American sex-paranoid Conservatism going way too far now
kenny olav
Posts: 3,319
Unbelievable! Check out this story:
Arizona couple sues Walmart after being accused of sexual abuse over kids' bath-time photos
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, September 18th 2009, 9:15 AM
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... z0RkG8fCQ9
PHOENIX - An Arizona couple accused of sexual abuse after taking bath-time photos of their children and then trying to have them developed at Walmart are suing the state and the retail giant.
Lisa and Anthony "A.J." Demaree's three young daughters were taken away by Arizona Child Protective Services last fall when a Walmart employee found partially nude pictures of the girls on a camera memory stick taken to the store for processing, according to the suit.
The Peoria couple's attorney said Walmart turned the photos over to police and the Demarees were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn't regain custody for a month while the state investigated.
Neither parent was charged with sexual abuse and they regained custody of their children — then ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5 — but the Demarees claim the incident inflicted lasting harm.
The couple is seeking undetermined monetary damages from both Walmart and the state and have requested a jury trial.
Richard Treon, the lawyer for the Demarees, said the images of the girls were part of a group of 144 photographs taken mostly during the family's vacation in San Diego.
There were seven to eight bath- and playtime photos of the girls that showed a "portion or outline or genitalia."
"There was nothing sexual about it," Treon said. "This is a parent's worst nightmare."
One lawsuit names Arizona, Peoria and the state Attorney General's Office as defendants, claiming that employees from each defamed them by telling friends, family members and co-workers that they had "sexually abused" their children by taking pornographic pictures of them.
A second lawsuit, naming Walmart as the defendant, says the company is at fault for not telling Anthony Demaree that it had an "unsuitable print policy" and could decide to turn any photos over to law enforcement.
Calls to Arkansas-based Walmart and officials from Peoria and Arizona seeking comment on the suits were not immediately returned Thursday.
This should NEVER have happened. What has happened to us? When I was a little kid, there were a ton of pics of me in the bath tub naked with my willy hanging out. There's pictures of me, my sisters and my cousins running around the back yard of my grandma's cottage, all of us naked... haha... who cares? We were all very little. These kids are aged 1 1/2, 4 and 5 - if you see something sexually abusive about pictures showing a "portion or outline or genitalia" on these kids, who were just playing in the bath tub, YOU are the pervert. Wal-Mart is the pervert. The state of Arizona is the pervert. I CANNOT BELIEVE this family was put through this.
My mother's family lives in Norway, and one year at Christmas, she got a calendar from my aunt, and for each month, there was a picture of various family members. A few of the pictures were of my little cousins, and they were splashing around in the river completely naked. The older kids in the pictures were about 8 or 9. We just laughed at it, and thought "OK, well, we can never display this calendar in the house, because some people would freak out". And that's sad... it just shows the difference between an enlightened, chilled-out country like Norway, and our backward, paranoid country that almost put Sarah Palin in the White House.
Hatred and fear of nudity leads to violence... that's a fact. Consider countries like Iran and Afghanistan. The way things are now... you can't even take naked pictures of your babies. In Europe, women can breastfeed in public, and no one notices... because it's nothing to notice! When Americans sexualize such things, it's due to a collective mind-fucking, and I'm not entirely sure what the origins of that are. Meanwhile, we dress our young girls up like sluts for Halloween.... makes no fucking sense. Everything is backwards here.
Arizona couple sues Walmart after being accused of sexual abuse over kids' bath-time photos
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Friday, September 18th 2009, 9:15 AM
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... z0RkG8fCQ9
PHOENIX - An Arizona couple accused of sexual abuse after taking bath-time photos of their children and then trying to have them developed at Walmart are suing the state and the retail giant.
Lisa and Anthony "A.J." Demaree's three young daughters were taken away by Arizona Child Protective Services last fall when a Walmart employee found partially nude pictures of the girls on a camera memory stick taken to the store for processing, according to the suit.
The Peoria couple's attorney said Walmart turned the photos over to police and the Demarees were not allowed to see their children for several days and didn't regain custody for a month while the state investigated.
