Posted on 10/21/2005 11:04:48 PM PDT by NapkinUser
I am sure Christ does not approve. But the law is the law. (Read - I agree in the immorality, but the law is the law).
newzjunkey said " The core issue is should the same "consensual" activity, excluding GENDERS, be worth both 15 months and 204 months in prison? No, of course not. Those sentences aren't even close to being comparable.Heterosexuals get a 93% discount on the homosexual's sentence for the same activity, same ages, same question of consent.
The Kansas Supreme Court is entirely correct in recognizing unequal treatment under law."
Your tone makes it sound like you are disagreeing with my conclusion. We agree that the sentences should be the same regardless of gender...
What I don't agree with is your reasoning. You are calling sex between an adult and a child "consensual." I am all for recognizing that the government has no business regulating consensual private behavior between adults.
But where children are involved the government gains a compelling interest in their protection and they cannot give informed adult consent.
And without legal consent we are talking about rape.
It's easier to see if you think of a younger child - I don't care what a 4 year old girl agrees to - if a 50 year old man has sex with her then it is wrong.
Now that age of consent is somewhat arbitrary as children mature at different rates but we have left that decision to the states.
You have presented the best possible argument for your position. Good enough to sway a jury. The problem is, nobody was injured, or maimed for life. We give out much lighter sentences for murder in this country.
My take is 4 years would have been enough to make the point. If there is a second occurrence, lock him up, and throw away the key.
"The crimes of adultery and sodomy are not the same. If they were the same, there would not be separate words for the two acts. "
Adultery and sodomy are exactly the same in one sense - the government has no business and no right to regulate or punish either one.
What the government does have a right to do is protect children from sexual contact with adults.
IOW, as we say in normal English, a fourteen-year old boy.
Regardless, the State legislature has made laws that they find necessary to protect the children of that State. The State legislature has found that in that State, the People believe that there can be no mitigating factors for statutory rape between same sex partners.
The burden of proof that - whatever crime - is not worse than another crime should be on the one who would unilaterally change the law.
Rape is a crime that is properly defined by the State Legislature, not a judge. The Constitution's "equal protection clause does not give anyone the right - at all - to infringe on the rights of another. Neither does the Constitution provide that the Judicial branch decrees the important issues, and the legislatures only get to make laws on trivial matters.
If Matthew R. Limon had been a public school teacher he could have taken administrative leave with pay for a few months and then moved on with his life.
Both the court and you are activist and playing the homophobia card doesn't change it one bit.
Equal protection under law either means something or it means nothing. Now, where are the hypocrites here who scream about "hate crime" statutes and yet would support this law targeting homosexuals?
Equal protection means equal protection. It doesn't mean the court is the finder of fact in deciding which crimes deserve harsher sentencing than others. The Kansas Legislature has decided that homosexual statutory rape causes more harm to the victim than heterosexual statutory rape does. Similarly many states have decided that 18 year olds raping 13 year olds is worthy of a penalty less severe than 18 year olds raping 6 year olds. Under your reading of the EPC, rape is rape and a legislature can t punish one more severely than the other. Your reading is wrong.
Activists make laws from the bench. The court just made a new law. That is the definition of judicial activism no matter how you 'feel' about the law enacted by the legislature.
Which is, btw, OK. You can advocate for judicial activism inAmerica, you just can't do it by pretending to be a conservative and then accusing those who differ from you of being homophobic.
Nowhere will you see me cheering for rape. The guy did a crime, he should pay the punishment (and he did). The problem is that the law WAS different for same sex rape. Now that the stupid law was overturned I see no more problems; except for the fact that the guy spent around 4 years in jail because he was gay.
If you did something bad, pay for that; but equal justice for all.
PS: Age of consent in Slovenia is 14 years (for up to +2 years)... but the prosecutor would judge this on a case to case basis (in case of more than +2 years... either the 14 year old might be more mature to understand what he's doing, or vice versa). 14 years.... regardless of the gender or nature of sex.
I find that a bit more fair. Especially since most kids know everything about the "birds and the bees" at 12 - from sex to any possible diseases, protection, dangers, emotional consequences,... + religious aspects from the viewpoints of different religions. I also find that wise [low teenage pregnancy, next to no AIDS cases,...]
