“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, have you stopped having sex with little girls? Have you stopped creating child porn?” Showing remarkable restraint, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t ask either question during the recent “confirmation hearings.”
But they cynically did everything they could to tarnish the judge’s reputation, and to confuse the huge differences between pedophilia, sex offending, and child porn. Republican senators such as Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, and Tom Cotton trashed Jackson as “soft” and “radical” for sentencing criminals within the guidelines Congress itself had created, and which federal prosecutors had recommended.
These senators are disgusting, pretending to care about children while preventing decent funding for childhood medical care, education, and daycare. And it’s not just terrible boys bullying Judge Jackson; all-woman Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn enthusiastically joined in the gleeful torment of her would-be sister.
So here are the facts, senators:
~ Millions of people consume sexual images of children—which are illegal—without making or distributing them. Those people rarely touch actual children.
~ Some people distribute what they watch, but don’t make it. This is illegal, but they don’t actually abuse children. You can call this indirect abuse or supporting the act of abuse, but that’s really metaphorical.
~ Some people encourage or force children to perform sexually for the camera, with or without adults. This is an awful form of child abuse that is always illegal, and should be seriously punished.
Unlike the senators grilling her, Judge Jackson understands and cares about the difference between these three aspects of child pornography use—consuming, distributing, and creating—and has wisely sentenced criminals accordingly.
People who consume or create child porn may or may not be pedophiles—people who are sexually attracted to minors. Most are not. Of course, being attracted to mature-looking 14-year-olds is quite different than being attracted to 9-year-olds. Either way, such attraction is not a choice—it’s an unfortunate orientation that some people are stuck with, usually starting in early adolescence.
As with any sexual orientation, the question is how does a person choose to behave? Pedophiles are no more impulsive than adults attracted to adults (known as teleiophiles, per Dr. Ray Blanchard). For example, you may be monogamous and surrounded by adults you find attractive. You don’t approach them sexually, because you have commitments. That’s how a large percentage of pedophiles are, too—they don’t approach any children sexually because they are determined to keep their commitments.
Then of course there are adults who sexually engage actual children, either through force or seduction. This is illegal under all circumstances. Popular opinion derides such people as child molesters and perverts. Even in prison, among murderers and arsonists, such people stir disgust. Many of these molesters have series mental health problems that prevent them from sympathizing with their victims, which makes them particularly dangerous.
Today, the easiest way to damage someone’s reputation is to suggest that they molest children, or support their molestation. That’s what Senator Josh Hawley did when asking Fox News if Judge Jackson is “gonna protect children, or protect child predators.”
Senator Lindsay Graham, who only a year ago found Judge Jackson worthy of confirmation, ignorantly piled on with “Every judge who does what you are doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited.” It’s classic Graham—expedient, histrionic, classless.
Even the conservative National Review denounced these Republican senators’ behavior “as meritless to the point of demagoguery.”
QAnon followers, though, are cackling with delight. Online, they are blasting Judge Jackson as “an apologist for child molesters” and a “pedophile enabler.” QAnon, of course, now has a direct pipeline into American government through Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has famously called for the “execution” of democrats, and who claims that America’s Christian white people are being inexorably replaced by non-whites—like Judge Jackson.
Polls note that millions of Americans believe that “the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.” Half of Donald Trump’s supporters in 2020 agreed that “top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings.” These are the voters that Republicans are titillating by throwing feces at Judge Jackson in so-called “hearings” that are nothing more than theater.
This bizarre obsession over sex with children has now moved mainstream. As the Republican party fuses with QAnon, those who enjoy thinking about children being trafficked and molested will increasingly direct popular perception. Calls for public hangings of “pedophiles” will gather speed, becoming too strong for some governors to ignore.
I remember when people lost their jobs and liberties after being denounced as Communists. After 9/11, it happened again to anyone accused of being a terrorist. Today’s demons are pedophiles, child pornographers, and child molesters.
Republicans like McConnell, Cotton, and Greene want power, but they don’t want to actually govern this country. They want to limit everyone’s options and speech while they daydream about sex with children—others’ children, of course.