Amid all the talk about groomers, drag shows for children, and sexual curriculum in elementary schools, there's one question that is arising consistently in conversations about the direction of our culture: Is the normalization of pedophilia the next step on society's descent down the ladder to moral oblivion?
I admit to finding the question a little irrational given the degree to which children have already been sexualized in recent years. While every generation complains that the one that comes after it has pushed the provocative attire envelope too far, any objective lens reveals far more revealing clothing now being marketed to far younger clientele than ever before.
This shift has been amplified tremendously by the advent and proliferation of social media apps that encourage "sexting" with the promise of anonymity. The American Journal of Psychiatry revealed in a recent study that over a quarter of children in their early teenage years have sent nude images of themselves, and that number climbs to 35% when asking who has received nude images of others.
Hollywood, embroiled in its own share of pedophilia scandals, has joined with the rest of the entertainment world to fuel the startling increase in sexually provocative roles for kids. Meanwhile, severely disturbed 26-year-old men like "influencer" Dylan Mulvaney build fame and celebrity by perversely prancing around in the persona of a 6-year-old girl.
It's in that hellscape that a transgender activist lawmaker in Minnesota named Leigh Finke recently crossed the Rubicon that conservatives warned was coming years ago. Finke added a provision to the state's omnibus bill that reclassified pedophilic attraction as a sexual orientation. That would mean legitimizing pedophiles as a legally protected minority alongside gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, and others.
To be fair to Finke, his logic isn't flawed. Even if the act of child-molesting is outlawed, who is allowed to morally discriminate against someone who is attracted to minors? We removed moral guideposts for things like romantic and sexual desires long ago. That was bigoted, remember? Again, Leigh Finke isn't arguing that the conduct of pedophilia should be legal. He's arguing that people who are attracted to minors "didn't choose their sexual identity," "were born that way," and "should not be hated or ostracized for who they love." Sound familiar?
I regret not screenshotting the social media post I saw the other day where someone made the observation that conservative evangelicals were like the boy who cried wolf, except that every time they screamed it, there actually was a wolf. Despite the intentionally overwrought reactions from the Left that barked, "How dare you say gay people are like pedophiles?," that was never the argument. It was always this:
If you accept the premise that a person is defined by their romantic and sexual attractions, and that condemning or denying the legitimacy or morality of those attractions is bigotry, you were necessarily inviting moral anarchy. You are every bit the bigot for condemning the minor-attracted person that I am for condemning the same-sex attracted person.
Though lawmakers later removed the offending language from the Minnesota bill after conservative watchdogs sounded the alarm, it's important to remember they did so only because right now we are intentionally abiding an obvious logical inconsistency. That won't last.
Make no mistake, that's where this road leads. It's been leading that way for a long time, and barring some unlikely national spiritual revival, we'll be there soon enough.