I see lots of problems particularly from faux conservatives who read emanations from penumbras....
like you.
If they are teenagers having sex, isn't that considered rape as they are under the legal age of 18?
>Nobody died, nobody suffered irreprable physical injury,
>nobody suffered great financial loss.
>The problem is, nobody was injured, or maimed for life.
The 14 year old was molested. Following this brand of logic, lets let all the sex offenders out. Again, this was not an unfortunate oopsie by the 18 year old, nor is this an innocent/praiseworthy episode of sticking up for the little guy by the ACLU.
A more complete view of what has transpired ...
1) The former 14 year old now has an even more twisted view of sexuality than before
2) The former 18 year old now knows he can troll for free blowjobs at any high school.
3) I suspect the Bible refers to those who commit sodomy as, "abusers of themselves with mankind" (Romans 1?). We are now tracking two issues: 1) sodomy 2) tricking a 14 year old into giving/receiving oral sex. You are welcome to try to correct me, since I don't have my Bible here, and I make mistakes like all men.
4) The failure/shame of all 4 parents has been thrown into the public eye.
5) The wives God had set aside for these two young men will need to either wait around, or marry someone else. to say the least, God's best for them has been further postponed. Which means the United States is that much farther from having two healthy child-bearing families.
6) If either ever does get a woman to marry them, they might still end up like the New Jersey governor.
7) By putting away the former 18 year old molester, countless other kids have been spared.
I have been given much mercy and grace by Jesus Christ. I feel sorry for these young men. But the bottom line is, unless there is a miracle in the former 18 year old's life, he is a sex offender/child molester, and is a danger to the 10-14 year old boys in whatever community he is inflicted on, until he is saved. Even then, it takes time and energy in prayer by someone for the former 18 year old to make a full recovery.
Whilst I have sympathy for every argument you make from 1 through to 7, I still cannot reconcile any of that with a SEVENTEEN YEAR SENTENCE!
17 years. Seventeen Years. SEVENTEEN years.
For a kid, not old enough to drink, who made a terrible error of judgement.
SEVENTEEN YEARS. It makes Kansas sound like Nigeria or Afghanistan.
So murderers should have their sentences reduced to buggery then? Based on this courts view of equal protection all crimes are equally protected.
Can eggegiously excessive sentences be deemed cruel and unusual? And yes, I think the c and u clause was intended to be a "living" one, and so does SCOTUS. And yes, using the equal protection club is just a reprise of judicial activism. The problem with the clause, if not quarantined, is that it lets the courts pass any law they want, when they want to.
Matthew R. Limon had just turned 18 when he had consensual oral sex with a boy just shy of 15 14 year old boy at a Kansas school in 2000.
If you want on/off the ping list let me and little jeremiah know.
If an 18 year old man sexually molests a 14 year old girl here that is statutory rape!
Definition: Statutory Rape
Noun
1. Sexual intercourse with a girl who has not reached the age of consent (even if both parties participate willingly).
This law deters unwanted pregnancies (ruined lives)
Homosexuals recruit young teens......They spread death, desease and moral depravity.
Matthew R. Limon had just turned 18 when he had consensual oral sex with a boy just shy of 15 14 year old boy at a Kansas school in 2000.
If you want on/off the ping list let me and little jeremiah know.
>SEVENTEEN YEARS. It makes Kansas sound like Nigeria or
>Afghanistan.
I'm glad you agreed with points 1-7. Sometimes I make the mistake of engaging with Walls of Stone masquerading as people.
17 years indeed. 17 years of this pedophile molester not being being inflicted on the neighborhood. If we practiced a brand of Christianity better than that we do, this child molester could have been immediately released into the protective custody of a group of believers, and turned around, but we don't have that, and we may not have ever had that in this country.
It's either 17 years, or some serious prayer by believers much stronger than myself. Those are the only ways. Otherwise, some other kid is guaranteed to be molested by this former 18 year old molester.
Lots of people enabled this former 18 year old to become a molester. We could have a whole thread on just who did what for these two to get to this point.
The penalties should be equal for hetero and homo sexual liasons between adults and minors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.