In August 2024, an allegation began to circulate in Telegram channels that the Democratic candidate for US Vice President had declared support for pedophilia and its decriminalization. We checked whether these publications are true.
On August 14, 2024, Russian Telegram channels wrote: “The US will legalize pedophilia if Kamala Harris wins the election.” The authors of the posts clarified that the main initiator of this decision is her running mate in the election race, Tim Walz. Channels talked about thisPutin on Telegram"(233,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Bottle"(179,000), "Ostashko! Important"(123,000), etc. According to the TGStat service, similar posts on Telegram on August 14 alone received a total of more than 1.5 million views. Mentions of this news appeared in other social networks, and also in some Russian And Belarusian Media.
Authors of most posts about the possible legalization of pedophilia in the USA refer to the American news site The People’s Voice and attached a screenshot of the publication with the headline “Kamala Harris promises to “decriminalize pedophilia” if she wins the presidential election.” Such article was actually published on August 13, 2024. The text itself never mentions Harris or her position on the issue under discussion; it refers exclusively to Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz. It is alleged that last year he allegedly supported the decriminalization of pedophilia in his state, and also signed a law calling adult attraction to children a legal sexual orientation.
In May 2023, Walz actually approved law Take Pride Act, which enshrined LGBTQ+ rights in Minnesota human rights law. However, contrary to the authors of the article, the Take Pride Act does not protect pedophiles from discrimination and criminal punishment. Under state law, sexual intercourse between an adult and a minor counts a serious crime and is punishable by imprisonment for a term of up to 30 years.
Speculation arose because the bill's original language stated: "Sexual orientation does not include physical or sexual attraction to children by an adult." But during the consideration of the document, this line was crossed out, and Governor Walz signed the law without it. Critics interpreted getting rid of the phrase as recognizing pedophilia as a type of sexual orientation and suggesting that it would protect pedophiles before the law, since in Minnesota prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In fact, the line about adult attraction to children was crossed out because legislators considered such a clarification irrelevant. IN comments The amendments state that sexual orientation concerns only attraction to people of a certain sex or gender and does not affect age in any way. This interpretation of this term support and American lawyers. “I am not aware of any cases in which a court has used the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation to protect pedophiles from criminal prosecution,” stated in a PolitiFact commentary, New York Law School professor Arthur Leonard, who specializes in LGBTQ+ rights.
To eliminate the possibility of misinterpretation of the law, a clause about sexual attraction to minors was still included added in the text of the Take Pride Act, but not in the definition of sexual orientation, but in the “Exceptions” section: “Physical or sexual affection for children by an adult is not protected under this chapter.” The amendment was unanimous accepted Minnesota House of Representatives April 26, 2023 Walz signed law May 24.
The authors of many viral publications used the terms “decriminalization” and “legalization” as synonyms, but they have fundamentally different meanings. Decriminalization - this is the transfer of criminal acts to the category of administrative or disciplinary, but still illegal. For example, in 2017, domestic violence was decriminalized in Russia: citizens who beat their loved ones for the first time, since then threatens not a prison sentence, but a fine in the amount of 5,000 to 30,000 rubles, administrative arrest or compulsory labor. Legalization is the process of turning the illegal into the legal; refusal of criminal and administrative prosecution. So, in the Russian Federation in 2022 legalized so-called parallel import, that is, the importation of goods into the country without the permission of the trademark owner. Previously, these actions were considered smuggling and were prohibited by law.
This is not the first time that pro-Kremlin channels have spread false claims from The People's Voice, which previously operated under the names NewsPunch and Your News Wire. Back in 2018, the Poynter Institute turned on this resource is one of the most active distributors of fakes and conspiracy theories on the English-language Internet. “Verified” has more than once refuted false information published by The People’s Voice, for example, about the WEF call allow marriages with animals and about expensive purchases First Lady of Ukraine Elena Zelenskaya.
At the same time, Russian-speaking bloggers, apparently, added some details themselves to posts about Walz, because they are absent from The People’s Voice article. In particular, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels claim that Walz is a transgender who publicly supported relaxations against pedophiles. “Verified” was unable to find confirmation of both of these statements in open sources.
Thus, reports that Walz supports the decriminalization or legalization of pedophilia in the United States are based on a misinterpretation of the Minnesota law passed in 2023.
Cover photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Read on the topic:
- PolitiFact. Minnesota bill does not create a protected class for child sex offenders
- The Hollywood Reporter. L.A. Alt-Media Agitator (Not Breitbart) Clashes With Google, Snopes
- D.W. Tim Walz: what is known about the candidate for US Vice President
- Is it true that the WEF ordered governments around the world to punish citizens for reading fake news on the Internet?
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