Religionists intend to morally equate homosexuality with pedophilia, they say both are examples of bestiality and, therefore, should be banned. As usual, they’re wrong.
Homosexuality is a sexual preference, and it’s as morally valid as heterosexual and bisexual preferences.
Pedophilia is a paraphilia and a psychological disorder — sexual attraction towards prepubescent children. It is a fantasy of some individuals, which is stuck in their heads and, as long as it remains there, it does not affect anyone else.
On the other hand, pederasty is a crime, as is any kind of sex with individuals who have not given their informed consent — and therein lies its wrongfulness.
The state has no business telling people what they should like or dislike — there are no thought crimes.
On many atheist outlets, I’ve seen a lot of child abuse being called pedophilia (even Richard Dawkins talks about ‘mild pedophilia’ and ‘violent pedophilia’).
For the sake of clarity, I think we should start calling things by their names. Not all pedophiles have commited crimes and I guess some of them fight their urges and know they should not abuse children, and they won’t. We can find revolting such paraphilia (I certainly do), but that doesn’t justify lumping people who hasn’t hurt anyone else with criminals.
