Reductio Ad NAMBLAUM:

Like Godwin's law, this is a constructed rule of logic -- an observation -- that when debating the political and civil rights of gays with an anti-gay religious conservative, the chances that the anti-gay side will invoke NAMBLA to try and poison the gay civil rights well is one. (See for instance, this thread.)

And not that the invocation is apt, at all. The only reason why the act of pedophilia or ephebophilia is wrong is that it harms children, period. And that entirely distinguishes the wrongness of ephebophilia or pedophilia from homosexual acts between consenting adults.

"Nature" is sometimes invoked against homosexual acts. But the only place "Nature" draws a line between adults and children is puberty. Hence any act where the girl victim could get pregnant or the boy victim could impregnate is not "natural" -- or should I say "unnatural" -- pedophilia. Few of any ideological bent (especially of the socially or religiously ideological bent) defend this standard of morality.

Although it did seem the dominant line that traditional Judeo-Christian morality set up until recently. That is, age of consent laws or minimum age for marriages -- to the extent that they existed at all until the modern era -- were set around puberty. According to traditional Judeo-Christian morality, there was nothing inherently wrong with a 13 year old girl, capable of bearing children, having sex with an adult male, provided it took place within the context of a marriage (think Jerry Lee Lewis and Lorretta Lynn being involved in marriages where one party was a 13 year old girl in the socially conservative 1950s South, before 1960s watershed of change; think of the Jewish Bar and Bat Mitzvah's, and how that is supposed to represent when children become adults according to traditional Judaic, and arguably consequently "Judeo-Christian" ethics).

Likewise on pedophilia or ephebophilia, the Bible is silent with regards to specific proof texts (as there are against homosexual acts, incest, bestiality, adultery, fornication) against the behavior.

In short, there is no logical, biblical, natural or historical reason to tie homosexual acts between consenting adults to "pedophilia" (especially when modern society tends to define "pedophilia" as any act that violates age of consent laws).

In sum: If you try to tar the GLBT social group with this crap, we've got more than enough ammo to kick the ball in your court and tie traditional Judeo-Christian morality with that.

I think the first time I ever heard of NAMBLA was on the Howard Stern show (yes, I enjoy my share of low brow, with middle brow and high brow entertainment; I ain't no snob) where he discussed the documentary "Chickenhawk." I remember him calling the NAMBLA hot-line, like he used to do with the KKK hot-line to mock them.

Stern is, of course, a libertine on sexual matters if ever there were one. Yet, with NAMBLA he threw his hat in with the religious conservative anti-NAMBLA activist Tom McDonough. He gave Mr. McDonough time on his show and plugged his anti-NAMBLA group. And to the extent that Mr. McDonough doesn't attempt to tar homosexuality or gay rights in general with NAMBLA, I would too.

From the documentary, you see NAMBLA are a small, seemingly a handful of members, group of weirdos whose biggest claim to fame is their attempt to ride the coattails of gay civil rights and anti-gay activists' invariable invocation of them to smear gay rights activists.

You can see NAMBLA and McDonough on YouTube below from said documentary: