5-19-2011 National:
From The Ethicist, ARIEL KAMINER:
My husband is a registered sex offender. His sex crime was more than two decades ago and involved an adult woman. He is not a pedophile, and he is not on parole or probation. When people find out, however, we are often harshly condemned. If our children have play dates in our home, I believe we should tell the parents about my husband’s past. I feel that they should learn from us, and not from the Internet or gossipy neighbors. He disagrees. NAME WITHHELD, OHIOOn first read I thought you were arguing for your obligation to disclose, as a way to protect innocent children. But you’re arguing for your right to disclose, as a way to protect your husband. In a sense, you are proposing to ruin his reputation in order to save his reputation, an unusual approach.
What’s troubling, from an ethical standpoint, is the extent to which you have set these two goals — protecting children and protecting your husband — against each other.
Saving your husband’s reputation is a legitimate concern; he committed a terrible act, but he satisfied his debt to society. According to our legal system, he is allowed to re-enter society without ringing a bell to warn of his advance.
Given that his crime did not endanger children, I wonder why you propose to mount his defense from the beachhead of your own children’s play dates.
I wonder this in particular because as vulnerable as your husband, or by extension you, might feel to the punishing effects of gossip, surely your children are more vulnerable. They stand to suffer all the social and economic effects of his ostracism, but to do so while still learning how to make their way in the world. And unlike your husband, who committed the crime, or you, who stood by him, they had no role in creating the situation in which they now find themselves. For that reason, let your decision be guided by what’s best for them, not for him.
That’s the ethical issue. Beyond that, it’s just tactics. It’s impossible to predict whether the parents of your children’s friends will react better to the news if it is delivered personally or discovered accidentally. You may persuade your husband that disclosure is in his interest, but if so, proceed carefully. Once that news gets out, there’s no retracting it, and there’s no removing its effect from your children’s reputation.
