The Penn State Tragedy - How One Gay Man Destroyed a Great University

I never thought of it that way.

The gay priests did great damage to the Catholic church.

Have there been cases where hetrosexuals have done that kind of damage to institutions with their sexual behavior?

Aside from Bill Clinton. Who was a liberal.

This headline registers on the Red Side of the AMG Hyperbole Meter.

I disagree too. Penn State was not ruined by one man. Anyplace that would tolerate such behavior is as guilty as Sandusky. If I was a student there, you can bet I would leave. If I had a degree from there, you can bet I would be ashamed of it. I hope the place collapses due to this, but my guess is that it will be quickly forgotten, for the same reasons the behavior was tolerated in the first place. Their precious athletic programs were and are more important to many people than the victims of that animal!

Would it have been any different if the children sandusky molested had been little girls and they covered it up?
Not defending gays.....It seems to me the real problem is the cover up of the crimes not the sexual orientation.

Penn State was not ruined by one man. Anyplace that would tolerate such behavior is as guilty as Sandusky.

It was one man, and others tolerating his behavior.

I agree, I just mean that while only one man committed the original crime, an entire administration allowed it to happen. Any place whose culture tolerates such abhorrent behavior was broken in the first place. If child rape is allowed, I can only imagine what else was considered normal.

You'd think this story would have been about how Sandusky was beaten to death by the witness when he was discovered.

Don't you think an attitude of extreme dedication to political correctness played a role? "Hey, he's gay, let him alone. The last thing we want to be labeled is homophobes". Of course it played a role. Pushed by the gay lobby and liberal media. All in the name of "justice, fairness, and equality".

It's not right to say anything bad about Jerry Sandusky. Protected class, and all......

Gays almost destroyed the Catholic Church from within, too. Intentional?? You decide.

There is a difference between being gay and being a pedophile. While I'm not supportive of same-sex marriage for a variety of reasons, it is unreasonable to claim that Sandusky was "gay" and that's the root of the problem.

Sandusky, and other pedophiles, are sexually attracted to CHILDREN. Some pedophiles are attracted to children of their own gender; some are attracted to children of the other gender.

Sandusky, and other pedophiles, are sexually attracted to CHILDREN.

Sandusky and the gay priests were attracted to boys, adolecent boys.

To say "It would be the same story if they were girls" is meaningless. They weren't girls.

This headline and following comments are a sad commentary to where AMG has gone.

This sad situation was allowed to continue to fester for years because..........the highly acclaimed Penn State football program was more important to Penn State football teams, the Penn State athletic department, the Penn State student body, the Penn State Boosters who love a winning team.....at any cost as it turned out, and on and on. It surely was not just the fault of one man, gay, straight or whatever.

My dad, a long time educator, with a Masters from the Univ of Maine, was very distressed at the inordinate attention that winning athletic teams were bringing to the University........and all that would be tolerated in order to maintain these winning teams.

All kinds of expensive facilities have been built right here in Maine, to house these winning programs.

When is the last time Harold Alfond donated seveal million dollars to the Mechanical Engineering department and so on?

Many of us have forgotten that the mission of a institute of higher learning......is an educational one......not big time sports entertainment.

Supporting big time athletic programs at the University level has a cost. Unfortnately more than a few children paid some of that cost at Penn State!

WC

Sandusky and the gay priests were attracted to boys, adolecent boys.

To say "It would be the same story if they were girls" is meaningless. They weren't girls.

Nobody is saying it would be the same story. The point is that pedophiles are pedophiles. There are male pedophiles who are attracted to boys; there are male pedophiles attracted to girls, and there are female pedophiles attracted to boys and female pedophiles attracted to girls.

The issue here isn't "gay." The issue is that Sandusky was a pedophile, and Penn State both knew it and covered it up, which let his reprehensible behavior continue.

To be more specific, the institution approved of and tolerated Sandusky's crimes to the point that it became a tradition.

woodcanoe and eagleisland, thank you for comments that were needed here. Little more has to be said.

I can't think of a parallel where the victims were girls. A very few Priests and Sandusky molested boys many of whom were teenagers. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children - which many of these victims were not. Maybe it is more gay than pedophilia.
I do think that the gay culture gets a pass when these crimes against children are mislabeled.

