In what appeared to be a moment of misspeaking, anti-LGBTQ+ Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) said in a recent congressional speech, “How about we all come together and say ‘Let’s stop attacking pedophiles’?”
During a congressional hearing on the current president’s actions addressing crime in cities — which seems mostly to be insulting large city mayors, ignoring higher-crime areas in red states, and then sending in armed federal officers against the mayors’ wishes — Sen. Cruz referred to Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) plea for Democrats and Republicans to “come together and have bipartisan agreement.”
“I think that’s a great idea. We should have bipartisan agreement,” Cruz said. “How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop murder’? How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop rape’? How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop attacking pedophiles’?”
I’m so glad documentaries like that exist. It was documentaries like the one you mentioned that I stumbled across and that made me realize that “locking up all the pedophile monsters” was a narrative that would harm my children, not protect them. I can barely imagine how lonely and cruel such a fate must be and the bare minimum we can do as a society is to offer the help, support, and compassion to these people.