of civil liberties that could be divisive.
If the problem is public sex, then those caught in the act should be charged accordingly. But feeding people's suspicions of one another need not be exacerbated by creating boundaries around public spaces where people of differing sexualities have their freedoms held on a shorter leash than others. If the goal is to get sex back in the bedroom, then let's not make it a political football and get everyone in on the game.
Keep it safe
The South Beach AIDS project will present a workshop "Lovers and Safer Sex" where gay couples can talk about safer sex at 8 p.m. Monday at the Loading Zone, 1426A Alton Rd. (behind Dominos Pizza). SoBap's HIV+ social hour will be held from 9 to 11 p.m. Wednesday at Swirl, 1049 Washington Ave. Call 532-1033 for info on both events.
Happy together
Noted gay author Eric Marcus is writing a book titled The Happy Gay Marriage (Anchor/Doubleday, mid-1998). Long-term (nine-plus years) gay and lesbian couples interested in being interviewed should e-mail Marcus at Lgcouples(AT_SIGN)aol.com.
Out and Around is a column about gay and lesbian life in South Florida. Eugene J. Patron is a freelance writer. Material can be faxed to him at 868-4466 or e-mailed at epatron@aksi.net.
"Suddenly, a new class of people was born, one that was not based on their actions, but on their presumed intent. In effect, gay people were not allowed to define who they were for themselves, but told in unflattering terms: This is who you are."
Isn't that what we are told? I mean, people are born with their sexual wiring, and cannot change it? That's the only way that gay and lesbian issues go from being moral issues to being civil rights issues!
They can't have it both ways. Either they are born that way, or they aren't.
And, born that way or not, they must decide whether people who do certain sex acts must be stopped.
It would probably take a constitutional amendment to put the half million registered back in jail, not to mention one interesting manhunt.
I think if you can take away the right a convicted killer to own a gun, you can take away the right of a convicted pedophile to set up shop across from a school.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.