Disturbing news out of my home state of Wisconsin: Yesterday in the central Wisconsin town of Waupaca, 71-year-old former bus driver Delton Gorges was sentenced after being convicted on multiple counts of sexual assault of a child. Waupaca County Circuit Court Judge Philip Kirk made the following remarks from the bench while delivering the sentence:
I was looking for it here, Mr. Gorges, in one of the three reports I got, I couldn’t find it, but it described you as, or your self-description, as a heterosexual. That’s about the only piece of information in these three reports that I would correct as patently incorrect. Listening to all this stuff, it seems to me that… if you give [a] $10 bill to somebody and you buy $4 worth of goods, you ask for 2 threes back or one six. I think you were born gayer than a sweet-smelling jock strap, and I think that if anyone believes that in the last 10 years or 15 years, all of a sudden you developed an interest in homosexuality and young boys, then, uh, I must have looked ravishing in my prom dress this year. It is just wrong.
I don’t even know where to start with this one. “Gayer than a sweet-smelling jock strap?” Judge Kirk doth protest too much, methinks. The image is so vivid that I can’t help but wonder how often visions of sweet-smelling jock straps sassily sashay through his honor’s subconscious. How many hours of research went into his sweaty, stereotype-filled statement?
Kidding aside, Judge Kirk’s homophobic comments were unprofessional and inexcusable. In addition, they show that the spurious conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia remains so thoroughly embedded in popular culture that even an ostensibly well-educated circuit court judge has internalized the myth. As Equality Matters points out, this roundly-discredited meme is “one of the most cherished smears” of anti-gay groups like NARTH, the Family Research Council, Porno Pete’s AFTAH, and the American Family Association (and even the Vatican!). We at Truth Wins Out are all too familiar with these organizations — we spend a huge amount of time fighting back against their pernicious propaganda, so we find it incredibly disturbing that Judge Kirk would use the bully pulpit of the bench to spread their lies, regardless of whether or not he intended to do so.
Finally, many have rightly pointed out that Judge Kirk went on to make seemingly sympathetic remarks about the plight of gay people forced by society to remain closeted. That’s all well and good, but in our fervent search to find a silver lining, let’s make sure we don’t forget the facts: Delton Gorges is a convicted child molester. Homosexuality and child molestation are not connected. Kirk should never have linked the two in the first place. Saying that his later, friendlier remarks somehow mitigate the earlier, offensive ones, or taking them as evidence that Judge Kirk “means well,” makes just about as much sense as putting lipstick on a pig or gold plating on a pile of dung.
Why is someone “born” gay when they’re accused of sexual abuse of a child – but the rest of us chose to be gay?
Sick. To. Death. Of. People. Linking. Gay. And. Pederasty. Add to your list: Michael Brown who is now peddling his book around and just went on AFTAH radio to link Pederasty and homosexuality. People still link the two because “authorities” still say it is true. People that do this, need to be publicly shamed. Stupid is not illegal, but it should be uncomfortable.
Want to know who Michael Brown is/ read my review of his tome: http://canyonwalkerconnections.com/2011/04/a-queer-thing-happened-to-america-by-dr-michael-brown-review/
Thanks for this insightful comment, John. Pedophilia gets connected with homosexuality and, in the past 15 years or so, has seemingly embedded in people’s minds as a “Catholic priest” aberration as well. Perhaps one of TruthWinsOut’s goals might be to continue to educate the wider public about the difference. I’ve only found this site because of your connection to it, John, so I have to claim some ignorance here of this site’s history. Pedophiles come in all shapes and sizes. They can act out as homosexuals or heterosexuals with people their own age, and the same people can also sexually abuse children of one or both sexes. So, keep up the good work, and educate people about these misconceptions and call out those who remain in the dark.
As someone who has both been raped and was molested as a child, I resent the hell out of anyone who ties together a violent crime like rape or pederasty to a loving consenting act between two people. Rape is not a sex crime, nor is pederasty. Both are violent crimes of aggression and control exacted onto the victim by the perpetrator. The rapist uses sex only as a method of control and humiliation against his victim. Many rapists in fact, are not able to climax or maintain an erection during the crime. Homosexuality is an immutable trait in which someone is born with an attraction to people of the same sex instead of people of the oppossite sex. The sexuality between two gay people can be lusty, loving or both, but has nothing to do with violence or aggression, and because of Lawrence v Texas, is also in fact legal in every state of the union. Pederasty and rape are always violent, aggressive, and always illegal in every single state. One doesn’t choose to be born a homosexual, but one DOES choose to be an angry, aggressive, violent criminal. The two have absolutely nothing to do with eachother and for those of us who have actually had the crime of rape or pederasty exacted against us, it undermines the suffering and pain we’ve endured at the hands of our attackers. This judge, given that I am certain he is abundantly familiar with rape cases, should be removed from the bench for these harmful and unconscionable comments. I don’t think he can ever again be trusted to objectively judge a rape or pedophilia case again. Nothing he said after the above cited quote negates the harm of what he said when he compared rape to homosexuality. Great article John, as always, thanks.
I sure don’t hope this judge dies a slow and painful death!
Jockstraps don’t even ‘smell sweet’ when fresh out of the laundry. Maybe the not so good judge was really fantasizing about a SWEAT smelling one.
Pedophilia and pederasty are not the same thing. Obviously Nambla knows there’s a link with the latter! And despite claims to portray them as fringe, it took the ILGA sixteen years to sever associations with them, and only then because of concentrated political pressure from the right, with the MSM ignoring it all along. So, in other words, yeah, right, no connection at all.