A gay Australian couple has had their 6-year-old son taken away c
hild protective services officials in Los Angeles, as the FBI and Australian police investigate claims the men are part of an international child-porn ring.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the unnamed boy was actually taken from the couple several months ago, after police searched their home in Cairns and claimed to have found substantial objectionable material, including a video of the son “watching a film of pornography with another child and speaking in an explicit sexual manner.” Another reportedly shows the boy “speaking in a sexual and profane manner” with another child as they partly undress in public.
The couple maintain their innocence but the investigation sprang from their connections to three suspected kiddie-porn producers—one of whom, Edward de Sear, was a respected attorney before his arrest in New Jersey last July.
Through de Sear, the Australian couple met a New Zealander, who allegedly—and without the couple’s knowledge, they claim— made a video of their son undressing.
The boy, the biological son of one of the couple, is in foster care while the investigation continues.
Triple S
I’ve read about this a few times now, since it’s been on the internet in Australia for some time. I don’t really know what to think about it; are these two men devoted and wonderful fathers? Or did they really allow this stuff to happen?
Here’s another link that goes a bit further into the story:
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/national/boy-6-removed-from-cairns-gay-fathers-in-fbi-child-porn-probe/story-e6frg15u-1226266767973
StevenW
Nothing to be said until after the trial, in my opinion. However, I would say that the title of this piece sounds like the 6 year old is the one being accused!
Craig R
If they are guilty they should go down forever.
Child abusers are human offal.
Cam
How is this gay news? Did NOM take over and decide to run this?
Erich
What I don’t understand is how Los Angeles County has any sort of jurisdiction
over a couple from Australia. Yes, they were visiting a friend in the USA, but US
authorities can seize children from foreign countries?
Oh, ok.
@Erich: God forbid they take a child being sexually abused away from his abusive parents.
divkid
for me one of the most invidious side effects of hearing of situations like this is the way my attention is conflicted, because i know my concern ought to rest squarely and entirely on the plight of the child — it overwhelmingly does — but there’s a tiny corner caught up needlessly but inevitably in the thought: “what will our enemies or society at large make of this”.
am i alone in feeling, and resenting an internalised unshakable notion that we somehow owe a collective responsibility in shouldering a burden i.e. to rescue the idea of the “good gay” out of carnage like “homosexual pedophile fathers” ; a burden heterosexuals are patently not similarly obliged to feel; after all, “heterosexual pedophile father” doesn’t even exist as a workaday concept, that species being merely a “pedophile” who’s also a father. the very notion of this kind of perpetual-reputational-anxiety-of-intrinsic-moral-fitness for the heterosexual qua heterosexuality, would to him, surely, seem incomprehensible.
but above all else, speaking as one human being, i feel sorry, truly sorry, for the child. what a start to a life.
Oh, ok.
@divkid: I’m not a pedophile so I have nothing to worry about. Don’t feel worried, don’t feel guilty, I only care about the well-being of this child who’s life has already been damaged greatly by this disgusting act.
divkid
if it’s true, i should add.
Oh, ok.
What reason would there be to lie about it? These people don’t sound famous or like political leaders. I doubt it’s made up as no one would have anything to gain from it.
Pedophiles do exist and the internet has given them a place to spread their filth freely.
KyleW
I hate to say it, but the well-being of one boy is inconsequential compared to the number of gays that will be hurt by the ammunition this provides detractors of gay adoption. I have sympathy for the boy, but tens of thousands of kids are abused every day, and there are far broader issues than just this one child’s wellbeing.
the fact that one of them was the kid’s biological father makes this poignant, but it is worth reminding everyone that most child abuse is still carried out by heterosexual family members.
hamoboy
@KyleW:
WTF is wrong with you? It’s not this horrible affair, but rather YOUR reaction to it (and LGBTs reacting like you), that is going to fuel the fires of hatred against the LGBT community.
You are a horrible horrible person. I hope you die bitter and alone.
Triple S
@hamoboy: KyleW has a point. It’s not a nice point. But when has life ever been nice? Wishing others to die a bitter and lonely death is quite a low thing to do.
B
The Sydney Morning Herald article doesn’t state what QUEERTY claimed. The Morning Herald stated that the police had some objectionable material and had searched their homes retrieving computers, documents, etc. What isn’t clear is whether the objectionable material was found in their home (QUEERTY’s interpretation) or was the reason for the search (having been obtained elsewhere). The text of the Morning Herald article is consistent with either possibility.
It could be that these guys deserve to have the book thrown at them. However, it is also possible that they were tricked, and that their pedophile acquaintance had introduced them to the others, figuring the parents were easily duped, and manged to hide everything from them.
It’s conceivable that the videos of the kids watching porn were faked – you show them Saturday morning cartoons and replace the cartoons with porn via some video editing. Possibly they had actors dubbing the dialog, repeating what the kids said when the camera was pointed at their faces and replacing that with some obscene dialog when the camera was pointed elsewhere. Faked videos are illegal just as real ones are, but if faked, the kids would have no idea and their parents would never find out.
Similar, the video of the kid partly undressing while another kid makes obscene comments could also be faked – you could take a video of some kids taking their shirts off to be on one team in a soccer game with some other kids the same age, while giving viewers a totally different impression by dubbing the dialog and being careful about camera angle.
If you think that sort of editing is too hard, get the DVD for a cute gay-oriented film called “Skinny Fat” – they have a scene at a clinic, and in the extra material on the disk, they mention that pictures on the walls and a sign above the front door were added digitally (so they could use the building they wanted with minimal disruptions). And this is a very low-budget film.
You might be able to detect any faking via an analysis of the films, but U.S. law in particular takes a zero-tolerance approach to this sort of pornography, so there could be legal risks to anyone hired to analyze the films on the behalf of a defendant. You can’t even make a good guess about how hard it would be to fake something without seeing the videos, which of course none of us can do legally (or would want to do in any event).
In any case, I’d advise against jumping to conclusions about these guys. At least wait until the police investigation is complete.