Those who rallied to the defense of Kaitlyn Hunt argued that enforcing age-of-consent laws is homophobic if the accused offender is gay. (ABC will feature “Free Kate” again on 20/20 Friday.) And in case you haven’t noticed, there have been several recent cases where older lesbians decided to “liberate” pubescent minors from oppressive patriarchal heteronormativity:
– Arizona physical education teacher Nicole Wooten was arrested last February on charges that she had sex with a girl in 2005 and 2006, when the victim was a 12-year-old eighth-grader.
– Texas music teacher Linda Wallace was sentenced to prison in September after pleading guilty to having had a four-year sexual affair with a female student that began when the girl was 13.
– South Dakota teacher Tonya Drueppel was arrested in January on charges that she had sex with a middle-school girl beginning in October 2012, when the victim was 13.
I would posit this is more of a progressive left thing than a gay/lesbian thing; Woody Allen and Roman Polanski get similar passes because they are men of the left. The progressive left prizes sexual license above freedom, above liberty, above sound economics. There is a neurotic impulse to defend any sexual deviance because not accepting a sexual practice is seen as a concession to the socially conservative right.
” Those who rallied to the defense of Kaitlyn Hunt argued that enforcing age-of-consent laws is homophobic if the accused offender is gay.”
No, some argued that enforcing age-of-consent laws often doesn’t happen if the accused offender is straight, and that it was a double standard. Just like the laws against sodomy were only enforced against gay people.
I don’t really subscribe to this defense myself (Romeo and Juliet exceptions can only go so far). But in some cases the laws are written to criminalize activity between people of the same gender with an age of consent issue that would be legal if of different genders. I am sure we all agree that’s wrong.
BTW, did gay activists defend the actions of the lesbians in the 3 cases RSM mentions? No? Then why did he mention them? Have there been any opposite sex statuary rape cases in the past 6 months?
There is a difference between sex crimes against minors by progressive males (whether hetero or gay/bi) and sex crimes against minors by lesbians – there is a considerhable constituency which is invested in denying that lesbians can commit sex crimes against female minors, similar to the crowd that insists blacks can’t be racist.
The Hunt case was a local story here, and her family’s attempts at media manipulation was more the story than the actual behavior. The young lady was caught having sex with a minor, and rather than (*gasp*) having her or her parents admit their failings and ask forgiveness, they (she and her parents) decided to wrap themselves in the whole homophobia angle. “You hate me because I’m lesbian” shuts up many detractors and muddies the waters much more efficiently than “You hate me because I ignore statuatory rape laws”. They went and printed up rainbow t-shirts to wear at rallies, and local news media ate it all up with a spoon, very rarely pointing out that her crime was not being lesbian, but committing statutory rape.
The way she turned around and basically spat in her supporters’ faces by resuming/continuing the behavior while out on bail only amplified how this was a stupid young woman who was not raised to be humble and grateful for public support (any more than she was raised to respect the law). She was going to do what she wanted, and didn’t give a darn what law she broke to have her way, and that had nothing to do with being persecuted for being gay. It was hilarious how quickly the local media dropped the story once her true selfish nature was revealed. It was as if she vaporized within days, mostly because they could no longer push that whole “persecuted young gay” angle any more than she could.
I would have them document situations where age-of-consent laws were not enforced against straights. Here in Ohio, we have at least three instances of female teachers having sex with minor males which are being very well covered. I also know of many where male teachers are convicted of having sex with female minors.
All the prosecution has to do is point out the large number of convictions of straights in this case to shut them up.
Shoot, lock the carpet-munchers up with the horned-up gays as well.
And yes, I went there. Deal with it.
Regards,
Peter H.
Marx had said that religion is the opiate of the masses. For the left, sex is the opiate. Promise them a chance to get laid, and they will sell their birthright for a pottage; and have done so.
The Vagina Monologues glorifies adult seduction and rape of young girls.
And VM suffers no condemnation on the left. Funny, that. I can’t imagine why. /sarc
Just remember all the lefties who defended the Safe School Czar who bragged about helping a 15 year old boy secure bus station restroom hook-ups.
Given that you are equivocating for having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl against her parents’ wishes in a public school restroom, we’re not even on the same planet in terms of what is and isn’t “wrong”.
So tell us, hmm, do you defend this because you think it’s normal behavior for gays, or because you’re afraid of being called an Uncle Tom for criticizing it?
In short, is it a pathology linked to your sexual orientation, or is it a pathology that your gay and lesbian community enforces on you?
Female rape of underaged minors is rarely punished as harshly as male rape of underaged minors. Every case I am familiar with where a male teacher engages in sex with a student (and those have been mostly female students), the dude goes to jail. When females rape underaged boys or girls, they often get probation, it seems like it’s very rare they see the inside of a prison. Remember, Mary Kay LeTourneau didn’t go to jail until the second time she had been discovered to have had sex with Villi, and she was pregnant! There seems to be a double standard prosecuting men vs women. Not really a gay or straight thing, as far as I have seen.
The issue is that, as a matter of morals, what should exist is a system in which having sex with people under the age of consent is fairly and neutrally punished in which the race, gender, location, etc of the offender / offense doesn’t matter.
What we have instead is a horrific patchwork hell in which, as a matter of objective fact, a rapist will get a lighter sentence if she happens to be a she. And a rapist will get a stronger sentence for happening to be a homosexual male with a homosexual victim. As well, a rapist will get a lighter sentence for being in certain cities.
What I see here is a dilemma in which the far left’s response to this is just to soften the law for everyone so that the cure is worse than the disease, all manners of rape involving the perps getting off easy.