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Depends on how you define pederasty. In the UK, 16-21 year olds were initially regarded as children for the purposes of gay sex, when the latter was legalised. This was lowered to 16-17 year olds, because of course 18-21 year olds. Finally, it became legal for a 50 year old man to have sex with a 16 year old boy in 2000. By definition that's not legalising pederasty in the sense of "sex with an underage boy" (but in that sense, neither would legalising sex with a 5 year old boy) but it is legalising pederasty in the sense of "sex between an adult man and an adolescent boy." It also happened via a classic slippery slope process: first male homosexuality, then male homosexuality between full legal adults, and finally male homosexuality between full legal adults and schoolchildren.
Personally, I don't have a problem with that, but it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that the social conservatives were right in this case. True, a 50 year old man with a 16 year old boyfriend will face social problems in the UK, but no more than a 50 year old man with a 16 year old girlfriend.
Still, I agree with your overall point. In general, human disgust instincts against pedophilia and pederasty seem to both stronger and be more linked to ethics than those for male homosexuality. I find male homosexuality nauseous, but I have no moral objection to it. And many people, even normal people, don't find any sort of homosexuality disgusting or more disgusting than e.g. anal sex in general.
No, I don't buy that definition game. Gay marriage has not opened the way to any age gaps that weren't already allowed between men and women. If you call that pederasty, then we've already been living in the age of general pedophilia and been fine with it.
However, it turns out that no, the sexual revolution has not actually opened up the floodgates of adults fucking kids, and in fact has been increasingly moving away from it. Where marrying 16 year old girls has been widely accepted before and younger wasn't out of question, we now only see the allowed age/perceived maturity gap shrinking (that's an AND slash, not an OR - "she was very mature for her age" doesn't cut it anymore).
Right, but that had entailed legalising sex between adolescents and fully developed men. Whether it's "normalised" it is more debatable, though, since normality /= legality.
This is conflating attraction/sexual activity with adolescents with pedophilia.
I've used the word like I see it used. I'm assuming the moral panic back then was not limited to "it's only bad when they're pre-pubescent".
When conservatives clamor that X will "make pederasty legal" when the central example of pederasty is very much "fucking young boys", "sex with 16 year old teens is now allowed for both sexes" is a technicality I'm not giving them any points on.
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