Simcha Fisher speaks the truth about Milo apologists.

he writes: “If you have spent decades build­ing up a ven­er­a­ble and for­mi­da­ble career as a schol­ar of the the­ol­o­gy of human sex­u­al­i­ty, you should be aware that pub­licly defend­ing Bill Cos­by, Trump and Milo guar­an­tees that younger gen­er­a­tions will reflex­ive­ly scoff at any­thing with your name on it. Maybe you don’t care, but that is what hap­pens, and it’s a damn shame.”

It is. I look at apolo­gias for Milo from pro­fes­sors of moral the­ol­o­gy, pre­sum­ably respect­ed, that strain to find the nuance in it all:

He seems to know the good but to be too weak to pur­sue it. I sus­pect he would not real­ly defend sex with 14 year olds. I think he was being “hon­est” or hard on him­self by say­ing he was the preda­tor in going after the priest. All very com­pli­cat­ed.

No. This is not “com­pli­cat­ed.” Don’t insult us. Pedophil­ia can not be defend­ed. The seri­ous­ness of the priest abuse scan­dal can not be waved away. End stop. There is no nuance, there is no “very com­pli­cat­ed.”

Milo may be a vic­tim of abuse. Milo may be wound­ed. We can and should have com­pas­sion on that, and no Catholic is per­mit­ted to judge him. But com­pas­sion does not mean that we can nuance what he said out of its sting. Nor can we claim, as Dr. Smith does, that Milo does not “pro­mote ped­erasty.”

No. That is what he said. You can read the tran­script:

There are cer­tain­ly peo­ple who are capa­ble of giv­ing con­sent at a younger age. I cer­tain­ly con­sid­er myself to be one of them, peo­ple who are sex­u­al­ly active younger. I think it par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­pens in the gay world by the way.

So let’s parse this. What Milo is say­ing here is that the notion of “age of con­sent” is arbi­trary, that chil­dren who are under 18 are capa­ble of giv­ing con­sent. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true “in the gay world,” he says. Peo­ple with SSA are bet­ter able to decide such things for them­selves, much younger, than het­ero­sex­u­als are.

What’s “com­pli­cat­ed”? This is a defense of ped­erasty.

“I hate,” says Milo, “[t]his sort of arbi­trary and oppres­sive idea of con­sent, which total­ly destroys you know under­stand­ing that many of us have.”

Oh. I see. There’s an “under­stand­ing” between a child and an adult in a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship. Well, we must all be “under­stand­ing.”

And what is the nature of this “under­stand­ing”?

Some of those rela­tion­ships between younger boys and old­er men, the sort of com­ing of age rela­tion­ships, the rela­tion­ships in which those old­er men help those young boys to dis­cov­er who they are, and give them secu­ri­ty and safe­ty and pro­vide them with love and a reli­able and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their par­ents.

Oh. Ped­erasty is just about help­ing young boys “dis­cov­er who they are.” Ped­erasty gives them “secu­ri­ty and safe­ty.” It “provide[s] them with love.” It gives them a “rock.” It’s all for their good!

At this point, some­one brings up the priest abuse scan­dal, and Milo waves it off. If it weren’t for Fr. Michael, he says, “I would­n’t give near­ly such good head.”

See? Priests real­ly can change your life.

But is Milo real­ly defend­ing ped­erasty? Let’s scratch our schol­ar­ly heads and nuance this.

“I don’t mind admit­ting,” Milo says, that he is “advo­cat­ing cross-gen­er­a­tional rela­tion­ships.” (Read: ped­erasty.)

•••

There are Catholics defend­ing this. I could spec­u­late on the motive behind it; I won’t. I’ll leave that to you, dear read­er.

But I will say this: Giv­en the trou­bles the Catholic Church has had in the recent past, one would think the very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very last thing that a Catholic would want to do is defend these words.

Because of this, God’s name is blas­phemed among the Gen­tiles.

This will not attract peo­ple to the Church. Catholi­cism: Church of pedophile priests and pedophil­ia apol­o­gists. That’s what peo­ple will say.

We can cer­tain­ly have com­pas­sion on Milo Yiannopou­los. He cer­tain­ly needs help and inter­ven­tion. But we can­not defend or try to nuance what he said. Catholics who do so have no cred­i­bil­i­ty, either as Catholics or (which they also claim to be) con­ser­v­a­tives.

No one will lis­ten to you any­more, and no one should.