Neither parent was charged with sexual abuse and they regained custody of their children — then ages 1 1/2, 4 and 5 — but the Demarees claim the incident inflicted lasting harm.
The couple is seeking undetermined monetary damages from both Walmart and the state and have requested a jury trial.
Richard Treon, the lawyer for the Demarees, said the images of the girls were part of a group of 144 photographs taken mostly during the family's vacation in San Diego.
There were seven to eight bath- and playtime photos of the girls that showed a "portion or outline or genitalia."
"There was nothing sexual about it," Treon said. "This is a parent's worst nightmare."
One lawsuit names Arizona, Peoria and the state Attorney General's Office as defendants, claiming that employees from each defamed them by telling friends, family members and co-workers that they had "sexually abused" their children by taking pornographic pictures of them.
A second lawsuit, naming Walmart as the defendant, says the company is at fault for not telling Anthony Demaree that it had an "unsuitable print policy" and could decide to turn any photos over to law enforcement.
Calls to Arkansas-based Walmart and officials from Peoria and Arizona seeking comment on the suits were not immediately returned Thursday.
This should NEVER have happened. What has happened to us? When I was a little kid, there were a ton of pics of me in the bath tub naked with my willy hanging out. There's pictures of me, my sisters and my cousins running around the back yard of my grandma's cottage, all of us naked... haha... who cares? We were all very little. These kids are aged 1 1/2, 4 and 5 - if you see something sexually abusive about pictures showing a "portion or outline or genitalia" on these kids, who were just playing in the bath tub, YOU are the pervert. Wal-Mart is the pervert. The state of Arizona is the pervert. I CANNOT BELIEVE this family was put through this.
My mother's family lives in Norway, and one year at Christmas, she got a calendar from my aunt, and for each month, there was a picture of various family members. A few of the pictures were of my little cousins, and they were splashing around in the river completely naked. The older kids in the pictures were about 8 or 9. We just laughed at it, and thought "OK, well, we can never display this calendar in the house, because some people would freak out". And that's sad... it just shows the difference between an enlightened, chilled-out country like Norway, and our backward, paranoid country that almost put Sarah Palin in the White House.
Hatred and fear of nudity leads to violence... that's a fact. Consider countries like Iran and Afghanistan. The way things are now... you can't even take naked pictures of your babies. In Europe, women can breastfeed in public, and no one notices... because it's nothing to notice! When Americans sexualize such things, it's due to a collective mind-fucking, and I'm not entirely sure what the origins of that are. Meanwhile, we dress our young girls up like sluts for Halloween.... makes no fucking sense. Everything is backwards here.
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I feel bad for those parents.
I remember last christmas my mother got my (then 11 month old) son a little bathrobe/slipper set... after a bath one night we put it on him to take some pictures to send to her.
We did it with our digital camera, but some of the shots showed much more than we were planning
Part of the settlement should include the chance to punch the walmart employees who called the cops.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
I'd disagree with that... it's just that the tiny percent of extremists seem to always get the media attention.
Even this story, there are 3000+ wal mart stores in the US, and by going by the photo counters that I've seen, they have to process hundreds or thousands of pictures at each store every day... and this one story gets the media attention.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
this opinion is not based on one incident ... we can discuss a plethora of incidents ... as long as god is used to form decisions - i see it getting worse ...
even in this example ... it's not just one employee ... it's one employee plus a willing store manager plus a willing police department followed by a willing childrens aid society ... do you know how many organizations and people this went through? ... ridiculous ...
"With our thoughts we make the world"
This kind of thing happens over here. There's not much trust these days. In a way I can understand, too many cases of child abuse have gone undetected over the years, Social Workers have had a good hammering over here - rightly so in many cases. I do think this has led to overcautiousness in perhaps the wrong areas.
I agree that case was completely ridiculous, I would imagine having your kids taken off you would be absolutely horrendous!
Thanks for the different perspective... I can't imagine the pictures that those places see. My initial reaction has been soften a bit... also keeping in mind that a lawsuit isn't the best place to find unbiased facts about a situation.
