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Former Capill adviser quotes gay abuse claims

Tue 12 Apr 2005 In: New Zealand Daily News

A former policy adviser for convicted child molester and former Christian Heritage leader Graham Capill says all Christians should not be held responsible for those actions, in a column which also quotes a claim that gays are more likely to molest children. Writing in the New Zealand Herald, former Christian Heritage justice spokesman Matthew Flannagan, who says he “was a friend” of Capill, quotes evangelical theologian Norman Geisler's claim that “child molestation cases involve three times as many homosexuals than the general population. Homosexual crimes, some against other homosexuals, are among the most violent committed.” “What is problematic about this reasoning is that it infers that an entire class of people should be censored or marginalised because one or some members of this group have committed a crime,” Flannagan wrote, criticising the reasoning but leaving Geisler's claims intact. The Office of the Children's Commissioner has refuted these claims, and they're concerned about spins placed on sexual abuse of children that have no basis in fact. “Most children are abused by members of their own family,” a spokesperson for Commissioner Cindy Kiro told GayNZ.com. “There is certainly no information that we've got showing high incidence of children being abused by homosexual males. The vast majority of cases that lead to convictions are from adults known to children within their own families.” Leading local authorities in the field of psychology dismissed similar claims of a link between homosexuality and child abuse by a Christian lobby group last September as misleading, homophobic, and containing inferences of poor scientific methodology. A press release from the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards claimed there was a link between homosexuality and child abuse, causing a swift reponse from the New Zealand Psychological Society and Auckland University senior psychology lecturer John Read, who said the claim was “quite misleading and perpetuates a longstanding stereotype used for decades to vilify gays”. Graham Capill spent the best part of the last decade campaigning against homosexuality while he was leader of the Christian Heritage Party. During that period, he equated homosexuality with paedophilia numerous times and suggested gays were a threat to children. He pled guilty a fortnight ago in a Christchurch court to molesting an eight-year-old girl on three or four occasions over the course of two years. He is currently awaiting sentencing.    

Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff

First published: Tuesday, 12th April 2005 - 12:00pm

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