I worked some hand sanitizer into my hands last week before writing a piece about California State Sen. Scott Wiener, who seems obsessed with making sure that anyone can have sex with anyone and not face legal consequences. He was speaking about SB 311, which was meant to address sexual violence in women's prisons, with its sponsors saying it was meant to ensure that transgender women (i.e., men) receive appropriate accommodations when incarcerated.
Wiener, of course, argued that a categorical ban on allowing male sex offenders in women’s prisons was “incredibly overbroad and discriminatory.” He also argued that the LGBTQ community was unfairly overrepresented in the state's sex offender registry, because laws about grown men targeting boys for sex were discriminatory against the LGBTQ community.
Robin Epley and Marcos Bretón have a piece in the Sacramento Bee on Monday that California Democrats are being treated as pedophiles just for doing the right thing.
California Democrats are being called pedophiles as they do the right thing | Opinion https://t.co/deZfsN8Yzz
— The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee_news) May 5, 2025
The Bee reports:
Sacramento-area Assemblymember Maggy Krell forced Assembly lawmakers to consider her sex-trafficking bill on the floor last week. It blew up into the biggest controversy Sacramento has seen in a while.
Assembly Democrats confronted a floor maneuver to force a vote on Krell’s bill to treat all solicitations of Californians under age 18 the same, as a way to battle sex trafficking. Democrats amended the bill over Krell’s objections.
"McClatchy California Opinion Editor Marcos Bretón and Sacramento Bee Opinion Writer Robin Epley debated the biggest story in Sacramento," the piece claims, although "debated" is a really strong word considering they both agreed with the Democrats.
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Bretón: But Krell said that this bill wasn’t about cracking down on young people on dates. It was about punishing people who pay for sex with 16 and 17-year-olds.
Epley: We need to understand how Krell and her bill’s co-author, Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, define “payment.” It’s not the stereotype of money changing hands through a car window or left on a bedside table. The bill sought to consider any financial gift that ends in sex “solicitation. For teens, ignorant of the law, that could mean anything from buying the prom tickets or spotting your date for some French fries. California doesn’t need to make actions like that a felony to catch real predators.
…
Epley: I think it’s the Republicans who are stifling discussion on this issue by using the scare tactic of claiming that Democrats are all perverts and pedophiles who want to abuse 16- and 17-year-old girls. It’s not true, it’s insulting and it distracts from the real issue at hand, so they can score cheap points — a textbook GOP play.
Democrats are listening to the experts. I recently spoke with a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Minouche Kandel, and she told me that laws like this have historically been used by law enforcement and prosecutors against communities of color and queer communities, particularly queer men of color.
OK, you spoke to an attorney at the ACLU — "the experts" — and came to the Wiener conclusion that "laws like this have historically been used by law enforcement against communities of color and queer communities." Yeah, you just totally lost me there.
Robin is a pedo sympathizer, and the bill is very clear about pursuing 16 or 17 year olds. Pedo sympathizers like Robin and @Scott_Wiener want to come up with any wild scenario to defend pedos while failing to protect 16 and 17-year-olds.
— Super Woke (@SuperWokedad) May 5, 2025
The Sacramento Bee thinks pedophilia is the right thing, smh
— Orb (@InfiniteOrb) May 5, 2025
To be fair, some of them are just enablers.
— Richard DeCamp (@richdecamp) May 5, 2025
Decriminalizing underage financial transactions for sex is never the right thing.
— PunishedNixon🚁🇺🇸 (@NixonPunished) May 5, 2025
So @sacbee_news is also full of pedos. Okay then. Thanks for letting us know.
— Adyana (@adyanalistens) May 5, 2025
“Is there anyone as disgusting and perverted as Scott Wiener and the California Democrats?”
— Chris McKeever 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@TheRealMcKeever) May 6, 2025
“Well, there’s the Sacramento Bee…”
49 states classify buying sex with 16- and 17-year-olds as a felony. The ONLY state that refuses to hold pedophiles, perverts, and predators accountable is democrat-controlled California.
— Weimdog (@weimdog) May 5, 2025
California really is something special in this regard. "Oh no, but the ACLU said queer black men would be targeted by the law."
This was some "debate" the two had. Why is it that people are calling California Democrats pedophiles? Well, because they're acting like pedophiles for one thing.
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