For the Love of Kids

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The principle behind a legal defense based on civil liberty is often illustrated by the famous lament of a Dachau prisoner: "They came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew." And so on, through the trade unionists and the Catholics, until, "Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

The question in the case of New York City teacher Peter Melzer is, Is it possible, in all sincerity, to begin that recitation, "They came for the pedophiles . . .?"

Melzer, 53, until recently taught physics at New York City's prestigious Bronx High School of Science. In his 25 years at the school, Melzer's students knew him as a solid if unspectacular tutor. They were unaware, however, that for close to a decade he has also been a leader of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a 1,000-member group whose goal is the legalization of what it considers "consensual" sex between men and preteen and adolescent boys, but what most people consider child molestation. He appears on the masthead of its newsletter, the Bulletin.

Melzer's private life became public in stages. In 1984 an anonymous phone call and letter caused the New York City board of education to investigate his NAMBLA connection; no charges were brought, apparently because of insufficient evidence. The independent special commissioner of investigations, Edward Stancik, quietly reopened the case in May 1992. But it was only after the airing of a local TV report on NAMBLA featuring an unrepentant Melzer that Stancik recommended Melzer be fired. If that happens, says the teacher, he will sue. And he may have a case that courts will entertain. In an administrative hearing, a board of education panel will examine Melzer's conduct. Until then he works a nonteaching job reviewing the science curriculums for technical schools.

The problem facing the panel is the absence of evidence that Melzer abused any of his students or, for that matter, any other boy in the U.S. Its 47-page report on him offers less than 20 lines under the heading "Melzer's Sexual Contact with Children," mostly about a liaison in the Philippines allegedly described to an undercover policeman. Melzer says the policeman's statements cannot be trusted.

Melzer is a dumpy, artless man with thick, black-rimmed glasses. "I've never broken the law anywhere," he insists, "and I've never, never, in any way, shape or form done anything improper" at Bronx Science. Answering what he thought was an inquiry from a British pedophile society (in reality, it was a postal-service sting), he wrote in 1979 that he was "attracted to boys up to the age of about 16" but added that he was "not willing to engage in unlawful acts."

Without proof of illegal conduct, the board will have to consider whether his involvement with NAMBLA and the Bulletin was offense enough. With Melzer in its editorial leadership, the Bulletin, according to the Stancik report, ran such narrative letters as "In Praise of the Penises," which compared pre- and postpubescent male organs, and a graphically descriptive piece on "how to make that special boy feel good." The teacher claims that he opposed such explicit articles and that "I did not have the ((editorial)) control Stancik thinks I did."