Thanks Aladdin! I had not even really thought of the consent in that context! You are exactly correct! Wow what a team - Have Aladdin as your defense attorney and me on the jury! We got this in the bag! LOL

Yes, I agree that the action wasn't criminal but for it being a violation. I just think it's incredibly stupid and even if I was not a former SO I cannot see it being a good thing to tell a teenage girl she is attractive. The laws the way they are right now -- too much risk.

The fact he hurt our movement is also very frustrating. It was incredibly stupid to begin with but having the spotlight on you and being a voice should mean more.

Independent... I agree, if you are going to be a spokes person, politician, in the limelight, better dot your i's and cross your t's cause the microscope will go on you. No making mistakes that will lead to public scrutiny.

He should have been walking the tightest rope there is, no mistakes, do nothing that can be misconstrued, or you'll hurt more than just yourself. He didn't do any of that it sounds like.

Independant: Guess I might phrase that differently: It's not the "microscope" that caused all this trouble for Galen... He flirted with his 'dangerous attractions' as a result his 'secret' texting was there for the 'microscope" to discover... In contacting under-age youngsters, Galen crossed a line he knew was there and now is trying to split hairs and say it's not what it looks like. "You can't prove it" etc. And we are expected to ignore our own good sense and agree with Galen that it's the microscope that is unfair to Galen and not Galen who betrayed himself and us by secretly beginning to repeat of a pattern of dangerous attraction.

In AA they say, "You are only as sick as your secrets." Secretly hiding bottles of whiskey all over the house, ( like secretly texting teen age boys) will most likely end badly. In this case it's ending badly not only for Galen but for us. We should be thankful that in this case, the youngsters who obviously trusted Galen, did not find themselves violated in more ways than simply the violation of their trust. Maybe someday, Galen too, will be glad he was stopped sooner rather than later. Until then he will no doubt continue to hide whisky bottles and claim it was unfair they were discovered. We were all supposed to wait for Galen to go on a bender? This is a tragedy unfolding before our eyes but it might have been so much worse..

Is "Aren't you the best looking boy I know" really that different from "Are you the best looking boy you know?” Yes, on the surface they mean two different things but are we to assume Galen was making a purely platonic remark? If you believe that, you're an ideal juror for any defendant under similar circumstances.

Whether he made the remark at a funeral or later on via text messages, the point is he looked for the opportunity to meet a teenager at a funeral, of all places. A place reserved for bereavement. He used bereavement as the starting point of a relationship without any prior context. I'm sorry if anyone was offended by the term grooming. That's how his behavior struck me.

I feel bad for Galen. What he did wasn't the worst thing in the world. MLK and JFK not to mention Bill Clinton did worse things than what Galen is accused of. But he was purposefully "testing the system" in my opinion to see how much he could get away with and by doing so, risked the progress of an entire movement for his own gratification and to me, that is a great moral failure on his part. Maybe the gratification wasn't sexual, maybe it was purely platonic. I personally don't believe that but I'm willing to stretch my imagination. Even if that were the case, it was a moral failure.

Grooming is subjective to interpretation, not on the part of the adult (after all, he knows what his intentions are). But on the part of the other person. Only Galen truly knows what his intentions are. I guess the bottom line is, circumstantially he appears to me to have sought out a relationship with a youngster. Do we know for sure it would lead to something sexual? Of course not. Based on past behavior observed by Josh (totally independent of this incident by someone who had no bone to pick with Galen and was devastated) and some of the suggestive language, it's possible. To me, probable, but that seems to offend many people on this discussion board.

Again, would it have gone further? We don't know. Because it didn't go further, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Only Galen knows if it would have gone further.

I think I am beginning to understand a little about what is going on here. Advocate believes a lot of the behaviors that were considered "normal" twenty or thirty years ago are now taboo. Simply complimenting someone on how they look (whether it is a woman or a minor) much differently today than twenty or thirty years ago. He's right. We are a much more uptight society today and we often view things way out of context. We've become much more politically correct and with that there has been some progress, i.e. LGBT rights have expanded greatly since the days of Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Yet moral panic has intensified. Advocate (if I'm reading him correctly) believes our response to what Galen did is a result of moral panic. Yes, in large part it is. On the surface, what Galen did wasn't horrible. And on the surface, if that's the ONLY thing he ever did in his life, SHOULD it be such a terrible thing? No.

But is that really where we want to spend our time arguing our cause? It seems to me that's exactly what our opponents would like us to say. They would like us to argue there is nothing wrong with an adult secretly texting a teenager as long as it isn't sexual. That's fodder for them and I can easily see the victim advocates using it against us. They shouldn't use it against us but they will because they are opportunists. I think we should be spending our time fighting for our rights to decent living, employment, and the right to exist rather than the right to have platonic relationships with youngsters. That's unfortunately a losing battle, whether it should be or not.

I think I am beginning to understand a little about what is going on here. Advocate believes a lot of the behaviors that were considered "normal" twenty or thirty years ago are now taboo. Simply complimenting someone on how they look (whether it is a woman or a minor) is viewed much differently today than twenty or thirty years ago. He's right. We are a much more uptight society today and we often view things way out of context. We've become much more politically correct and with that there has been some progress, i.e. LGBT rights have expanded greatly since the days of Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Yet moral panic has intensified. Advocate (if I'm reading him correctly) believes our response to what Galen did is a result of moral panic. Yes, in large part it is. On the surface, what Galen did wasn't horrible. And on the surface, if that's the ONLY thing he ever did in his life, SHOULD it be such a terrible thing? No.

But is that really where we want to spend our time arguing our cause? It seems to me that's exactly what our opponents would like us to say. They would like us to argue there is nothing wrong with an adult secretly texting a teenager as long as it isn't sexual. That's fodder for them and I can easily see the victim advocates using it against us. They shouldn't use it against us but they will because they are opportunists. I think we should be spending our time fighting for our rights to decent living, employment, and the right to exist rather than the right to have platonic relationships with youngsters. That's unfortunately a losing battle, whether it should be or not.