By Tracee Sioux

Seriously, all evidence suggests that hell must have frozen over.

I have seen Bill O'Reilly, Fox newsman, on a few talk shows recently and I actually agreed with part of his mission. I'm a little concerned I'm becoming a . . . Right Wing Conservative?!?!?!?

Whew - not quite. Still me. But there are some issues that he and I agree on. Many of these issues are ones where I can kinda see his point, but I think he's too extreme.

On the issue of laws governing sexual abuse crimes in this country I am not sure he is extreme enough.

On Oprah last week he made the following statement, "You've got to understand. This thing, this molestation, rape, never goes away," O'Reilly said. "We have an obligation to get rid of them (sexual predators). To put them away so they can't possibly hurt anybody again."

A statement with which I 100% agree.

Here's some sickening statistics that, if you are a parent of girls or boys, should make your stomach want to reject breakfast and make your head pound with fury and indignation and make your heart race with fear and loathing and anxiety. (If you don't have this kind of emotional reaction after reading these statistics then there is undeniably something wrong with your internal sense of right and wrong.)

National Center for Mission and Exploited Children and Parents for Megan's Law reports:

• 797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
• Approximately one in seven youth online (10 to 17-years-old) received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet.
• Four percent (4%) received an aggressive sexual solicitation - a solicitor who asked to meet them somewhere; called them on the telephone; or sent them offline mail, money, or gifts.
• Research indicates that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually victimized before adulthood. [D. Finkelhor. “Current Information on the Scope and Nature of Child Sexual Abuse.” The Future of Children: Sexual Abuse of Children, 1994, volume 4, page 37.]
• An estimated 1 in 20 men are child molesters.
• According to Parents for Megan's Law (the law which requires convicted sex offender to register where they live on a public notice) 24% of convicted child molesters do not report their address to databases.
• In the U.S. there were 540,846 registered convicted sex offenders in 2006, according to Parents for Megan's Law.
• In my state, Texas, there are around $50,000 convicted sex offenders in the registry. Follow this link to see how many live in your neighborhood or in the house next door to your family. http://www.parentsformeganslaw.com/html/links.lasso.

One of the most frightening things I've ever heard is that there exists an organized group of perverts who meet to discuss how best to victimize, seduce, rape and molest our children. NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association, is a legal organization that hides behind freedom of speech to actively participate in destroying our kids.

They meet in chat room on the Internet, they meet in person and plan vacations countries that participate in childhood slavery so they will have a chance to easily act out their most perverse fetishes without consequence or hassle. They share the best tactics with which to lure our children with each other. They even have jewelry, rather pretty symbols of triangles and hearts (to broadcast whether they enjoy having sex with male or female children) to express their sexual desires for children so they can easily identify each other in a crowd.

They are sick and evil men who follow the motto: a child's right to have sex with adults should not be infringed upon.

The ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, defended NAMBLA in a Massachusetts court case, they issued this statement, "In representing NAMBLA today, our Massachusetts affiliate does not advocate sexual relationships between adults and children," they go on to say, "The principle is as simple as it is central to true freedom of speech: those who do wrong are responsible for what they do; those who speak about it are not."

I'm an advocate for freedom of speech, especially as a writer. However, I believe defending NAMBLA or any other sexual predator illustrates a complete disregard for every social good and I will no longer ever support the ACLU. They are now advocates for EVIL in my book, another point on which Bill O'Reilly and I agree.

TAKE ACTION

I am not one for apathy. I am encouraging every single reader of this column to DO something about this. Currently there is a piece of legislation called the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (Adam Walsh's father is the host of America's Most Wanted and responsible for Code Adam in retail establishments such as Walmart). The law requires a National Registry for sex offenders and harshly punishes those who are non-compliant and requires judges to be more consistent in their sentencing. Currently sexual predators can move from state to state freely.

I'm joining Oprah and (gasp) Bill O'Reilly in suggesting that you and everyone you know send a letter to our nation's representatives to let them know just how incensed we are that this is going on in our country. Oprah wrote the letter for you. Just email it or download it and mail it from this link. There is also a letter for your governor to insist on uniform and strict sentencing for sexual crimes.

As far as I'm concerned this law is just a baby step. I believe, much like Bill O'Reilly, we need to really get serious about punishing offenses against our children or we will wake up to a world of sexually damaged grown-ups who will ask us why we didn't make it a priority to severely punish those who made it a hobby to prey on them.

This is the link to write your representatives: http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200702/tows_past_20070221_letsen.jhtml

Check your local sex offender registry to examine just how safe your kids aren't: http://www.parentsformeganslaw.com/html/links.lasso

To be able to identify the symbols of NAMBA follow this link: http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200609/20060928/slide_20060928_284_101.jhtml