Bailey Singletary is a junior majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected]. It is safe to say that most towns would appreciate a mayor who could provide more jobs, clean up the environment and help improve the economy. But what if this mayor happened to be a registered sex offender? That could be the case for the town of Wilmer, Texas, if Brian Sliter is voted into office.
In 2004, Sliter was caught in a police sting attempting to have sex with an assumed 15-year-old girl who he spoke to on the Internet. After being caught he was required to register as a sex offender and is on probation for 10 years, but because he was never convicted he is allowed to run for office.
Sliter said he has been through extensive counseling and “feels really bad about it, really embarrassed about it, really awful about it. I am really glad there is no direct victim. I thank God for that every day.”
He also added, “I don’t expect anybody in the public to condone what I did, and I don’t expect anybody to forgive what I did. What I do hope is people look at my current character. People can rehabilitate and make themselves a better person.”
With Sliter wanting Wilmer’s citizens to realize that people can rehabilitate he makes his sex-with-children perversion seem like he was in the same category as a drug addict. Would this town vote for a man who went through rehab for a heroin addiction if he ran for mayor? I don’t think anyone would trust the post-heroin addict anymore or any less than the rehabilitated sex offender.
Some say that an addict usually has a relapse and never really lets go of the addiction. So if Sliter really is addicted to sex with underage girls, what is keeping him from giving a speech to a junior high school and picking up some chicks at a question and answer session? After all, girls are attracted to power.
This made me wonder if being a registered sex offender really makes a person unqualified to be mayor. Sure, he likes to have sex with young girls, but I don’t know what that has to do with his position on public transportation or development projects.
Then I thought about how Sliter would be treated if he became mayor. Would he get a sign in the yard of the city hall warning people that a sex offender works there like other sex offenders have in their yards at home? Would he get a billboard on the highway showing people what he did?
Maybe if he got elected, NBC’s “Dateline” could create “To Catch a Mayor,” and that could be very entertaining. But his opponent made a good point by saying the city would be embarrassed by his election, which I think could be true, especially to a small town of 3,400 people.
I’m still straddling the fence on how I feel about this situation. My practical side immediately says it would be disgraceful to let a man who wants to pursue sexual after-school activities with a 15-year-old be mayor of a city, but the other half of my brain thinks that people actually do change.
And maybe he’s not as twisted as he comes off to be. I guess only time will tell how forgiving, non-judgmental Southern Christians can really be when it comes to forgiving and forgetting.