California Legislature Passes Bill That Will Soften Penalty For LGBT Adults Who Have Sex With Underage Teens

[ThinkingSapien]

I do not believe sex with minors by adults should ever be permissible.

I don’t think being permissible is what is in question. This bill addresses some of the mandatory sentencing. I can imagine scenarios where I might find it reasonable to be more lenient.

Ex: let’s say an underaged person acquired a false ID and uses it to successfully enter a space with a minimum age requirement of 21. If the minor met someone in this space and the the two later engage in an intimate interaction that might be viewed differently than some other scenarios and may be worthy of a lighter sentence than a scenario involving no false declarations. The a I’ll now gives the judge the discretion to consider factors involved in sentencing instead of only having discretion if the two are opposite sex.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This bill addresses some of the mandatory sentencing.

Maybe I’m just not tracking with this post. That being possibly the case, perhaps I should just move on. I thought it was about whether to put homosexual sex offenders on the sex offender list.

 

[signit]

ThinkingSapien:

This bill addresses some of the mandatory sentencing.

Maybe I’m just not tracking with this post. That being possibly the case, perhaps I should just move on. I thought it was about whether to put homosexual sex offenders on the sex offender list.

It is.

But, in the case of a man and an underage girl, the law makes a distinction between an 18-year-old man and, for example, a 30-year-old man. The law recognizes, rightly or wrongly, a difference between an 18-year old man and a 17-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. The 18-year-old man does not necessarily go on the sex offender registry and maybe have his life ruined; the law
allows for judicial discretion.

The law is different with a man and an underage boy; the man automatically goes on the registry with no discretion. And, rightly or wrongly, that might not be appropriate when an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old are involved.

The proposal won’t legalize what they do; it won’t mean that the person won’t be sentenced. And it’s supported by law enforcement.

It’s not, as some of the anti-gay extremists seem to think, an effort by LGBT or pedophiles to legalize child molestation.

 

[signit]

See my other post.

Because, rightly or wrongly, we (meaning society as a whole) don’t want an 18-year-old man dating a high school and who makes a mistake to be punished for life when he’s not a threat. We don’t want that to follow him years later when he’s trying to find a job or housing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

the law
allows for judicial discretion.

I thought it did only in the case of vaginal sex, but not in a case involving sodomy. Since homosexual sex can’t be vaginal, there’s no discretion with that.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

I thought it was about whether to put homosexual sex offenders on the sex offender list.

No, I think you’re misreading the proposed change. It’s about whether to give judges the same flexibility in evaluating homosexual encounters that they currently have with respect to heterosexual ones.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

The “stronger” punishment would lead to manifestly unjust outcomes, like judges being forced to lump the 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old in with 50 year olds having sex with 15 year olds. The former doesn’t necessarily need to be tarred as a “sex offender.”

 

[signit]

The “stronger” punishment would lead to manifestly unjust outcomes, like judges being forced to lump the 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old in with 50 year olds having sex with 15 year olds. The former doesn’t necessarily need to be tarred as a “sex offender.”

Right.

And just to elaborate a little on that, I see a clear difference between an 18-year-old man dating a 17-year-old high school classmate and a 50-year-old man hanging out at the shopping mall looking for teenage girls.

A big difference.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Or it would diminish the credibility of the sex offender registry. The whole thing is intentionally a scarlet letter. It’s intended to tell society “these people are dangerous predators and deviants: be careful.”

If we started including high school students whose crime was dating another high school student in a lower grade, something that probably half of American adults did at one point, the label “sex offender” is going to lose a lot of it’s deterrent power. People will just roll their eyes at the idea that the guy who dated a sophomore when he was a senior is some kind of dangerous sex fiend.

 

[gam197]

Or it would diminish the credibility of the sex offender registry. The whole thing is intentionally a scarlet letter. It’s intended to tell society “these people are dangerous predators and deviants: be careful.”

If we started including high school students whose crime was dating another high school student in a lower grade, something that probably half of American adults did at one point, the label “sex offender” is going to lose a lot of it’s deterrent power. People will just roll their eyes at the idea that the guy who dated a sophomore when he was a senior is some kind of dangerous sex fiend.

This is just another bill to lower the age of consent for minors. It use to be that people protected girls against boys. Say a 21 boy wanted to date a 15 year old, no way because he is much too mature for the 15 year old girl - statutory rape.

This bill is just more expansion of gay rights. What is a 21 male doing being anywhere near a 15 year old boy?

