Yes, I do think that people who regularly defend awful people in the course of awful things they do, are likely awful people.
Providing some nuance and rejecting your absolutist thinking is not "defending awful people".
The whole "15 isn't a 'child'" 'defense' is chief among these.
This is a good example of where you and your Ilk go off the rails.
Nobody is saying that abusing 15 years old is not a horrible thing, or that 30 or 40 or 50 year olds should have sex with 15 year olds, even when the 15 year old consents.
But somebody who is 15 is absolutely different than an actual child, and we do treat them differently in most contexts. We can, for example accept as normal that a 15 year old would be interested in sex, and even engage in sexual relations with a fellow teen. But if 8 year old children did that, even with each other, it would definitely not be normal.
And where do you draw a line? Is a 17 years 11 months old a "child" with no legitimate sexual agency and no ability to consent with an adult? Should her slightly older boyfriend (or his slightly older girlfriend for that matter, or any combination of sexes) be prosecuted and treated as a "pedophile" as soon as he celebrates his (or her) 18th birthday?
You can see where your absolutist thinking gets you nonsense outcomes.
Teenagerhood is a transitional, liminal stage between childhood and adulthood, and has elements of both. That's because human development is a continuum, with legal cutoffs somewhat arbitrary and differing by jurisdiction, as the different ages of consent even within the US show.
We are not like (some) insects who go through discontinuous stages of larva, pupa and adult. A 17 year old is not an undeveloped
larvachild who makes him- or herself a chrysalis from which she emerges on his or her 18th birthday as a fully formed adult.
This is also relevant in areas that have nothing to do with sex. In the US, teenagers can drive at 16. They can work, with restrictions. There are debates to lower voting age to 16 for certain elections. We give teenagers more autonomy over their healthcare decisions that we give children. In Germany, a teenager can decide to exit a religious community they've been brought up in as early as 14 without consent of parents. Should all of those things be brought up to 18, because anybody below 18 is just a child and nothing more? Or even better 21, since 20 year olds are "children" according to some?
And you may not agree with this, but we charge minors in criminal court (usually referred to as "charge as adult") rather than juvenile/family court for serious crimes, because he realize that somebody who is 15 or 17 and commits crimes like robbery or murder does have significantly more criminal culpability than an actual child would. Not as much as an adult, sure, which is taken into account at sentencing, but certainly more than a child.
It is "flocking together", commonly done by "birds of a feather".
Nobody here is flocking together with the likes of Epstein, or defending what they did. But that does not mean that an 18 year old having sex with a 15 year old would be a pedophile or that he (or she) should be prosecuted and put on a sex offender registry either. Or that we should not prosecute minors in criminal court when they commit serious crimes.
I have not made any secret that I wish to do something very close to genocide with respect to ending long-term Solipsism and Nihilism and Fatalism entirely, forever, through education, opportunities, and family planning efforts: I wish to end the existence entirely of those who would place themselves above others, those who would burn the world, and those who would place others above the group, to free humanity forever of gods, masters, kings, and (jokers).
And who gets to decide who is deserving of being thus exterminated? A chistka tribunal headed by you? At this point, you are starting to legitimately scare me!
