Maine town wants to ban sex offenders from loitering


Registered sex offenders lose rights
Hold on to your hats, this one goes too far.

The town is poised to become the state's first municipality to enact an ordinance banning convicted sex offenders from loitering at parks, schools and other places children gather.

Attorneys from the Maine Municipal Association generally approved the proposed ordinance that town officials hope to have enacted by October, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said Monday.

"They see no reason why we cannot do it," Conlogue said.

The Town Council and Conlogue have been awaiting a review from MMA, an organization of state municipalities that helps cities and towns address common issues and problems, since early June.

That's when school officials and police told them during a public forum that they could not prevent a handful of convicted sex offenders listed on the state's convicted sex offender database from loitering around schools and parks, which is not illegal, because neither the law nor most of the offenders' probation conditions bar them from such places.

On the surface, this sounds like a great thing. But watch that justification.

That phase "sex offender" is the problem.

On this site, there are two cases showing how this can go way over the top. One was two parents who took pictures of their kids on a family vacation. Another was a performance artist with an unconventional faith (here and here). In both these cases, the issue was sex and kids.

I know men who have been accused and convicted of rape when they had nothing to do with it. I know women who have been tried for indecent exposure when they breast feed their babies. In some states, the sex offender label gets slapped on gays and lesbians. At least one prominent feminist author claims that all men are rapists.

Who gets to decide what is and is not a sex offense? Are all those convicted of sex crimes pedophiles?

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Posted: Wed - August 9, 2006 at 07:38 AM  Tag


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