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Sex Offender List--Do You Belong Here?
for release 03-26-08
Dallas, Texas
by Lightning Rod
Have you ever noticed that some of the most primal issues in our public life are centered around parenthood? Issues like abortion, gay marriage, child abuse, education all relate to our children. It's just so mammillian. We are concerned about our children. We especially don't want strangers harming our children. We take too much pride in being able to do that ourselves.
This is why we are so hysterical about sex offenders. Just the words 'sex offender' conjure up visions of child abduction and murder and irreparable harm. The sex offender is the ultimate Big Bad Wolf. Hence, we have instituted a panoply of local laws. I call them Little Red Riding Hood laws. They all have names like Jennifer's Law or Rachel's Law or Amber's Law and they are ostensibly to protect our children by means of creating a list of questionable characters. It is called The Sex Offender Registry. Someone who is deemed a sex offender is required by law to register with their local constabulary and announce that they are sex offenders, have their picture and address published on the internet and put a sign up in their front yard which can't be within 1000 feet of any school, church, zoo, swimming pool, park or anywhere else where a child or an attractive woman might perchance wander.
The Sex Offender Registry' is like something from the Middle Ages. It reminds me of The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") which was a list of publications prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church. Let's put them in stocks on the town square and spit on them and pelt them with rotten veggies. Let's make a list of them announcing that we hate them. It's just medieval.
It has been around two hundred years since most civilized societies began banning punishments such as the pillory or stocks or branding. These institutions are all reborn in the sex offender registry.
What does the existence of such a blacklist say about our so-called Christian society? Once you have your name etched on that stone of disgrace, it is there for life. Does this say that you can never be forgiven? Great message, and one of the stupidest ideas that the Sunday school teachers that are trying to run our lives have ever come up with.
What are sex offenses? How does one get into this dubious hall of fame? Well, let's see, you can be a green belt sex offender. You know, a little fondling of relatives or failing to ask your girlfriend for her ID, downloading underaged porn, being a prostitute or hiring one. (I wonder if they will make Eliot Spitzer sign up?) This is where we should probably list adultery and grudge fucking and homosexuality outside of marriage.
Or you can be a brown belt sex offender, do a few forcible rapes or hang around the school ground in your overcoat, sodomy, incest, public masturbation and the other traditional biblical sins.
Black belt sex offenders are in the vast minority, but they get the biggest headlines. These are the star-quality sex offenders, the poster-children if you will, that do serial rapes and kidnap photogenic young girls and strangle their victims with stockings and store their bodies in home freezers etc.
I can see where this is going. It doesn't matter if you are an eighteen-year-old boy diddling with your seventeen-year-old girlfriend or if you are a serial rapist, you get to be on the same list. The only answer is to make more lists.
Suppose we made an Overeaters Registry. If you were on this list you couldn't live within 1000 feet of a Mickey D's. If you have a Big Mac attack, is this going to stop you from having a burger? No. You'll find a way. You might go to the Burger King, you might even have to resort to buying ground beef at the grocery store and making it for yourself, but you'll find a way. Statistics show that the recidivism rate for fatsos is nearly 100%.
While we're at it, we might as well get the drug offenders. They would have to put a sign in their front yard saying 'drugs available here' and couldn't live within two miles of a CVS pharmacy.
And gamblers. Let's not forget about them. Let's publish their names in the racing forms and not allow them to get within five miles of a casino or walk into a convenience store that sold lottery tickets. Keep them off the internet too.
The Drunk Registry, for those of us who have ever had a DIU or a public intoxication ticket, minor possession of alcohol or just gotten out of hand at an office party. These people would be banned from all places where alcohol was sold or consumed and have to wear a scarlet D.
The Poet's Eye sees that no matter what your sin happens to be....you'll have to register soon.
When they want to know what the reason is
I only smile when I lie, then I tell them why
(because your kiss) your kiss is on my list
(because your kiss) your kiss is on my list
--hall and oates
