Andrew Gross
February 27, 2023
For the past six years intactivists have been desperate to attack Circumcision Choice and myself. They've created copycat groups and pages on social media, even going so far as to create a fake Reddit account to defame me. They've threatened to harass me by contacting my employer. They've tried to embarrass me by sending private messages to my family..
A recent smear involves a screenshot of a post I made several years ago in a debate group. The purpose of the debate group was to debate. Obviously you need controversial topics; if everyone were to agree, there would be nothing to debate.
I saw an article reporting a law enforcement officer's opinion that pedophiles shouldn't face criminal charges for simply viewing child porn. Constable Simon Bailey, Britain's top child protection cop, said that offenders should face jail time only if they pose a physical threat to children. I shared the article in the group, writing: "Should child porn be decriminalized? Or should it continue to be a crime?" I thought that perhaps another member of the thousands in the group might agree with Bailey; then we could debate it. To the best of my recollection, no one commented on the post.
It's clear that a member of the group took a screenshot of my post and shared it with other intactivists. Since then they have used the screenshot to imply falsely that I agreed with Bailey and would support the decriminalization of child porn viewing.
Nothing could be further from the truth! My position is - and always has been - that viewing child porn is a crime worthy of prison time. Every download or view of such images increases a demand for the sexual exploitation of children.
I often link to opinions with which I disagree on my own Facebook page for various reasons, such as to stimulate discussion. Here at Circumcision Choice we may post links to anti-circumcision articles.
Posting a link, especially in a debate group, in no way indicates that I support the position expressed in the headline. If instead I had posted an article about intactivists and asked - "Should infant circumcision be banned? Or should parents continue to have a choice?" - no reasonable person would assume that I had suddenly changed my position on the subject.
This smear shows how low intactivists will go. When they can't refute the information Circumcision Choice provides, they take an old post completely out of context in a pathetic attempt to defame me or anyone else who dares to disagree with them.