We are all speculating since we haven't seen the pictures, but for the police to take this sort of action, I would think that there maybe "something" a little off about the pictures or the cops were just horrible at their jobs. Nobody wants to see kids abused, but to take custody away from the parents is a BIG step to take from law enforcement.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
I think if there was something more than just nudity in these bathtime photos, the story would have reported it. I think we've just gotten to a point where no one trusts anyone and everyone suspects the worst... and I guess a large part of it is that there ARE a lot of child molesters out there. There ARE reasons to be concerned, but it gets taken too far. I think all of this comes from the same source.... fear of the human body, and of sexuality... which warps a lot of minds, and creates sexual perversion, whether it's an unnatural contempt for nakedness, or, in some cases, violent sexual predators. Religion is the main source of these fears. Didn't necessarily want to bring religion into this discussion, but what else explains it?
This is brilliant.... I just found this map which shows what counties in California have the highest percentages of sex offenders:
http://www.sacbee.com/1098/story/2151478.html
The liberal counties have the lowest #, and the conservative counties have the highest #! SAYS IT ALL!!!
Your take on that map is a bit misleading...it's more along the lines of population density. Not whether the county is liberal or conservative. The areas with yellow and red have some places where you can get pretty far into the middle of nowhere away from a decent sized community fairly quickly.
Let's face it. Prisons are practically slave-labor camps any more, and taxpayer dollars pay for all of the overhead. For the rest of us who engage in less questionable behavior, there are plenty of fines and fees to go around. Everything is illegal when it comes to governing your own family anymore, from disciplinning your child to taking pictures of them in the bathtub.
We've listened to our TV and our "leaders" for far too long and have become fear-mongered into a nation of RATS. Of course there are situations when something is WRONG, and there is a real crime being committed, and needs to be reported, and if serious enough, needs immediate intervention by the witness him or herself if necessary. But there's also taddle-tailing. I haven't seen these pictures myself, so I can't comment for sure, but I'm willing to bet that this is a case where the pictures didn't deserve any extra attention, and that the Wal*Mart employee probably showed no empathy, judgement, or understanding of what he or she saw in these pictures.
I'm going to risk belittling my point here by sounding like our friend W. here for a minute... Sometimes, you just have to trust your gut, and not necessarily what you've been taught by your boss, the media, or your government, as not everything is black and white. Your gut is often a better indicator of what you are witnessing as right and wrong than what anyone else has told you.
That's because in the liberal counties they kill their babies before they are born.
You won't find a vegetarian at a brazillian steak house would you?
"For every tool they lend us a loss of independence". That's Ed's most libertarian lyric.
6/30/98 Minneapolis, 10/8/00 East Troy (Brrrr!), 6/16/03 St. Paul, 6/27/06 St. Paul
I hear ya loud and clear. And for all the years I've sang that lyric, it only really hit me recently, and I couldn't agree more. Ed in 1999 / 2000 had a much different outlook then-- one that I agree with a lot more.
I think Nader being a "spoiler" in the 2000 election had a profound impact on Eddie-- they toured heavy that year, pushed Nader quite a bit, and W. ended up "winning" the most controversial presidential election in our nation's history. The years that followed speak for themselves.
But yes, this is pervasive everywhere....my daughter just started grade one...I was mildly surprised to learn that I need a criminal record check and some kind of social agency clearance if I ever want to volunteer in her classroom.
But I'll tell you this.. taking pictures of a naked 5 year-old is just creepy beyond words.
I'd worry what other things they're shrugging off too, to be honest...
Oh, I don't think that at all.
The extremists are sure making a lot of noise... yelling at "town hall meetings" or throwing big publicity stunts like marches on washington and cross burnings, but in the end, it's just the freaky fringe... that's not indicative of the country as a whole.
I believe in the Bible and God...but I agree, seems this was taken to far....we have many embarrassing pictures of my son when he was small in the buff....
Hail, Hail!!!
