Across screens in America, the issue of acceptance has been popping up left and right. Some believe what we have is good, while others believe we’ve barely made a dent in equality. While most agree that things such as race and gender are important, a new topic has reared its head in the form of individuals pushing the acceptance of pedophilia.

It began when a German TEDx talk was broadcast in May. Medical student Mirjam Heine argued that societies’ negative view of pedophilia had to change. After the video stirred up controversy and caused the speaker to receive harassment, it was deleted.

Pedophilia. The word alone is able to make the strongest minds recoil in disgust, and many may wonder why anybody would view pedophiles as anything other than monsters in human form.

Heine gave an example of a man living in fear due to his attraction to children, and how he’s unable to share his secret desire with anybody. She went on to liken it to an unchangeable sexual orientation. An emphasis was put on how as long as a pedophile doesn’t harm any kids, they have done nothing wrong.

It’s important to get pedophiles help, but there’s a huge difference between supporting someone getting help and accepting their identity. There currently isn’t a way to cure pedophilia, but there are ways to prevent them from ever offending.

The problem with that is that many are afraid to get mental help for their attractions. They’re scared of being arrested, or outed and shamed by their peers. The only controversy that should be erased is non-offending pedophiles who are getting treated to the best of their ability.

If someone isn’t ashamed of liking kids, they’re more likely to act on their desires. Acceptance implies normalization. The more pedophilia is normalized, the more likely people are to accept fewer laws for them which would allow more children to be harmed.

Comparing it to sexuality is very low, as gays have been stereotyped as child predators for years. Claiming that it’s like being gay puts a bad light on the groups’ members. Anti-gay arguments include the idea that accepting homosexuality is a slippery slope to okaying things like pedophilia and bestiality.

After the video was released a viral hoax spread across the internet of LGBT members pushing to add pedo-sexual as a new identity. It was spread by internet trolls against the LGBT community, with fake tag lines such as “gays for pedo-sexuality”. They posed as official gay acceptance accounts, and unfurled misinformation.

No official LGBT organizations have pushed for the addition of a “P” in the acronym.

Overall, LGBT members are entirely against the addition of pedophiles to the community.

Pedophilia is wrong. There’s no place for it in a normal society, regardless of the feelings of those who harm children.