Original sentence: "  Gay author and activist Edmund White made a similar statement in his book States of Desire: "That's the politics of self-indulgence."  Subscribers to this theory point to statements made by prominent members of the gay rights mainstream at the time as evidence.According to this theory, most mainstream gays believed that NAMBLA's rhetoric about "the sexual rights of youth" was only a clever way for advocating the rights of adults to have sex with minors.Consequently, they moved rapidly to sever any ties with the group and its goals.If you attach it [the man/boy love issue] to gay rights, gay rights will never happen.It's not a question of who's right, it's a matter of political naïveté.One such statement was made by gay rights lobbyist Steve Endean, who said "What NAMBLA is doing is tearing apart the movement.Our movement cannot survive the man-boy issue.Regardless of whether the gay community expelled NAMBLA due to principle or due to careful political calculation, one thing remains certain:  no gay rights groups currently supports NAMBLA's platform or has any association with the group.The first view is that gay rights groups opposed NAMBLA on the basis of principle.The second view is that, while most gay rights groups cared little for NAMBLA's for objectives, they did not actively ostracise the group until opponents of gay rights to link the issue of homosexuality to the issue of child abuse and "recruitment.Two competing theories have emerged regarding the primary reason the gay community chose to distance itself from NAMBLA
Edited sentence: Quite apart from the pragmatic consideration that the issue of pedophilia was being used to attack the gay and lesbian rights movement, the great majority of gay and lesbian rights movement shared the general public abhorrence of pedophilia, rejected NAMBLA's claims that there was an analogy between the campaign for gay and lesbian equality and the abolition of age-of-consent laws, and took the view that NAMBLA's rhetoric about "the sexual rights of youth" was only a cover for its members' real agenda