Editorial»
What were their parents thinking?
NOV 24 - What kind of parent would send a 12-year-old boy for a sleepover at Neverland? Before we go any further into the Michael Jackson child-sex case, that’s a question that really has to be asked. I don’t care if the boy has cancer. I don’t care how generous a sugar daddy Michael is, famously lavishing the kid’s hard-luck family with cars and rent money and other pricey gifts.
When the invitation says, "Snuggle-up party at Michael’s," any mom or dad with half a brain would respond in no uncertain terms: "Absolutely not!" Would respond: "No pre-teen child of mine is spending the night hand-holding, bear-hugging, bed-sharing and who-knows-what-else with a 45-year-old man — especially not this 45-year-old man!"
Not after all the Wacko Jacko allegations over the years. Not after those creepy on-camera comments in "Living with Michael Jackson," that British document ~ ~ ry from earlier this year. Filmmaker Martin Bashir asked Michael about reports he was still sleeping with children a decade after buying his way out of a 1993 molestation lawsuit.
The self-styled "King of Pop" looked into the camera and described his legendary man-boy slumber parties: "Very right, very loving, very charming, very sweet." Oh, really? "Whenever kids come here," Michael squeaked in that breathless little voice of his, "they always want to stay with me. They say: ‘Can I stay with you tonight?’ So I go, ‘If it’s OK with your parents, then yes you can."’
But don’t be thinking dirty. "It’s not sexual," Michael said. "We’re going to sleep. I tuck them in and I put a little music on and when it’s story time I read a book. We go to sleep with the fire on and I give them hot milk and cookies. It’s very charming and very sweet. It’s what the whole world should do."
Not with my kid you don’t! This issue of parental judgment comes up as Michael Jackson was booked Thursday on suspicion of child molesting. The charge is a felony, punishable by years in prison. The star’s hands cuffed behind his back, he was moon-walked and perp-walked all at once — right into the Santa Barbara County lockup. He did arrive in town by Gulfstream jet. But pretty soon, he was being treated like the common felon he is alleged to be.
After being fingerprinted and mug-shot, he surrendered his passport and produced his $3 million bail, at which point he hightailed it right back to Las Vegas, where he’d been recording a video. But despite the satisfying scene of Michael in handcuffs, the question won’t go away. What parent would put a child so clearly in harm’s way? What could explain such a lack of judgment or concern? Those questions, of course, absolve a child molester of nothing, no matter how clueless or greedy or thick a kid’s parent might be.
But just try telling that to Michael’s ga-ga fans. Since the Jackson story broke, I’ve gotten hundreds of fuming e-mails from these sputtering souls, who seem not to understand the distinction or not to care. In their blind defense of their idol, they are frantically try to slime the young accuser and his family. It won’t work.
Under the laws of California, it doesn’t matter how awful the victim’s parents are. What matters is what the alleged perpetrator is proven to have done. Whatever can be said of this accuser’s family — and some things certainly will be — that’s what ultimately matters here. And the clues are trickling in.
That British document ~ ~ ry features a young 12-year-old cancer survivor named Gavin. Gavin, we are told, is a regular guest at Neverland, as are his brother, his sister and his mom. Sometimes, Gavin shares Michael’s bedroom.
"There was one night I asked him if I could stay in the bedroom," young Gavin is heard to say. "And he let me stay in the bedroom. And I was like, ‘Michael, you can sleep on the bed.’ And he was like, ‘No, no, you sleep in the bed ... ‘ " When the document ~ ~ ry aired, Jackson’s people understood immediately they had a problem.
Quickly, they convinced Gavin’s mom to complain to Britain’s Broadcasting Standards Commission, asserting the filmmaker didn’t have the proper permission to interview the boy. She conceded Jackson had been generous to the family. She said that before meeting him, she’d been a strapped single mom, so poor she and her three children had once lived in a horse trailer. And she released a public statement exonerating Michael, helpfully circulated by the singer’s staff.
"At no time has Gavin ever been treated with anything other than love, respect and the deepest kindness by Michael," she was quoted as saying. The boy’s father, it seemed, was the only one to show a lick of sense at the time.
Michael "has been very generous to the kids," he said. But he added, already a little late perhaps: Michael "should not be sharing a room with them."
LA Times-Washington PostPosted on: 2003-11-23 09:49
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