All the hoopla about male priests and many of them were young priests in their 20’s when they molested minor boys and now it is all fine.

 

[WingedHussar]

Also the incidence of homosexual pedophiles is much higher than heterosexual pedophiles relative to the overall percentage of the population’s sexual preferences.

Keep in mind who is pushing the bill along with the prior bill he pushed, and the purpose is pretty clear.

 

[Rubee]

I don’t think it’s lowering the age of consent: It’s treating adults accused/convicted of sex with minors with the same set of rules, regardless of the nature of the encounter (same sex or opposite).

I’m no socially liberal person and I see nothing wrong with that. It’s also inevitable for such kind of discrimination to fall once a country gives protection to gay members of its society: U cannot justify, in the eyes of the law, why same sex contacts should automatically be treated as worse when you recognize the right to engage in them. It’s a contradiction.

Lastly, I find it hard to understand why some struggle with the idea that young people just a couple of years apart may engage in such encounters, even if one is over the legal limit, without it indicating they were dangerous sex offenders. A 19 year old who slept with a 17 year old he had dated for three years, for example, is not a dangerous sex offender. I just wish there’d be legislation that makes that clear from the get-go and not leave it completely in a judge’s discretion.

I do agree that it should be less than ten years: for both same sex and opposite sex encounters. A 24 year old should not knowingly sleep with a 14 year old under any circumstances. Nor a 27 year old with a 17 year old. Probably, it should be 2/3 years difference protected by legislation, and maybe up to 5/6 years in the judge’s discretion. Just my view.

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

I personally think it should be less than ten years difference.

Yes, I too was baffled by this story until I realised that’s just equalising the law so that everybody is treated the same. However, like you, I struggle to see the wisdom of allowing quite as much discretion as the law allows. I cannot really think of any plausible circumstances in which a 24-year-old adult could have sex with a 14-year-old child and not deserve the severest possible punishment.

 

[gam197]

I don’t think it’s lowering the age of consent: It’s treating adults accused/convicted of sex with minors with the same set of rules, regardless of the nature of the encounter (same sex or opposite).

It is lowering the age on consent. This was brought about for first through abortion. Men over a certain age would have been seen as unacceptable so 21 year man would not have been acceptable to date a 14 year old girl and would have been prosecuted for statatory rape even if in a consenual relationship because she would have been deemed unable to make that judgement.

With abortion, that is not a problem because there is no child that has to be attended to so it is seen as acceptable but really a 14 year old girl can be pressured by an older male so it is not acceptable.

Lastly, I find it hard to understand why some struggle with the idea that young people just a couple of years apart may engage in such encounters, even if one is over the legal limit, without it indicating they were dangerous sex offenders. A 19-year-old who slept with a 17-year-old he had dated for three years, for example, is not a dangerous sex offender. I just wish there’d be legislation that makes that clear from the get-go and not leave it completely in a judge’s discretion

Sure make it a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old and it becomes romanticized as love but really it still becomes a problem. Prior to the legalization of abortion, there were forced marriages and that did not work out. Will overage males still date younger girls, yes. May a two years or less would help so it does not become a criminal act but anything more than that seems unacceptable and once you go there, it only seems to expand.

I do agree that it should be less than ten years: for both same sex and opposite sex encounters. A 24 year old should not knowingly sleep with a 14 year old under any circumstances. Nor a 27 year old with a 17 year old. Probably, it should be 2/3 years difference protected by legislation, and maybe up to 5/6 years in the judge’s discretion. Just my view.

Agree. but no more than 1/3 years with no judge expansion…
Making it less than ten years does not solve it because then you could have a 21-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl still too much of an age difference and too much pressure on the girl to make a good decision.

The issue of the girl has never been solved and now we can add the boys to this, no way.

As I said many people were outraged that male priests who were in their 20’s went with teenagers and it became a big story. So much for all the outrage and NAMBLA seems to have won.

California has already passed it and it will become law so now the issue becomes will more states pass such legislation.

 

[Rubee]

Agree. but no more than 1/3 years with no judge expansion…

By 2/3, I meant two or three years difference protected (i.e. No one ought to be criminally prosecuted for statutory rape where the partner who gave consent is only two (or possibly three) years younger than themselves). That difference involves people who shared a high school. These are still peers, even if one gets to 18 sooner than the others. This would be an explicit exception inserted into the statutory rape penal clauses.

