Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The American Family Association shows what happens when you only focus on the most obvious (and dubious) possible solutions to a problem:
The Silver Sage Girl Scouts in Twin Falls, Idaho, are moving their headquarters because they discovered that 50 sex offenders live within one mile of their current location.The problem is, there's no place for them to move. Their new location, it turns out, is smack dab in the middle of 23 registered sex offenders. We clearly must do something more permanent with sex offenders - either lock them up for life or put them to death if they are guilty of the rape of a child. If either sex offenders or the Girl Scouts have to be inconvenienced, I vote for sex offenders.
Or: Stop grouping together predators and non-predators together under the heading of "sex offender" to dramatically increase the number of perceived threats. For crying out loud, sex crimes of all types have been going down for the better part of two decades, yet these numbers clearly suggest that "sex offenders" are everywhere, virtually ubiquitous and unavoidable.
There are about 700,000 people on state sex offender lists at the moment. But in five states, that includes someone who is arrested soliciting a prostitute. In 13 states, that includes someone arrested for urinating in public. In 29 states, it includes teenagers who had sex with other teenagers. In 32 states, it includes someone arrested for streaking or flashing, something every frat boy has done from time to time during rush week.
In one study of the Georgia sex offender list, the review board that oversees that list determined that 65% of the more than 17,000 people on the list were not a threat to anyone at all. Only about 100 of them were actually classified as predators. That's just over one half of one percent of the people on the list.
We are manufacturing sex offenders by including people who are no threat to anyone and who have harmed no one. We've sparked undue paranoia and made it more difficult to identify the real sex offenders, the ones people should actually be concerned with.
Politics
Comments
But...but...but...
Oh wait, am I on the list now for showing my but?????
Posted by: Pineyman | October 29, 2009 9:47 AM
"In the future, new technology will allow the police to solve 100 percent of all crimes. The bad news is that we'll realize 100 percent of the population are criminals, including the police." -Scott Adams, The Dilbert Future
We're getting closer every day. Though what Adams calls bad news I call good. Maybe once people realize we're all living in glass houses there will be a good deal less stone throwing.
Posted by: Abby Normal | October 29, 2009 9:49 AM
Yeah, but good luck getting votes on a pro-sex-offender platform :)
Posted by: mad the swine | October 29, 2009 9:52 AM
...either lock them up for life or put them to death {{{IF}}} they are guilty of the rape of a child.
And there's the whole problem right there, as Ed already pointed out: all that documentation and law-enforcement action, and we STILL don't know who or where the real threats to our precious Girl Scouts really are.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 29, 2009 10:02 AM
What you forget, Mr. Brayton, is how important it is to punish the morally reprehensible among us who enjoy sex, the deviants. Anyone who doesn't experience sex as a demeaning and excruciating humiliation, necessary only for procreation, deserves to be chemically castrated. It says so somewhere in Leviticus, I think.
Posted by: Julian | October 29, 2009 10:13 AM
There are so many REAL dangers to children, why do we as a society waste precious resources on sex offender registries? While we monitor butt patters and public urinators , children are dying from having inadequate health insurance. I was a juror in a trial where a 19 year old boy was put on the sex registry for putting pictures of naked teen girls on the internet. We a needlessly throwing away young lives as we self rightously persecute minor sex offences.
Posted by: Justice Moor | October 29, 2009 10:34 AM
Julian's snark is an ever more pressing reason to continue to debunk and resist 'our christian heritage'.
Posted by: MikeMa | October 29, 2009 10:45 AM
In Virginia a friend of my son was caught mooning a school bus. He was a couple of days past 18 and would therefore be charged as an adult. If he had been convicted this would have resulted in his name forever being on the sex offender list. Fortunately he faced a sensible prosecutor who chose to not prosecute because the school bus driver who had reported him did not say that he saw the boys "privates", only his ass cheeks.
Posted by: bobh | October 29, 2009 10:50 AM
"Fortunately he faced a sensible prosecutor who chose to not prosecute because the school bus driver who had reported him did not say that he saw the boys "privates", only his ass cheeks."
What's the difference between a harmless prank and twenty counts of endangerment of a minor?
About five degrees of elevation for the driver.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | October 29, 2009 11:14 AM
Flashing someone - check (I've mooned easily 20 or so people between the ages of 15 and 21).
Urinating in Public - check (probably about 300 or times in the past 40 years - what male hasn't done this)
Sex with other teenagers as a teenager - nope. (Alas, I was too nerdy to complete the sex offender trifecta).
I guess I'm a sex offender. Just lucky enough to come of age in the 1980's and 1990's before this hysteria started.
Posted by: rickstokes | October 29, 2009 11:49 AM
I can (vaguely) recall winning a 'longest trail in the snow' contest after a long night at the Phyrst...
What a crock.
Posted by: MikeMa | October 29, 2009 12:01 PM
as Julian hinted at, by the standards of the AFA, anyone who has sex not aimed at procreation is a sex offender, doubly if the particpants aren't gay, doubly again if they enjoy it too much, and raised to the power of infinity if they are both men or both women.
I have an idea. Forget the Girl Scouts; the AFA should move its headquarters from Mississippi to one of the more distal, uninhabited Aleutian islands. That way, not only would they be far out of range of registered sex offenders, they wouldn't be able to connect to the Internet. Between AFA's main site and its OneNewsNow.com subsidiary, I cannot conceive of a collective Web presence whose seeming aim is to generate as many lies and as much hysteria as humanly possible (and actually this is probably the case, as it helps with their singular goal of relieving loyal visitors of their income).
