Is there evidence of Harman campaigning for the lowering of the age of consent to ten? I'd love to see it because I find it difficult to believe. But I'm happy to stand corrected.

From what I remember Bubble wasn't directly doing that.

Personally Jamie, I'd regard someone who did that as immature and looking for a rise.

Defending free speech does involve defending views you don't like. I believe you also believe that. Of course there are lines. In my view there should be three lines where someone could seek redress....lies or libel and supporting violence against a person or group or inciting for it...and obscenity for things like child p***.graphy. For a long time that's how we operated.

The 'hate speech' laws were brought in because of the Islamic problem and I find it very unfortunate that predominantly the left...though not exclusively so...but activists are quite happy to use these dangerous laws and the culture they create to justify closing down 'views' and opinions they don't like.

I stand against that.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

If it was, hedgehog needs to acknowledge his error and write a letter of apology to Harriet Harman.

That whole episode of Labour's 'progressive' history shows how they lost the ball.

For them, it's all about the rights of minorities. In many cases it still is...they had to be weaned off it in this case. They knew about the protection of children back then as well. They just got the balance completely wrong.

If you are born a certain way it can mean that you are dangerous for society. You grow up in the culture that surrounds you. Quite rightly we protect child from sexual contact and this over-rides the rights of anything else.

Most of those who supported Labour of course always regarded this issue as children's protection first. This was a 'progressive' problem back in the day where they looked for acceptable circumstances around the edges.

Edited by Stirlingsays (02 Aug 2017 6.30pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Check out some recent court cases.

Edited by hedgehog50 (02 Aug 2017 6.49pm)

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]

The issue here is that performing sexual acts on pre pubescent children is purely self-gratification at the expense of an innocent victim. Even with sexually mature children, that could still be argued even if they are willing participants. If the adult is misled about their age then there is some mitigation but in general, it is an abuse and the abuse of children in particular for any reason is deplored by the vast majority and totally unacceptable. To argue that people can't help their proclivity is one thing but to suggest that they can't help acting on it is completely different. We all have to show restraint with sexual desire or we would all be in jail.

Is it deviant behaviour?
If one uses the argument that sexuality is natural so all sexual acts are natural then one could equally apply that logic to murder or torture or anything that humans do or can think up.
Deviant is really what the vast majority don't do. That can change of course and then it can stop being 'deviant' and become 'normal'.