You can't, Green-ee? Google is your friend. Look it up. There are ample cases of male teachers diddling barely-pubescent girls, and there are ample cases of female teachers diddling young teenage boys.

The fact is this: those with a prediliction for sexual interest in kids and young teens tend to go where the bait is - and where their positions of power and authority give a degree of safety to their actions.

You noted that pedophilia is about prepubescents, and many of Sandusky's victims were not. You are correct in this point; there is a less-well-known but equally disturbing disorder called hebephilia, in which the sexual attraction is towards early post-pubescent kids. Again, this attraction can cross sexual boundaries - and, indeed, this is where women are more likely to get into the act.

I WILL agree with your point that gay culture tends to get a pass when crimes against children are mislabeled. But both genders are abused, and those who abuse children do so for other reasons than homosexuality - they are inappropriately attracted to the young and weak.

To me, gay or straight is not the issue here. A sicko molested kids. That is bad enough, but then it was covered up and allowed to continue for the sake of a damn game. Where are our priorities? I'd like to see the Paterno statue thrown in a dump and Sandusky never get out of jail, and I would be happy to see Penn State close its doors in shame.

For what it's worth, from wikipedia... the John Jay report on Priest abuse of children found that 81% of the victims were male (100% of the Priests were male). I use Priests because unlike teachers, coaches, so on, they're all male. In this study, 19% of the victims were female. link: http://tinyurl.com/8w4srd
It's a shame what these Priests did to the kids, and it's a shame what they did to the Catholic Church.

"This headline and following comments are a sad commentary to where AMG has gone."

Why? Because on AMG people can discuss topics that other places would consider "taboo"?

Greene-ee
I would say the equal if not greater shame is how it was covered up/ignored by officials and the what for of that coverup!

Sockeye I guess I need some guidance where has AMG gone !

Really the classification of the offender doe not really matter what he did does and the affect on those victims!

JUst one sick individual is all that is needed to know!

In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal — and a report that said school officials hid accusations against him — the school is bracing for civil lawsuits and perhaps NCAA sanctions.

Article

This headline and following comments are a sad commentary to where AMG has gone.

Sockeye, like the people at Penn State, would rather stick his head in the sand than talk about the real issues.

When you ask "who would let something like this happen?" you usually don't have to look very far to find someone who WOULD let it happen.

Blaming pedophilia on homosexuality is like blaming guns for murder.

lol.

It's like blaming penises for rape!

Penises don't rape people - rapists do!

Spoons caused Rosie O'Donnell to get fat.

Just for the sake of argument....Call sandusky a homosexual child molester.... isn't the real problem the institutional cover up of the crime? Isn't the real issue that Penn state's standing as an athletic powerhouse was more important than doing the right thing?
I think that the janitor who saw sandusky molesting the youth and was terrified to report it to the police speaks volumes. You really have to ask yourself how far has our culture fallen when a grown man sees an act of criminal sexual assault and is to fearful to report it.....Homo sexual ,or pedophile a criminal act was committed against a minor and it was covered up.They all should be swinging from a tree......

Well said Johnw

......."isn't the real problem the institutional cover up of the crime? Isn't the real issue that Penn state's standing as an athletic powerhouse was more important than doing the right thing?"......

The sanctity of Penn State football had reached such a pinnacle that ignoring the scarring of the lives of numerous young people, by this vile predator, was better than going public with any kind of charge or story that might reflect badly on the mighty Penn State football program!

I would tie Sandusky to a tree and burn him alive, and throw the statue of Joe Paterno on top of it and hope it melted down to nothing. Sandusky does not belong to the human race, after all he has done.

We have zero tolerance for child abusers in this house!

No pity on his soul whatsoever!

WC

I've argued several times that sports should not be part of an educational institution's mission, from grade school on up, precisely because it becomes the tail that wags the dog, as happened at Penn. How often have reasonable and needed school budget cutbacks been refused because the school boards quickly raise the bugaboo of cutting the football/basketball/baseball teams? How often have members of the high school or college football team gotten a pass on behavior that would send their non-sports peers to court or jail? Why should they get special housing, special meals, special scholarships, and special treatment academically?

Europe keeps sports and education separate. I would love to see that concept here.