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CHILD MOLESTING:

THE CHARGE THAT SELDOM FAILS Mother of a six-year old boy in Scottsdale (Arizona), a cocktail waitress, testified that she believed her son would not lie to her because he had been raised as a Catholic during trial of physician accused on two charges of lewd and lascivious acts and one of child molestation. Murray Miller, attorney for the accused Dr. Robert H. Christensen challenged the constitutionality of Arizona's new childmolester law. While Maricopa Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Fred J. Hyder ruled that the court did have jurisdiction in the case Justice of the Peace Vern Sessions pointed out inconsistencies in the testimony, saying "It's a weak case," and for once, a jury (10 men and 2 women) agreed by acquitting the physician. Not so, usually.

In San Fernando Valley California, neighborhood newspaper (Valley Times, June 9) ranted in comment on recent maiming of a small boy "by a previously convicted, suspended, pampered pervert" that (and here we quote again) "The Courts are manned by incompetent Judges . . . Hanging from the same gallows should be the judges who did not confine the perpetrator before-and the parole officers who recommended suspension."

Flailing out left and right at "all of those members of the clergy who have tearfully been plighting the cause of the poor, downtrodden

homosexual" our rustic editor cries on, "Now is the time for the members of the United States Congress who have tried to pass special legislation for the 'Mattachine Society' . . . to examine this case and then account to the parents . . Now is the time for the Legislature to make mandatory life imprisonment the unwavering order for any sex offender on the first conviction."

An impressive 32 page booklet "Laws For Youth" issued by the County of Los Angeles warns, "Hitchhiking is particularly dangerous for young boys because it is a favored and easy method of approach for sex perverts." The question, are homosexuals child molesters or sex perverts, goes unasked. Understandably So, for there are a fraction as many "child molesters" interested in little boys. as there are Lolita-chasers among middle-aged males. But the shouting goes right on unabated-after all it makes a cheap and flashy headline.

SO WHO WAS MOLESTED?

A former Cuban writes that there used to be three houses of boy prostitution in Havana, plus a great many boys available for money in the streets, plus any who wanted to do it for love. Boys in their teens or young men in their early twenties were in demand. One place catering to respectable middleclass customers was hard by the Cathedral.