I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, if you served your time and you're out trying to start a new life, it's gotta be tough for you to have everyone know your business, and that kind of prejudice can't be beneficial to trying to move beyond your past.
On the other hand, you don't want your kids getting invovled with the wrong people, you know?
But people can and do change. And ways of thinking can definitely be changed over time and through therapy. For me, I think of it in terms of psychology. For instance, for most of my life, I was attracted to older, gruffer, hairier guys. My therapist called it "father hunger." He felt that I pursued those guys as a way of getting the love from my dad that I never did as a child. But another trait--usually in the same guys--that I found attractive was then being emotionally unavailable--also like my father, incidentally. So here I was chasing after these older guys I wanted to love me but who were unwilling to open up and let me in.
After I was burned one too many times, though (and, more importantly, after discussing this topic ad nausem with my therapist), I started having less of an interest in these guys and started finding other types of guys attractive. Now I go for a much broader range of types and ages, and I truly feel that I have much more healthy outlook on my sexuality, and about other people. Plus I get laid a LOT more!
It's a different scenario, yes, but I use it to demonstrate that sexual tastes can be altered through therapy. And while the conviction should always stay on your record, there's no need to broadcast it to the entire community that you live in. I don't have a problem with people being notified that a child molestor lives in their neighborhood, as long as they don't single out who that person is.
People tend to forget that child molestation is often brought about by mental instability. It's not a crime for crime's sake. It's a sickness, a manifestation of something from their own childhoods that somehow got embedded into their psyches. And people can get better and try to start an honest life. And I agree with what the other guy said... if you do the crime, you pay the time. But after that, you should be able to move on with your life. And this is something I say as a person who has not only helped to raise four children (I was the only father figure in the lives of my three cousins, and my best friend's son), but who wants children of his own.
The world is never a black and white place. Issues such as these can never be solved with a hard and fast rule or response. There is always room for gray areas, and for human growth and error.
