January 20

Events

• Current events

• 1973 - It's official: Being a pedo works for some - A Dutch society, the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Sexuele Hervorming (NVSH; Netherlands Association for Sexual Reform), had long expressed objections to pedo issues and everything connected with it. But after the conference "De Staat als Zedenmeester" (The State as Keeper of Morals) in 1969, its attitude towards pedos slowly changed. Early in 1970 a number of prominent members came together in order to devise a program to deal with the issue of pedophilia. In actuality this was the start, in early January, of the pedo workgroups. This helped pave the way for a more open attitude about sexuality and pedophilia. The national pedo workgroups attained official status in the form of the Hoofdbestuurscommissie Pedofilie, NVSH, on this date. New local pedo workgroups still continue to come into being. The significance of these workgroups to the struggle for pedo liberation is immeasurable

• 1986 - How to manipulate a 3-year-old for one's self-interested purposes - In a trial in the Bronx, led by prosecutor Mario Merola, Nathaniel Grady, a 47 year-old Methodist minister, was convicted of sexually abusing children in a day care center. Grady was accused of sexually molesting 6 three year-olds at nap time. He was convicted after a 13-week trial. The primary witness against Grady was a three year-old boy. There were no notes or videotapes recording the hours of interviews with the boy. Twenty-six character witnesses testified at his trial on his behalf. Nonetheless, he was convicted on this date and sentenced to 45 years in prison. His conviction was called an unfair "product of a very ambitious prosecutor who saw a good story and jumped on a national bandwagon." In May 1989, the State Supreme Court overturned the conviction, asserting in the opinion that the original indictment had been "duplicitous." Grady was freed in the fall of 1996 after spending more than 10 years in prison. In 1987, the prosecutor Mario Merola died, and his successor, Robert Johnson, declined to re-prosecute the case.

• 1993 - Not quite a stamp of approval, but close enough - On this date the Standing Committee on Justice and Solicitor General of Canada held discussions on NAMBLA. Then Justice Minister Pierre Blais said he would not recommend the banning of the NAMBLA Bulletin or criminalize its possession. Apparently it was determined that a silly little thing like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rational rule of law prevented such actions, no matter how much those in power wanted to crush legitimate speech.

• 2001 - A different kind of Sundance kid - The film L.I.E. premiered on this date at the annual Sundance Film Festival. The story focuses on the relationship between a 15 year old boy, whose mother has died and whose neglectful father runs afoul of the law, and a middle aged pedo. The pedo, played wonderfully by Brian Cox, was seen by some reviewers as a creep and by others as a decent and heroic man. Pedos were also divided on how they felt about him. But the fact that the film was made and shown and that the debate was happening at all made the release of this film a landmark achievement for all pedos. The film also won many awards and nominations, including the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, an Independent Spirit award for Paul Franklin Dano (who played the boy), and an American Film Institute nomination for Cox.