Everyone Has Rights, Even Sinclair Executives

What if I told you that a man who was a known pornographer, whoremonger, and who had been convicted of committing an unnatural and perverted sex act with a prostitute was moving into your town. Should such a man be allowed to wander the public parks where innocent children play?

You might conjure up an image of a dirty old man in a battered trench coat, a few missing teeth, ugly tattoos, and a scraggly beard. You’d understandably be concerned about such a person being anywhere near your kids.

But what if I told you this same man was a successful businessman, was married and had a family, and was in fact what most people would consider a pillar of his community? Would such a man, even given his past transgressions, be forever barred from taking a stroll with his wife through a city park?

I don’t know what your answer to this would be. The point is that it’s not a black and white issue. In his latest editorial, Hyman again goes after the ACLU, this time for filing a lawsuit on behalf of a registered sex offender who is challenging a North Carolina state law that bans all registered sex offenders from being anywhere near a public park. Hyman, predictably, calls the ACLU the “Anti-Child Litigation Union” for sticking up for the rights of people convicted of sex crimes.

But Hyman presents a false dilemma: stand up for individual rights OR protect kids. That’s nonsense.

I think we can all agree that anyone convicted of molesting a child deserves not only a long, long time in prison, but also needs some major psychological treatment and an extremely short leash if/when they are on parole. In such cases, reasonable restrictions that keep such people a safe distance from children, but still allow them to live their lives after they’ve fulfilled their sentences are understandable.

But in the mania to “protect the kids,” politicians have taken the easy way out by often passing sweeping and impractical laws about where anyone convicted of a sex crime can live or work. Rather than working on instituting better treatment and parole options by funding the criminal justice system better, they pass laws that sound good when stumping for votes, but which often don’t do much to actually safeguard children, and trample the rights of people who have earned a right to try to get their life in order.

Often included on official state registries of sex offenders along with the archetypal dirty old man who molests children are people who are teenagers themselves who had sex with a boyfriend or girlfriend under the age of consent. Others committed offenses that didn’t merit any jail time. Others committed crimes involving adults, and have shown no predilection to target children. Still others actually *have* received treatment and are considered by experts to be of low risk to reoffend. Such people are not innocent, and deserve to face justice. But once they’ve done that, it’s not fair to tar them with the wide brush of “potential child molester” has the potential to be unfair.

Hyman himself agrees that it’s not fair to take away the rights of individuals simply because the larger community thinks it’s okay. How many times as he decried the abuse of “eminent domain,” the process by which a community can confiscate the property of a private citizen (supposedly with adequate compensation) in order to better the lives of the other residents (such as condemning a residential building in order to build a new road or to create a downtown shopping area).

The same balancing act is at work in this issue. The fact that it involves the emotional issue of sex crimes and children doesn’t do away with that.

As is typical, the ACLU is arguing in favor of individual rights for a party that is not terribly sympathetic. But then again, that’s exactly the point. When the ACLU argued that Nazis should be allowed to march through a Jewish neighborhood in Skokie, Illinois, it wasn’t doing so because it was anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi. It did it because freedom of speech and freedom to peaceably assemble don’t mean anything if you don’t stand up for the rights of the most despised groups to share these rights. To suggest that the ACLU is somehow anti-child or pro-sexual abuse because it is challenging hopelessly vague legislation written to please voters more than to protect children is incredibly crass and a sign of a complete lack of argumentative skill.

Of course, maybe Hyman’s right. Maybe any law that protects kids from sexual abuse is good, no matter who else gets caught up in its web. If so, why don’t we make sexual predator laws even more strict, so that anyone convicted of a sexual crime of any sort is not allowed to walk in the park or take their kids to school?

That would mean that Hyman’s boss, Sinclair president David Smith, would not be able to spend a sunny afternoon picnicking in a Baltimore park or drive his grandchildren to school. After all, he is a former blackmarket porn dealer and a whoremonger, convicted of committing an “unnatural and perverted sex act” with a prostitute. Of course, he’s not on the Maryland state sex offenders list. But if any of the films he sold featured someone under the age of 18, or if he ever solicited sex from a 17-year-old streetwalker (and given the fact that he is reported to have done plenty of trolling for prostitutes beyond the one time he got caught, it’s likely he has), then he *should* be on that list, legally speaking.

Is David Smith likely to molest children? I sort of doubt it. Being a pervert and a mogul of an evil media empire don’t by themselves make you the sort of person who would sexually assault an 8-year-old child. But then again, the individual the ACLU is representing isn't likely to do that either. He was convicted of an assault against an adult nearly 20 years ago, and has completed all required treatment.

But maybe people like Smith *should* be banned from any place children congregate, if we’re going to be extra safe. I suppose it’s a debatable issue. And if the Maryland legislature passes a law outlawing all sexual offenders from being in a public park, I’m sure the ACLU will come to his defense, not because they like him, or because they have “no compassion for the safety of our children” (to use Hyman’s phrase) but because even someone like David Smith deserves to have his rights defended.

And that’s The Counterpoint.


Hyman Index: 2.80