(LifeSiteNews) — A Maryland-based organization, which aims to mainstream pedophilia by treating it not as a psychiatric disorder but as yet another type of woke identity that must be affirmed, held a conference for mental health professionals this past weekend, hoping to change the way they treat their patients who are plagued by pedophilic impulses.
B4U-ACT — in existence since 2003 — has worked toward changing the way society treats pedophiles, going so far as to rebrand them as “Minor-Attracted-Persons,” or MAPs for short.
As it turns out, one of B4U-ACT’s two co-founders was a convicted child sex offender named Michael Melsheimer.
The group is following the playbook previously laid out by LGBTQ+ activists.
In the same way that homosexual and later transgender activists have been able to forge broader societal acceptance and secure additional legal rights by insisting that their same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria are immutable traits, pedophiles have banded together to replicate those successes.
To do so, they must first convince mental healthcare providers and researchers to join them in their quest.
To win their sympathy, B4U-ACT states unequivocally that those who identify as “MAPs” are victims, not perpetrators, treated unjustly not only by society at large but by healthcare professionals in particular.
Further, the organization asserts that attempts to change rather than affirm pedophilic desires are not only ineffective but unethical.
“MAPs face stigma, discrimination, and oppression on multiple levels: ideological, institutional, interpersonal, and internalized oppression,” begins a description in an executive summary supplied by B4U-ACT.
“Stigma manifests in hostile public attitudes, sensationalized rhetoric, and threats of violence, contributing to a myriad of mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality,” it continues. “Internalized stigma intensifies shame, hopelessness, and social isolation. Additionally, conspiracy theories falsely depict MAPs as manipulative and dangerous, fueling further isolation and fear.”
“Public narratives and media representations of MAPs conflate attraction with criminal behavior,” declares the B4U-ACT document, which “damage MAPs’ mental health and well-being, and deny MAPs equal life chances.”
“MAPs face barriers to affirming and competent therapy as many mental health providers lack appropriate training and hold biases,” B4U-ACT warns. “MAPs also avoid accessing mental health care due to fear and wrongful application of mandated reporting laws.”
Instead of employing treatment methods which seek to avoid possible damage to minors at all costs, B4U-ACT wants mental healthcare professionals to no longer utilize “shame-reinforcing treatments.”
Christine Buttons, the journalist who first broke the story about B4U-ACT’s conference, explained that “The organization discourages clinicians from diagnosing clients with Pedophilic Disorder and instead claims that pedophilia is a “sexual age orientation.”
“A distinction must be maintained between pedophiles and other supposed minority groups. Pedophilic attraction is a terrible aberration. Those afflicted with it who have not acted on it should be helped. But their pedophilic interests should never be affirmed as an important part of their identity,” wrote Buttons, who continued:
Therapy is not meant to validate every feeling or affirm every identity claim. Its purpose is to help individuals confront harmful impulses, not weave them into their sense of self. Yet under the influence of progressive activism, groups like B4U-ACT are recasting pedophilic attraction as something to be accepted rather than contained. In doing so, they risk collapsing critical moral distinctions and shifting the focus away from the safety and well-being of children — the population most in need of protection.
“When they talk about ‘MAPs’ having rights, what they’re really talking about is dismantling every protective institution between predators and children: the family, the church, biology, law enforcement — even language itself,” Kevin McCullough said in a Town Hall opinion piece titled “Another Sign: The Left Hates Children.”
“That’s why they invent euphemisms like “MAP” — because if they called it what it is (pedophilia), they’d be shouted out of the room,” McCullough wrote.
“What’s even more twisted?” he asked. “This isn’t about helping struggling people resist evil impulses. B4U-ACT isn’t offering guardrails. It’s offering validation. The goal isn’t to prevent child abuse — it’s to make ‘attraction’ to children just another flavor on the spectrum of human sexuality.”
“This is not mental health. It’s moral sabotage,” McCullough added.
The movement to mainstream pedophilia may for the moment seem as impossible as it is outrageous, but it should not be underestimated. After all, LGBTQ+ forces have a history securing resounding successes: Same-sex marriage has now found a warm welcome home not only in the Democrat Party but in the GOP and within the Trump administration. Transgenderism found an equally welcome environment in the just-ended Biden/Harris administration.
The normalization and sacred cow status of “Minor-Attracted-Persons” within American society may not be far behind.