First, the Daily Beast publishes a story about a church in Oregon that welcomes former sex offenders. Then someone takes the story down. But by then the story has been picked up by the Oregonian (click here).
Now, the author of the story — Tod Kelly — tells the back story about the story. It seems the Daily Beast now has published his story in a version closer to the one he originally wrote. His discussion about what he found out about cruel and stupid sex-offender laws along the way is illuminating. Click here for the back story.
Here’s something we’ve known for years that Tod Kelly just discovered:
Adam Walsh, the murdered child whose memory pundits and legislators rallied around and for who the law was named? He was murdered by a serial killer who had not previously been a suspect in any of his murders. The Adam Walsh Act — which specifically addresses sex offenders who are released from incarceration — would not have mattered a tinker’s cuss to Adam Walsh had it been passed years before his birth.