January 25

Events

• Current events

• 1999 - As long as there are athletic kids in swimsuits involved, pedos will be there too. - In Ireland, the Irish Amateur Swimming Association was hit by scandal when it was found that Derry O'Rourke, a swimming coach, was sexually involved with some of the children he coached. So on this date the Irish Amateur Swimming Association ceased to exist and was replaced by Swim Ireland. The fact that the new organization had the exact same job as the old one and even included several of the same executive members lead critics to doubt the sincerity of the desire to deal with the issue.

• 2001 - "Mommy? I need more red crayons." - The Traditional Values Coalition Executive Director Andrea Lafferty delivered copies of a sexually explicit coloring book to every freshman Senator on Capitol Hill on this date. They got copies of the Cunt Coloring Book, which contains page after page of drawings of female genitalia for children to color. The book could be found in the James Hormel Gay and Lesbian Reading Center at the San Francisco Public Library along with other material that the TVC claimed promoted incest and adult/child sex. James Hormel, founder, President, Owner, CEO of Hormel Meats, had become the US Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1999, a nomination John Ashcroft opposed. The TVC hoped to justify that position with their book distribution.

• 2002 - Younger than ten means life in the pen - On this date a bill was introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives that was co-sponsored by 36 of the 100 members, including both Republicans and Democrats. What issue could inspire such a spirit of bipartisanism, you ask? Persecuting pedos, of course! The bill proposed that a sentence of life in prison should be mandatory for a conviction of sexual contact with a child under 10 years old. The old law required the same sentence for any cases where the prosecution could demonstrate that force was involved, so in effect the bill was aimed specifically at cases where force was not used at all. Court records in Ohio showed that in fully two thirds of all cases no force was ever involved in prosecuted cases.

• 2002 - No sex please, we're British - It was reported in the Guardian on this date that a new crime of "adult sexual activity with a child" and a reform of the law on rape were to be included in an overhaul of Britain's laws on sex offences, to be introduced into parliament later in the year. The new catch-all criminal offence, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, was based on the belief that sexual activity between adults and children is unacceptable, and that some cases are so serious that they warrant a life sentence. The new crime of "adult sexual activity with a child" was proposed to replace the seven different sex offences previously used to prosecute in child sex cases such as indecent assault, intercourse with a girl under 13, gross indecency and buggery. The new law was expected to apply to anyone over 18 who was involved in a sexual act with a person under 16, presumably including the 18 year old is dating a 15 year old. The government admitted that it had no idea what the extent of sexual crimes against minors was. In response to that they proposed that police and courts to start recording child sex abuse cases so that they appear separately in the official crime figures, ending wild speculation over the extent of the problem.