Posted by: Kevin Beck | October 29, 2009 12:59 PM
I wonder if the AFA knows the sexual orientation of 35% (or more) of the GSA's administration, and if they weren't aware, if they would still be backing them. This is NOT a crack on the GSA gals, they are fine as they are.
Posted by: Robert Faber | October 29, 2009 1:29 PM
Just like the witch trials, and the witch trials of the 80s (McMartin Preschool etc.) anyone that speaks out for public urinators (aka pedophiles) must be a pedophile. The fact is, when a man stops on a mountain trail and takes his penis out of his pants to urinate, he runs the risk that a precious, precious child may see it and turn from God as a result. As a man who hikes in the mountains of Colorado daily, and urinates in the great outdoors almost daily, I am filled with guilt, because while a child has never seen me, I know Jesus can.
Posted by: soboco | October 29, 2009 1:30 PM
I say we excerpt the "vote for sex offenders" line as a deliberate out-of-context quote mine for the either the author (Bryan Fischer) or the AFA.
Posted by: TGAP Dad | October 29, 2009 1:35 PM
Huh...I wonder if military rifle ranges count. At Fort Benning, during Infantry School, we pissed in the dirt berms right that are behind the targets on the various Malone ranges (you know, when we walked from the firing positions out to check our targets during zeroing and such). There were what, 120 guys in my company, plus the instructors and various range personnel hanging around. That's pretty fucking public. But that's different, of course, 'cause we were real 'mericans. And it's not like there would have ever been a child of an instructor anywhere around. Nope, not ever...
Posted by: Josh | October 29, 2009 1:54 PM
And in one state, it may soon include some who makes coffee.
Posted by: Equisetum | October 29, 2009 2:00 PM
Kevin Beck @ # 12: Between AFA's main site and its OneNewsNow.com subsidiary, I cannot conceive of a collective Web presence whose seeming aim is to generate as many lies and as much hysteria as humanly possible ...
You don't have to conceive it: Covenant News is waiting for you!
Their headlines about "Promiscuous Teen with Bastard Child" Bristol "Slut" Palin were particularly heartwarming.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | October 29, 2009 2:43 PM
What of WND? It's sort of like ONN, but more so. Far more so.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | October 29, 2009 2:57 PM
@Equisetum, #17:
Alarmingly, I had a dream a while back where I was hauled into court for indecent exposure. It seems that when my neighbor (who is very near indeed) heard my shower stop, he peered out his window to see what was going on, and saw me NAKED! In my BEDROOM! In the dream, my pleas to the court that if my neighbor had refrained from looking in my bedroom window after hearing my shower stop there would be no issue fell on deaf ears. Now if only I did not have prescient dreams...
Posted by: Chris A | October 29, 2009 6:16 PM
Preach, brother, preach. People really need to hear this word!! The hysteria is beyond this world.
Posted by: RWVNRAL | October 29, 2009 6:21 PM
Dar's no escapin' dem immigrunts eitha. It's all part o' de Jew Conspiracy! The whole world is an evil hellbound place!
Rather than waste time trying to teach the girls that running away from perceived problems is a "good thang", perhaps resources are better spent teaching them how humans are known to behave and what they can do to improve chances of not being a victim. Hint #1: running away doesn't work.
Posted by: MadScientist | October 29, 2009 7:18 PM
@Kevin Beck #12: That's a fantastic idea. I'll become a catholic priest and start a girl scout camp in the Aelutians - perfect - the catholic church will ensure I never make it to the sex offender registry too.
Posted by: MadScientist | October 29, 2009 7:24 PM
MadScientist: And if worse comes to worse, you'll get to retire in the Vatican. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me, aside from the priesthood, hypocrisy and child molestation. But, hey, at least you'll get to see a tiny part of Europe.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | October 29, 2009 8:33 PM
It's ridiculous. The non-predatory crimes being on the list is stupid. I was at the RI Dept. of Attorney General from 2001 to 2003 and as I.T. Director was peripherally involved in sex offender classification discussions.
It went round and round and round. I don't think to this day they really have a firm fix on it.
Posted by: Tony P | October 29, 2009 8:42 PM
Yes, we are TOTALLY WASTING Billions on laws that actually endanger children and the whole of our society. How stupid is that?
"Sex offender news roundup" by Karen Franklin, Ph.D.
http://tinyurl.com/ykm5m9l
Posted by: Letsgetreal | October 29, 2009 8:58 PM
"Urinating in Public - check (probably about 300 or times in the past 40 years - what male hasn't done this)"
Many, many years ago, when I was an undergrad, a buddy and I stopped in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Mackinaw bridge, at a work cutout, and pissed of the side.
The water below was very cold and very deep.
Posted by: dean | October 30, 2009 2:17 PM
Somewhere in Idaho a village is missing its idiot.
Bryan Fischer is a lying sack of monkey earwax. The man is vile, disgusting and a waste of oxygen.
Please keep making fun of him.
Posted by: Binkyboy | October 30, 2009 5:20 PM
Only in America is oral sex not sex, while mooning is.
Posted by: Julie.k.stahlhut@alum.mit.edu | October 31, 2009 12:28 AM
Oh crap! I once signed my name in the snow with urine. I guess Mother Nature is guilty of being an accessory after the fact for destroying evidence?
Posted by: BaldApe | October 31, 2009 8:05 PM
Ohio's Supreme Court Judges ask the right questions with reference to Ohio's Senate Bill 10. Their version of the Adam Walsh Act.
I lay you 10 to 1 that it will be found unconstitutional because IT IS!
Watch and listen here:
http://tinyurl.com/yfxh2a7
Posted by: Letsgetreal | November 15, 2009 7:24 AM