I've got to agree. I hate prudish Christian nuts, but this doesn't really connect to me. Nowhere does the article get into values... this was probably some 16 year old kid who saw pics of naked kids, didnt want to lose his job, handed it off to a manager, who didnt want to lose his job if they got sued, etc etc. I think conservative values are more outdated and alarming ever day, but to me this says more about a society seeing bogeymen behind ever door thanks to movies, tv, talking heads, to catch a predator, etc.
wtf are you on about? That silly party was covered by every station.. every single one.. CNN had huge amounts of coverage and ABC was all over it.. If there was no MSM there.. how do I know about it? I don't watch Fox News.
Not even close. you had 70,000 people there. The anti-war rally before the Gulf War started attracted over 1.5 million. If it was the biggest Rally in the history of Washington, why did you have to use fake pictures from a Promise Keepers rally in the 90s and a video of the Kennedy Memorial to "prove" the size of the crowd?
What's most funny is how Fox is trying to spin this... first they though that a whole bunch of angry white people carrying racist signs would be a good story.. then when that didn't resonate, the story became how BIG it was.. and when that story got shot down, now Fox is lying about how nobody else covered their little temper tantrum... which they did. I suppose next they'll start to complain about how their "anti-socialism" rally didn't get enough support from the public transit.
[/quote]
Yeah, why do parents do that? i've always thought that was just... creepy.
But let's think of this from the other side. What if your children WERE being sexually abused? (The Wal-Mart employees probably didn't even know for sure that it was the parents who took the pictures.) Wouldn't you want someone who saw a red flag to err on the side of caution and let someone know? If you saw something that you thought indicated even possible child abuse, would you blow it off and turn a blind eye? For all we know, maybe the Wal-Mart employee was a victim of child sexual abuse him/herself and that's why s/he was hypervigilant. Poor judgement or not, this employee was just trying to do what was best for the children, which is something I think too many people are afraid to do these days because they don't want to stick their noses in anyone else's business.
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that said, these parents should have purchased a photo quality printer rather than take it to a place like walmart to have those pics developed.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
i wholeheartedly disagree ... not seeing your kids for DAYS!? ... losing custody for a month!?? ... this could end up being traumatic for the kids ... what picture showed any kind of evidence that these kids were abused?
kids walk around naked in beaches and pools all over the place ... there was nothing sexual about the pictures unless you are a pedophile ... when you bring in a camera full of vacation photos - it should be pretty obvious this isn't some pervert taking pictures of kids - use some perspective and common sense ...
I guess my family is the Munsters then. Or the Manson family. Whatever you think is appropriate... despite the fact that we're all happy, successful people and none of us have criminal records. But I guess we're wrong... we should be locked up.
I hope the law suit is successful so this doesn't ever happen again.
i was expecting an argument like "liberals don't report/prosecute enough sex offenders" which might be a valid argument, although hard to prove...
but okay... if you got nothing else, go after us for abortions :roll:
I know a woman that has bath pics of her 3 yr old on facebook. The account is private, but I still think it's extremely poor judgment to allow any pics like that to get into anyone outside of your immediate family or close friends' hands...in fact, I don't really see the point of taking them in the first place either.
I have pics of my kids in the bath as babies....when bathing was a bit of a big deal....but my girl could shower alone at 5, so I think taking pics of her in there would be a violation of her privacy...
Lighten up champ.
I was having fun with the stupid thread title.
This is not about sex-paranoid conservatism...it's child endangerment and how far out of wack that has gotten. I don't see what the walmart employees did as anything wrong, the authorities on the other hand should be more deliberate. How ever, it's a difficult situation, because if child abuse was occuring and authorities are too slow to act, they get thrown in the mud lightning fast.
what evidence was there of abuse? ... there was none ... i think this is about sex-paranoid conservatism ... ultimately it comes down to this - if we took this across the country ... how many places would raise a red flag and how many wouldn't ...
Who knows? Have YOU seen the pictures? Do YOU know these were totally innocent and there was no evidence of abuse?
It's ridiculous what this family had go through, but this is not a common occurrence. Normally I'm strongly opposed to overbroad prosecution, but I'd rather we round up too many child predators and occasionally have to release somebody and pay them a huge legal settlement than round up too few and have children being abused and many people being aware of it but too afraid or disinterested to do anything about it.