For judge’s discretion, I said it’d be where there was 5 (or 6) years’ age difference. This discretion would prevent a 21 year old from going into the register for having a 17 year old girlfriend, even if they got some sort of punishment for the affair. The point of the register, after all, is to prevent sexual predators from harming minors, not to destroy young people’s lives needlessly when they do not pose a genuine risk of predation.

California has already passed it and it will become law so now the issue becomes will more states pass such legislation.

There’s no way any law that treats gay adults more harshly than heterosexuals will stand. Homosexuality is a protected class and you can no longer legally have a set of rules that explicitly treats them more harshly/differently than opposite-sex attracted adults. So any state that maintains it is just asking for it to be eventually struck down by the SCOTUS and likely by lesser courts long before it reaches the Supreme Court, given the courts (and statutes) have already ruled that they cannot be discriminated against.

 

[gam197]

said it’d be where there was 5 (or 6) years’ age difference. This discretion would prevent a 21 year old from going into the register for having a 17 year old girlfriend, even if they got some sort of punishment for the affair. The point of the register, after all, is to prevent sexual predators from harming minors, not to destroy young people’s lives needlessly when they do not pose a genuine risk of predation.

Five or 6 years is still a big difference and there are many liberal judges who have no problem with an age limit. For girls this becomes a major issue. Should even an 18 year old male date a 12 or 13 year old girl, no and yet we know they do and many 13 year old girls become pregnant and get abortions.

There used to be laws to protect the females and the males would have been prosecuted and so they would have left the 13 girls alone. It is way too much age difference.

gam197:

California has already passed it and it will become law so now the issue becomes will more states pass such legislation.

There’s no way any law that treats gay adults more harshly than heterosexuals will stand. Homosexuality is a protected class and you can no longer legally have a set of rules that explicitly treats them more harshly/differently than opposite-sex attracted adults. So any state that maintains it is just asking for it to be eventually struck down by the SCOTUS and likely by lesser courts long before it reaches the Supreme Court.

Then the issue should deal with girls first. Again this has never been solved. Abortion did not solve it, it just made it worse by damaging the girls and we can all pretend that did not happen but it did. We as a society need to deal with this.

No new laws until we solve the girl issue. We have never been able to deal with the girls, we add older men preying on young boys and this becomes a major problem.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Should even an 18 year old male date a 12 or 13 year old girl

Is your position any different if the sexes in this scenario are swapped? An 18 year old girl dates a 12 or 13 year old boy?

 

[Rubee]

Should even an 18 year old male date a 12 or 13

I’m pretty sure the law in question applies to minors btw 14 and 17. And discretion, again, does not mean there is no punishment. The question is whether to destroy a very young person’s life forever by putting them on the sex offenders’ register alongside child molesters. Lets not get the issues mixed up:

1: Can you have a set of rules that is more harsh towards gay adults than heterosexuals? That’s no longer possible. I’m ok with that. This is what the change of law in this report is about.

2: Do you punish people who have sex with minors many years younger than themselves, say 5/6 years younger? Yes.

3: Does every young person in No. 2^^ belong in a permanent sex-offenders’ register that will destroy their lives beyond the punishment they receive for No. 2? Absolutely not.

4: Is it possible to legislate every nook and cranny of the variations of No. 3 so that you don’t need human prudence to tell different cases apart? In other words, can you do away with the need for judicial discretion on a case by case basis? No. Not unless you don’t care that punishments (and the register is indeed a huge punishment) match the crime and risk in question.

 

[gam197]

gam197:

Should even an 18 year old male date a 12 or 13 year old girl

Is your position any different if the sexes in this scenario are swapped? An 18 year old girl dates a 12 or 13 year old boy?

No an 18 year old girl should leave a 13 year old boy alone . We have seen case after case of young female teachers going with young male students. Romanticize it all but it is still a destruction of youth.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

This is just another bill to lower the age of consent for minors. It use to be that people protected girls against boys. Say a 21 boy wanted to date a 15 year old, no way because he is much too mature for the 15 year old girl - statutory rape.

This bill is just more expansion of gay rights. What is a 21 male doing being anywhere near a 15 year old boy?

All the hoopla about male priests and many of them were young priests in their 20’s when they molested minor boys and now it is all fine.

You’re just completely misstating what the proposed change does. No one is suggesting lowering the age of consent. It merely gives the judge some discretion in crafting a proper punishment, that’s all.