I don't think you are seeing the problem. Which is that far to many pro adult/child sexual advocates would like nothing more than to silence Ethan. It's not about letting both speak. It's that they want him gone.

The fact that he is countered so strongly should not be taken as a sign that he's trying to be "silenced." As long as he adheres to the rules explained in the FAQs, he will be allowed to post here. Heavy opposition is not indicative of attempts to silence. I believe many of us, including me, do not want him specifically gone, but to sometimes show interest in more aspects of GL than simply hitting us over the head with debate over this one issue, and not let us get to know him as a person. This causes him to come off as nothing more than a partisan talking point rather than a fully realized person with a wide range of interests and feelings about GL.

I would also like to add, if I may, that it's frankly a bit silly to accuse the pro-choicers of trying to silence the anti-choicers when the latter have huge numerical superiority outside our pink cyber-walls throughout every other medium and most other places in cyberspace, and they have worked very, very hard to silence and suppress both the pro-choice stance and any scientific study that appeared to validate it. This is why I have told you that an open-minded perspective needs to be maintained when issues of fairness are brought up.

To the point people on lifeline were genuinely asking if antis were still around and asking if working with them to unveil Ethan's identity would be possible.

Of course the lifeline mod stopped them when I protested it violated lifeline rules. But, still it's beyond wrong.

I in no way condone what you just described. And I don't think they should do things like that to anti-choicers simply because they have often done duplicitous things like that to pro-choicers. But the fact remains, they often have done such things, and this is why loudly anti-choice proponents like Ethan are met with suspicion and anxiety when they engage the greater MAP community. In the past, on now defunct boards like Open Hands that openly catered to the anti-choice stance, many anti-choicers there--including many who purported to be MAPs themselves (for the record, I believed some of them, but not others)--were quite open about working as both activists and vigilantes in cahoots with anti organizations like Absolute Zero and with John Walsh's National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as it was prior to the days when Chris Hanson largely took over from him, including many of them working to entrap suspected hebephiles in chat rooms. Examples of those included Twilight Sky, Shadowman/Scooby, John Doe (not to be confused with our own JD420), and Brian Castell. Moreover, there were more than a few anti-choice MAPs who used to post on BC that were discovered to be collecting personal information from the pro-choice posters he befriended and giving them all to the notorious and hateful anti vigilante Mike Echols (his actual name remains banned here for some reason). The best example of this was a guilt-ridden BLer who posted with the nick Mentor.

Again, I'm NOT saying that pro-choicers should do the same to anti-choicers (in fact, we need to keep our activities completely ethically sound), or that all anti-choicers should be assumed guilty of such activities unless proven innocent (quite the opposite, actually); but this is why they have such a poor track record of earning trust in the community with pro-choicers who've been a part of the scene for a long time. The attitude of suspicion given to many anti-choicers does not stem solely from the fact that pro-choicers dislike what they have to say, or that some of them are quite obnoxious with shoving their stance up our noses while discussing little else.

Also, please understand this: As has been said before, anti-choicers have several places outside of these boards where they can go--including to certain other MAP fora like Virped--where they pretty much never have to hear the pro-choice view coming from anyone. This is not the case for pro-choicers. Sometimes, they like to get away from the constant bombardments of vicious anti-choice sentiments that they hear or read very predominantly all over the place, and which is very upsetting and dispiriting on many levels due to its frequency. For our peace of mind, there are times we need a "green zone" of our own somewhere to get away from all of that, and predominantly pro-choice boards like this are among the few places we can go where anti-choice sentiments are not predominantly spewed. This is not to say that anti-choicers are not allowed here, or shouldn't be allowed to engage us with their views here, but if they get overly obnoxious and non-stop in bombarding us with these attitudes in boards like this, and rarely evince any interest in letting us get to know them as people in between their one-track diatribes, it needs to be expected that they are not going to endear themselves to the majority here. Invariably, they are going to ruffle many feathers, and will indeed run the risk of being "driven off" if they get particularly obnoxious with it.

In fact, some of them in the past have gotten so bad and "one-track" with it that they have actually entered the realm of spamming, which is against the rules here.

So in short, I think it stands to reason that it's not the anti-choicers who are a struggling ideological minority that needs to be listened to and heard more, because it's effectively impossible for this community to not be constantly subjected to their views almost anywhere we look. The reverse is not the case for anti-choicers, however; there are very few places other than here where they will see a hefty dose of pro-choice sentiments. It can thus be argued that it's the pro-choicers who need to be listened to and considered more, not the anti-choicers, who have countless venues for their rhetoric to be predominantly, if not solely, heard. So again, my friend, please consider keeping a proper perspective when making these complaints on behalf of anti-choicers.

Like I said it seems your asking me to state names. In which case it could start getting very ugly. As 4 prominent members of this board and community have told other members essentially fuck you and usually much ruder.

I'm not asking you to name names, and I don't want any past disputes you had with others getting re-hashed. The "for instances" you gave me were sufficient.

What you described was truly not acceptable, and had I been around when they occurred, I would have intervened in the capacity of a mod. I'm not certain why the other mods didn't do the same, unless none of them were on hand when those things initially happened (we all do have busy lives outside of here; this is a fact, not an excuse). If this did go on, then it almost certainly happened when I was on hiatus.

I just want to know. If Ethan had said fuck you and fuck your work and then claimed that that actually wasn't a personal attack. Would you buy that bullshit?

I wouldn't have "bought" that if anyone said it, and saying "fuck you" certainly is a personal attack and a blatant flame. In fact, I've censured some posters for that myself. As mods, we know it's important for us not to overlook infractions of the rules by anyone simply because we happen to like them.

You said he supports current child porn laws (in a statement far harsher than that as you were using it to try to prove how insane Ethan was or something) when just two days earlier Ethan had said he advocated getting rid of current child porn laws that made simple possession illegal.

I only hope that another member here lied to you about Ethan saying that and you didn't make it up yourself. Cause you were one of the posters I respected a lot and that day I lost a lot of respect for you as you joined an endless stream of posters here making up lies about what they "thought" Ethan believed rather than actually being able to debate him on what he actually does believe.

Are you sure this isn't a misunderstanding on your part? Because as I noted to you elsewhere in this thread when you brought it up, I've been well aware for a while that Ethan is not against simple viewing or possession of CP imagery or text. I've been on this board for nearly 15 years now, and while I've earned a rep in the past by some as being a blowhard, long-winded, an opinionated jerk, and potentially volatile, I've never had anything remotely like a rep for being a chronic liar or one who would engage in such a thing against an opponent.

-Also the search function is broken. So yes, asking me to search through several thousand posts manually is actually too much.-

This I understand, and like I said, the examples you provided for me from memory without naming specific names was sufficient. Thank you for that.