Lindsay Ashford

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Lindsay Ashford (born approx 1969) is an American pro-pedophile activist based in the Netherlands. Ashford says that he realized he was a pedophile at the age of 30. In a February 2004 New Jersey newspaper interview, he said that he was "tired of being forced into the shadows by society" because he is a pedophile.^[1]

Ashford calls for tolerance of pedophilia and for change of age of consent laws. His definition of pedophilia differs from the ones in colloquial use, and he asserts that common assumptions about pedophiles are not always true. Ashford asserts that many children and adolescents are capable of being informed consenting partners in romantic relationships with adults, and that such relationships can be based on mutual romantic and emotional, though not necessarily sexual, connections. He claims that adult-child romantic involvement is not in itself a form of child sexual abuse or child abuse.^[1]

1 Missing children service
2 Barack Obama controversy
3 Police investigation
4 Website closure
5 Interview with Dr Tanya Byron
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Missing children service

In July 2005, Ashford came under heavy criticism by investigative reporters for running a missing children's website himself, which included photos of individual children.^[2]

[edit] Barack Obama controversy

In March 2007, Ashford once again came under scrutiny in the United States when it was discovered that in April 2006 he had started a blog on his website, called Puellula, which included the claim that the candidate to win the 2008 US presidential election would be "based upon what lovely First Daughter we can look forward to watching grow up for four to eight years".

According to Ashford, the post was intended to be a satirical commentary regarding media outlets' past track record of predicting political outcomes of candidates, as well as to illustrate political candidates who utilize their children as a means of drawing in popularity and potential votes.

The blog included photos of some candidates' children, one of which was a press-release photo of Barack Obama's family, including his two prepubescent daughters. Ashford was contacted by the Senator's lawyers, who demanded the removal of the image on the grounds of copyright infringement and defamation of character.^[3] Ashford complied in the removal of images, but did not comply with the request to remove all references to Obama nor links to his website. Ashford continues to profess his support for Obama as a candidate, linking to pro-Obama sites, due to the Senator's position on the war in Iraq, environmental policy, and other political issues.^[4]

[edit] Police investigation

In August 2007, police in Montreal, Canada began an investigation into Puellula, Ashford's website, because the activist added Montreal Children's Festival to a newly-created section dedicated to listing events where young girls gather.^[5] Ashford dubbed the new page "LGWatch" and acknowledged that he got the idea from another pro-pedophile activist,^[6] Jack McClellan, who ran a similar site in Washington and later in California.^[7]

[edit] Website closure

On August 17, 2007, Ashford shut down his Puellula website, posting a notice explaining that the closure was not connected to any police investigation, but rather due to his inability to keep a job once employers became aware of the website.

[edit] Interview with Dr Tanya Byron

On May 5, 2008 the television channel BBC2 broadcasted an interview conducted between consultant clinical psychologist Dr. Tanya Byron, Dr. Gary Humphrey (backstage advisor) and Lindsay Ashford as part of the programme series "Am I Normal?" in which she suggested that he would benefit from psychiatric help in order to come to terms with his past (he was abused by a female carer as a 4 year old boy). She had also accused him of 'grooming' young girls via his website (now shut down) which contained pages akin to those found on girly social networking sites, and which painted child-adult relationships in a positive light. Ashford heatedly informed her that she was not in a position to make a psychological assessment of him after a one hour interview, especially since he had been analysed by psychiatrists in the past. He also stated that he would allow his own young daughter to have a sexual relationship with someone like him if anti-paedophilia laws did not exist.^[8]^[9]