Following theĪrrest of 24 men in Revere, Massachusetts, for consensual sex withīoys (mostly teenagers), the Boston-Boise Committee was formed. Two widely publicized incidents in December 1977. Most child molestation is by heterosexualīoy-lovers began to organize for the first time, in response to The gay movement went into a defensive mode. Man/boy love represented a minority phenomenon within the gay The gay movement off guard: It was unprepared to make an intelligent rebuttal. This clever propaganda ploy not only deftly exploited the public's ignorance about homosexuality, but also caught Suggestions that gay men who loved boys were in reality exploitingĪnd abusing them. Simultaneously, a new hysteria about "kiddie porn" arose, fedīy the political right and the feminist movement, with unmistakable Link: the widespread belief that gay men seduce young boys and Anita Bryant began to articulate the mounting backlash to gay liberation by zeroing in on a perceived weak
In 1977, the issue of sex between adults and minors movedĪbruptly to center stage. Shared the view that the state had no business regulating sex between consenting partners, whatever their age. Group, also favored abolishing the age of consent. The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition, a cross-Canada Held at the Church of the Beloved Disciple on April 4, the forum brought together a "panel of pederasts" to speak on the topic "Of Men and Boys: Pederasty and the Age of Consent."
In 1976 GAA became the first gay group in New York - and probably in the country - to sponsor a public forum on man/boy love. This was never a focus of the group's activities. Liberation Front and a prototype activist group founded in December 1969, opposed legal restrictions on sex based on age, although New York's Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), successor to the Gay According to Man/boy love and the American gay movement Journal of Homosexuality (a peer-reviewed journal) volume 20, issues1-2, pages 251-274 (1991):įirstly, it is stated that author David Thorstad was the president of "New York's Gay Activists Alliance" and "a founding member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and of New York's Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights (CLGR)".