As sick as it gets.

• Author: Barber, Matt
• Position: WORDS & IMAGES

SO MUCH FOR THE LEFT'S "consenting adults" rhetoric on sex. Forever the consummate conservationists, our serf-described "progressive" friends at the ACLU, MSNBC, and elsewhere have been ramping up efforts to downsize from "consenting adults" to merely "consenting"--a far less cumbersome qualifier in the noble straggle for unrestrained sexual license.

Tolerating "intergenerational romance" for "minor-attracted" adults is all the rage these days. Have you heard about Kaitlyn Hunt? Over the past year or so, this poor, misunderstood lesbian woman's "anti-gay persecution" has become a cause celebre among gay rights activists and other left wing purveyors of perversion.

Despite mass rallies and online petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of the uber-"tolerant," the clearly "homophobic" Florida criminal justice system has, nonetheless, convicted Ms. Hunt of multiple felonies for sexually assaulting--repeatedly--a 14-year-old girl. Puritans.

Oh, sure, her minor victim allegedly "consented" to what the "Free Kate" crowd has portrayed as a harmless tryst--but, of course, by law, children below the age of consent cannot consent to sex with adults. Period.

Still, the progressive establishment evidently felt that, for whatever reason, this was their hill to die on; this was the case that might help them realize the historical "gay rights" goal of rolling-back most, if not all, age-of-consent laws--statutes designed to protect children from adult sexual predators like, well, Kate Hunt.

Veteran journalist Robert Stacy McCain has covered the Hunt case extensively. In a recent piece for the American Spectator headlined "Kaitlyn Hunt is guilty and, yes, there is a movement to 'normalize pedophilia,'" McCain writes: "Kaitlyn Hunt is a criminal. We can state that as a Neutral Objective Fact, now that the 19-year-old former cheerleader has pleaded 'no contest' to multiple felonies related to her sexual affair with a minor."

There categorically is a movement to normalize pedophilia. I have witnessed it firsthand and, despite "progressive" protestations to the contrary, the "pedophile rights" movement is inexorably linked to the so-called "gay rights" movement. Two years ago, I--along with the venerable child advocate Judith Reisman--attended a Maryland conference hosted by the pedophile group B4U-ACT. Around 50 individuals were in attendance, including a number of admitted pedophiles (or "minor-attracted persons," as they euphemistically prefer). Also...