Those in synagogues, mosques or churches this weekend should no longer be “Jews,” “Muslims,” or “Christians.” It’s just so stigmatizing, conjuring images of every evil deed committed in the name of religion over centuries. Let’s call them “people who engage in worship.”

Softening and blurring words is all the rage in our new left-driven culture, as evidenced by a board of The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice last week.

Despite a lot of sophomoric psychobabble to explain themselves, a majority on the bureaucracy’s Sex Offender Management Board seeks to legitimize criminals and the crimes they commit. If this were not so, they would not have voted 10-6 this month to transform the phrase “sex offender” into “adults who commit sexual offenses.”

With this new nomenclature – intentionally, stupidly or a mix of the two – the board transforms our state’s collection of rapists into a demographic we should hold in higher regard.

That’s not why the Legislature created the board in 1998. It did so “to protect the public and to work toward the elimination of sexual offenses…”

Colorado has a substantial problem with “sex offenders” – the newly declared impolite phrase for what we used to call “rapists” and “molesters.” The state ranks fourth in the nation for its high rate of sexual assaults.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children determined Colorado hosts 339 registered “sex offenders” for every 100,000 residents. In 2020, that was nearly 20,000 “adults who commit sexual offenses.” Most Coloradans who review the registry learn they have one or more rapists living in their neighborhoods.

Apparently, it is unkind, maybe downright rude, to call the likes of Joseph David a “sex offender.” He’s the Colorado Springs pervert sentenced last year to more than six centuries in prison for spending his adult life as a serial rapist of children in our state’s second-largest city. Regard him properly. He’s now part of the “adults who commit sexual offenses” community.

If “sex offenders” sounds too crass for the people in charge of managing these predators, maybe we should be more kind when referring to sex traffickers who turn girls and boys into sex slaves for profit. In Colorado, we should never refer to Jeffrey Epstein as a “sex trafficker.” We should go with something like “the man formerly addicted to sex with young girls.”

While we’re at it, let’s give serial killers the approbation they are due. Call them “adults experiencing the need to take the lives of others.” Be respectful.

There were no “slave owners.” There were “landowners who gave Black people undesirable work they did not care for.”

And let’s stop calling people “racists” when, in fact, they are “people who judge on a basis of race.”

Let’s be similarly polite and try to normalize victimization. No more talk about “crime victims.” We should call them “people who experience sexual impropriety, the loss of property, unwanted bodily harm, or unwanted death.”

Language means everything. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have board members of a state agency taking time to soften the term for the convicts they manage.

Colorado’s violent crime rate is soaring. Children are not safe from sexual abuse that runs rampant in homes, schools and other institutions. The last thing we need is new linguistics to improve the image of monstrous criminals who ruin lives. By rebranding rapists, we can expect more rapes. At least the sex offenders board can look more woke.

Denver Gazette editorial board