by Travis Mateer
Are you a victim of sexual violence? Do you have kids? And have you ever worked in a field where you have more contact with sexual predators than the average person? If you answered NO to all three questions, you might be susceptible to the notion that “grooming” is anything other than a tactic used by sexual predators to lower the defenses of their targets.
While I have NOT experienced sexual violence, I DO have kids, and I have definitely worked in a field (social services) that put me in contact with plenty of sexual predators. Usually it was the clients I was serving, but sometimes it was a psychologist who worked with vulnerable populations.
A Missoula psychologist has been charged with one count of sexual abuse of children, for allegedly possessing child porn.
Dr. Jay Palmatier faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. According to court documents, investigators were able to trace a child porn image to an email address belonging to Palmatier.
It’s curious that an online search for an image of Jay Palmatier turns up NOTHING. I remember the arrest being kept pretty quiet at the time, but to have NO image of being booked in the county jail is a definite nod from the criminal justice system that SOME offenders will get a special kind of protection from community backlash.
The politicization of the tactic known as “grooming” is ONLY happening right now because conservatives are applying the word to drag queens, but here’s the ugly reality: grooming is done by ALL KINDS of sexual predators, and is situationally unique to the individual, since factors like social status and opportunity are important to how the tactic is deployed.
The fact that grooming is a tactic seems to be getting lost in the social upheaval being pushed on communities that might not be ready for “Drag Queen Story Hour” coming to minors. The question of age-appropriate material is being handled where I currently have my art studio by the proprietor putting an age restriction on the drag show happening, which I applaud.
I don’t know the exact thinking behind the AGES 18 AND UP designation for the “Holiday Drag Show”, but fear of riling up opposition very well might be a motivating factor.
Is spreading fear the motivation behind Darrel Ehrlick’s recent garbage op-ed at Daily Montanan, garbage that includes this? From the link:
Colorado Springs isn’t so far away. Not by mileage and not by attitude.
What happened there – God forbid – could happen here. And this is not just pearl clutching by some scared snowflake. I saw it firsthand.
What did Ehrlick see first hand? Did he see the predictable reaction to inviting adults who choose to sexualize themselves in particular ways to read to school children? Here is Ehrlick’s harrowing account of what he saw:
When I covered the “Drag Queen Story Hour” at ZooMontana in Billings in June, I ignored plenty of the heckling and some of the worst comments directed at the LGBTQ community, figuring that showcasing the worst of the sentiments of protesters at the event tarred all of them with the same hateful brush, and that those horrible-but-deeply-held beliefs didn’t need amplification. It’s not novel to say that drag queens are pedophiles. It’s a tired talking point that continues to be conjured up as a scare tactic, despite the overwhelming research that drag queens are not molesters.
The danger for Billings – and really all of Montana – is that we believe a Colorado-style shooting could not happen here. Or even worse, we don’t believe that the protesters who lined the entrance and exit to the Zoo during the story hour give license to those who might believe they can treat the LGBTQ community as citizens to be mocked, despised or killed.
In case you’re not afraid, the image at the Daily Montanan for this op-ed let’s you know that these dangerous protestors have GROOMING on their mind. How terrible!
In case you’re wondering about the 1st amendment, don’t worry, Darrell Ehrlick is totally down with the 1st amendment, but it’s not a “vaccine” against criticism, he says. No, I’m serious, the guy who wrote this bullshit last year about masks (because the little ones couldn’t get their jabs yet) is now inserting the word VACCINE into his commentary fear porn (emphasis mine):
I am happy to stand up for our First Amendment, and to welcome their protest as part of the civic discourse and discussion. I would defend their right to be there, to make the signs, whatever the message. However, exercising the First Amendment is not a vaccine against criticism or responsibility. Those thoughts and ideas writ large on posters suggest deeply held beliefs in our communities across Montana.
Huh? Did the spike proteins pass this guy’s blood/brain barrier? Also, if conservatives are new to the notion of “grooming”, how can this new concept suggest a deeply held belief?
To further exemplify how the media is constructing a false narrative around the conservative use of the word grooming, here’s a Vox article from earlier this year, titled The right’s moral panic over “grooming” invokes age-old homophobia. From the link (emphasis mine):
A renewed moral panic, stoked by the far right and trickling into mainstream conservatism, has come on the heels of an abrupt shift in the fight for gay rights in America. Following the recent passage of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and a wave of other homophobic and transphobic legislation throughout the country, current right-wing rhetoric has focused on accusations of “grooming.” The term — which describes the actions an adult takes to make a child vulnerable to sexual abuse — is taking on a conspiracy-theory tone as conservatives use it to imply that the LGBTQ community, their allies, and liberals more generally are pedophiles or pedophile-enablers.
Attempting to reframe the controversial Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s press secretary Christina Pushaw described it as “the Anti-Grooming Bill” in early March, tweeting that if you’re against it, “you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.” Those familiar with QAnon will recognize this bizarre leap in logic. Pushaw adopted language that QAnon conspiracy theory believers and the related #SaveTheChildren crusaders have used to imply that liberals are, if not pedophiles themselves, advocates of pedophilia.
Getting back to Ehrlick’s op-ed, I’m going to shift from criticism to agreement in one sense: Montana conservatives should tread cautiously toward this front of the culture war, considering the shaky ground many churches have when it comes to protecting their own congregations from predators. That said, this op-ed is still mostly trash, and it concludes like this:
Lawmakers preparing to come back to Helena in just a little more than a month have an opportunity to send a different message. Sexuality and gender doesn’t have to be a partisan issue.
I can hope the events of Colorado Springs afford these same lawmakers who have a supermajority the opportunity of reconsideration: The notion that maybe our laws, our rhetoric and positions were too extreme and went too far.
Montana has struggled mightily to tell the world that we’re open for business. The governor has championed a campaign that asks Montana kids who left for college and careers to come back home.
Now, we need to send the message that there’s plenty of room in the state for all types of people, or run the risk of becoming a haven for bigots.
Trust me, Colorado Springs is a lot closer than we’d like to think.
Trust? Yeah, I don’t think so, Darrell, but thanks for the garbage op-ed anyway. It’s instructive to see what woke propagandists are willing to commit to print to push an agenda of cultural transformation.
The reason I feel comfortable making the above assertion about Ehrlick’s agenda-driven outrage over the shooting in Colorado Springs is because of another shooting that happened less than 48 hours later, at a Virginia Walmart.
Why did this shooting drop from the headlines faster than brands dropping Kanye West? Is it because the dynamics of skin color and forewarning don’t serve a relevant cultural agenda?
When you see something concerning, you’re supposed to say something, right? That’s what a Walmart employee did more than two months before Bing went on his rampage, but the warnings were ignored. From the link:
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, a Walmart employee accused the company of being negligent by continuing to employ suspected shooter Andre Bing despite a written complaint the employee submitted about Bing’s alleged disturbing behavior more than two months before the shooting.
Donya Prioleau, an employee who had worked at Walmart for more than a year and was in the room during the shooting, alleged Walmart knew or should have known about Bing’s “violent propensities” and accused the company of failing to “enact any preventative measures to keep Walmart customers and employees safe,” according to the suit.
Darrell Ehrlick didn’t see a tragedy in Colorado Springs; he saw an opportunity to serve a political agenda, and he took it. Actually keeping communities safe is an entirely different creature because the risks aren’t what the propaganda and the stereotypes are telling you they are.
For a hint on what I’ll be writing about next week, here’s a screenshot of a film I started watching last night that’s more relevant now than ever, even for those of us in Big Sky country.
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Thanks for reading!