Did California Legislators Just Vote to Protect (Gay) Adults Who Have Sex with Minors? by Dr Michael Brown
If there was one thing we could all agree on, you would think it would be this: minors should be protected from sexually aggressive adults. Yet, with a nod to “equality” under the law for the gay community, the California Assembly has voted to lessen the potential penalty for 24-year-olds who have sex with children as young as 14. Shockingly – or should I say, revoltingly – this is one of two, similar bills that have just been passed by these legislators.
As explained by Greg Burt of the California Family Council, “The California legislature finished it’s 2020 session on Monday by passing a controversial bill that reduces the penalties on some adults who have consensual sex with minors as young as 14 years of age.”
Why on earth would they pass something like this? Why would they want to potentially reduce these penalties?
I understand that the sexual acts are allegedly “consensual” and that the difference in age can be no more than 10 years. And I understand that some people end up having to register as sex offenders who really do not fit the bill.
But that’s the whole issue when it comes to children. Can a child that young make a truly informed, consensual decision? And is not the adult required to take responsibility and not engage in sexual acts with a child, no matter how willing that child may be? Isn’t this the difference between adults and children under the law?
Burt explains that, “Senate Bill 145’s author, LGBT Caucus Leader Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), said the bill was necessary because current law is harsher if the crime involved homosexual sex between an adult and a minor as opposed to heterosexual sex. All the Republicans and even some prominent and powerful Democrats did not buy that argument.”
As detailed by Equality California (which celebrated the bill), “Currently, for consensual yet illegal sexual relations between a teenager age 14 to 17 and a partner within 10 years of age, ‘sexual intercourse’ (i.e., vaginal intercourse) does not mandate that the offender to go onto the sex offender registry; rather, the judge has discretion to decide, based on the facts of the case, whether sex offender registration is warranted or unwarranted. By contrast, for all other forms of intercourse — specifically, oral and anal intercourse — sex offender registration is mandated under all situations, with no judicial discretion.”
