Joseph Sobran’s
Washington Watch

Not Guilty?

(Reprinted from the issue of June 23, 2005)

In the past few years we have seen two sensational sexual scandals, both concerning men and boys. One is the Michael Jackson case, now legally resolved by a controversial acquittal; the other, of course, is that of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

In reporting both stories, the media have carefully avoided using the term “homosexual.” The peccant priests have been characterized as “pedophiles,” though the boys they abused were mostly adolescents, not children. The reporting has been phrased so as to protect the homosexual cause and to pretend that that cause has nothing to do with pedophilia.

But why do the media disapprove even of pedophilia? According to the Playboy philosophy, which is now virtually part of the U.S. Constitution, sexual pleasure, regardless of marital status or procreative intent, is intrinsically good. Why does it become evil when it involves children?

For Christians, sexual pleasure outside marriage is immoral as an abuse of our reproductive faculties, and pedophilia is merely an especially grave abuse. It’s an intelligible matter of nature and degree. But for sexual liberals, the ban on pedophilia is an anomaly, an irrational taboo. If other forms of carnal pleasure are okay by them, why should they be so horrified by this one? Isn’t it just one part of the “diversity” they love to celebrate?

How, in other words, did pedophilia make its way onto the extremely short list of sexual acts liberals disapprove of? Yes, liberals always want to protect children. But why “protect” them from a good thing?

Michael Jackson seems such an obvious freak that it’s easy to single him out. Still, we’re entitled to know on what principle he’s being singled out by people who tolerate fornication and adultery by other pop stars. A similar question might be raised about the homosexual priests: Why have they been attacked for acts liberals usually defend? Why do mere age differences make those acts immoral or even criminal?

Catholics and other believers in the virtue of chastity don’t have to face such awkward questions. Because we have norms, we have no difficulty recognizing the abnormal, and if necessary condemning it. For this we incur the liberal’s charge of “intolerance,” but unlike the liberal we know that tolerance has limits — a truth liberals always have to learn the hard way, and with embarrassment.
 
The Two Michaels

Jackson’s lawyer, by the way, has announced that the singer will no longer allow boys in his bedroom. Too many people get the wrong idea. It “makes him vulnerable to false charges.”

We are sharply reminded, by nearly everyone who has commented on the verdict, that “not guilty” doesn’t mean “innocent.” It would be hard to find anyone outside his fan clubs who doubts that Jackson has an unhealthy interest in boys, and he has at least brought this suspicion on himself.

Furthermore, a remarkable number of people who had fortified this impression, including both his ex-wives, suddenly changed their stories during the trial.

All the same, it’s probably a good thing he was acquitted. The government’s power to prosecute, to target individuals, to seize evidence, and to compel (and bargain for) testimony, all make it prohibitively difficult (and expensive) for almost anyone who is targeted to defend himself. And even if he manages to avoid conviction, he still pays a fearful price, if only in reputation; whereas the prosecutor can pass his relatively minor expenses along to the taxpayer.

Wealth and, especially, celebrity now make people particularly attractive targets for the law; any prominent person can become what Tom Wolfe has dubbed “the Great White Defendant,” to be harpooned on the front page by an ambitious prosecutor.

Jackson isn’t exactly white, of course; he has gone so far to confuse his racial identity that he more or less falls between racial categories, and he sounds a little silly when he complains that he is being persecuted because he’s black. Who can say what color he is now? Maybe he’s being persecuted because he’s so eccentric.

Meanwhile, America’s other great eccentric Michael, heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson (who has also done weird things to his face), has apparently reached the end of the road. Here in Washington, with Muhammad Ali watching at ringside, his latest comeback bid ended ignominiously when he failed to answer the bell for the seventh round the other night against an unheralded Irishman named Kevin McBride.

Unable to knock McBride down, in the sixth round Tyson gave what I suppose was his version of the old college try — a low blow, a head butt, and an attempt to break his opponent’s arm —before slumping to the canvas for 20 seconds in what the referee chose to rule a slip. After the fight, Tyson said he was retiring, out of “respect for the sport I love.”

Boxing connoisseurs realized the old Tyson magic was gone when he neglected to bite either of McBride’s ears off. Seeking perhaps to reinvent himself, Tyson also announced that he hopes to begin a new career as a missionary in Africa; of what religion was left unclear.
 
Graham Cracks

Inside the Beltway we have a young right-wing talk radio host named Michael Graham with whom I usually disagree, but who occasionally hits the bull’s eye hilariously. His humor alone is enough to keep me listening.

The other day Graham noted that the liberal group Americans United for Separation of Church and State was suing to prevent a local high school from holding its graduation ceremony in a church. He referred to the group as “Americans United for Separation of Church and Christ.”

Oh, how I wish I’d said that! But the fun wasn’t over. Taking a cue, an impish caller phoned in the logical next step: Drivers on state-funded highways should be prevented from displaying religious articles in their cars. Graham imagined cops with night-vision goggles stopping drivers with crucifixes on their dashboards, rosaries hanging over their rear-view mirrors, and of course bumper stickers praising Jesus.

But Graham stopped it right there, saying he didn’t want to give the civil libertarians any ideas.

Americans United for Separation of Church and Christ! Exactly. We know some Catholic theologians who might qualify for membership.


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Joseph Sobran