Submitted On: November 8, 1993 Please let me know if you think I need to change anything. NAMBLA replies to KRON lies! [Monday night, KRON aired the first in a two-part "Target 4" investigative report on NAMBLA. Here's a transcript of that report. The reporter is Greg Lyon so, if you followup, please change your attributions accordingly.] An organization dedicated to helping its members meet children and then molest them without getting caught holds its regular monthly meetings in a branch of the San Francisco Public Library. We're talking about children as young as three years old. 1) These statements are designed to be inflammatory. They are completely without any basis in fact. NAMBLA has been investigated by various police agencies, the US Postal Service, the FBI, and a Special Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate. Our meetings are open to anyone and if we were in fact engaged in helping our members molest children we all would have been arrested years ago. The Portrero Hill branch of the San Francisco Public Library on a Saturday afternoon: downstairs, children -- some with parents, some by themselves. And upstairs, this scene captured by our Target 4 hidden camera. This is the regular monthly meeting of NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. This is not a counseling session, not an attempt to help NAMBLA members control their lust for children. Quite the opposite. On this day the group discussed putting together a calendar of nude boys as a fundraiser. 2) The appeal to emotionality and fear is obvious here. KRON is attempting to create the image of sex crazed child molesters meeting just one floor away from innocent, vulnerable children. Yet in the more than two years that NAMBLA had been meeting in the library there was never any mention of any inappropriate behavior what-so-ever. (What is the reality here, and what is the appeal to hysteria?) 3) As far as the boy calendar is concerned, the fact is that the person who proposed the calendar was Mike Echols THE UNDERCOVER AGENT OF KRON. Mr. Echols was, at the time, a known fugitive from justice, who was subsequently captured by the police and is now in prison. 4) It should also be noted that the chapter rejected Mr. Echols proposal. And then there's this: the "NAMBLA Bulletin", published ten times a year. Now in here you'll find articles telling you where to meet kids, how to avoid getting caught, how to teach children to lie to their parents. 5) Yes, we do publish our Bulletin ten times a year. No, we do not have articles telling where to meet kids, how to avoid getting caught, and how to teach kids to lie to their parents. We do urge our members not to engage in any illegal activities. And we have exposed various governmental entrapment schemes when they have been brought to our attention. Well, is this just talk? Are these people really dangerous? We asked Kathy Baxter, director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Council. "It is a group, in my opinion, of men primarily who get together to network with one another on where to find young boys, how to pick them up, how to get them involved, and how to feel good about what you're doing." 6) NAMBLA believes that relationships between boys and men can be loving, supportive and beneficial to all concerned. We educate our members to be sensitive and responsible in their relationships. This would seem to be a better approach than the one currently in vogue in which boy lovers are told that they are evil, disturbed individuals who only want to hurt and take advantage of young people. (And who do you blame when this self-image is realized?) That opinion is shared by San Francisco police sergeant Tom Eisenman. He asked us to hide his face so he won't be recognized by the child molesters he investigates. "I don't believe they're harmless at all. I believe that, because of their meetings, children get molested. And, as long as that happens, it's a subject of attention for the San Francisco Police Department." 7) For a more objective perspective view on what goes on at a NAMBLA meeting I suggest you read Steve Hanson's guest editorial in the B.A.R. which can also be found in the QRD. So, the logical question is, how could this happen? Didn't the library know what was going on? And the surprising answer is yes, they have known for more than two years. Target 4 obtained this copy of the application that NAMBLA filled out to use the public meeting room back in August of 1989. And it says right on the face of it, "North American Man-Boy Love Association." So, how could the library allow this use of its public meeting rooms? 8) This hardly sounds like the secret, clandestine organization that the media would like you to believe that NAMBLA is. If NAMBLA were engaged in any illegal activity, where was police sergeant Eisenman for the past two years. Or is it possible that all this is a lot of KRON sweeps week hype? The library says that, legally, its hands are tied. It's an issue of intellectual freedom protected by court ruling. Assistant chief of branches Gloria Hansen: "No, as long as it's lawful, they fill out the form with the contact people, and it's a First Amendment issue. Anybody who wants to meet in the meeting room, as long as it's lawful activity." That First Amendment argument is a tough one The courts have consistently ruled that the First Amendment was designed to protect not the most hamless speech, but the most noxious speech. But there's another issue here. For more than two years, the library has kept silent about who was meeting in the room upstairs and the danger. We'll have that part of the story tomorrow on NewsCenter 4 at 6. We'll also show you what happened when we told neighborhood parents, and when we confronted that NAMBLA meeting. 9) Here is the crux of the matter. NAMBLA has been meeting openly for over two years in this public library without causing any problem what-so-ever. Neither KRON nor the police have any reason to deny us this meeting space. So, rather than accepting this fact and respecting our right to Free of Speech and Assembly, KRON resorts to inciting fear and hysteria among neighborhood parents. If they can do this to NAMBLA, who will be next? Remember Rev. Niemoeller! By the way, we've been asking NAMBLA for nearly two weeks now to come on-camera with us; so far they have not complied. 10) Would you have accepted an invitation from these folks? [Anchor Pete Wilson:] Have they published these calendars? Have they published instructions for -- 11) "Published"? It was their own undercover person who suggested the calendars, and the chapter rejected the idea! Now they suggest that not only was this idea discussed but that something was actually published. Watch out for the big lie! [Greg Lyon:] The calendar -- no, apparently not. That was a plan -- a planning session that they were talking about. The monthly bulletin, with the pictures of young boys, comes out -- 12) More insinuation. [Wilson:] Because then they would be discussing what would be an illegal act. 13) What illegal acts? If you only viewed this program on TV the impression that they would leave you with is that NAMBLA produces illegal pictures of young boys, i.e. Kiddie Porn, in our monthly Bulletin. This blatantly false impression is no accident. KRON's sole concern is to create a sensationalistic program to increase their advertising revenue. If this means that they have to distort the truth, well that's ok with them. If they deprive some group of their Constitutional rights well, that's ok too. And if they can get more viewers by terrifying unsuspecting parents, so much the better. [Lyon:] Yes. One of the questions is, isn't it conspiracy for people to get together to talk about an illegal act? Apparently not, according to San Francisco police. If they merely talk about the illegal act, no crime as occurred. . It's not until the act was committed that conspiracy occurs. [Wilson:] Thank you, Greg. More tomorrow. 14) This is not true. Conspiracy to commit a crime is illegal. If we actually did what KRON accused us of doing, helping our members molest children "as young as three years old", we would all have been busted long ago. This "report" is a lot of media hype, distortions and lies. When I first learned that this was being maintained in the QRD I was distressed that casual readers would accept this @#%&! as reality, and fail to see the real villain of the piece. Now I hope that this will serve as a lesson for others to be an educated consumer of information and not be simply accept what the media would like you to believe. The use of inflammatory propaganda to deprive unpopular minorities of their rights in not new. Those who refuse to learn the lessons of the past... In Liberation, Roy Roy Radow roy@panix.com ...rutgers!cmcl2!panix!roy North American Man/Boy Love Association -For a packet containing a sample Bulletin, publications list and membership information send $1.00 postage to: NAMBLA Info, Dept.RR, PO Box 174, Midtown Station, NYC NY 10018.