News Blog Comments
The list of things wrong with Kansas just keeps growing. Someone may have to write another book just to cover it all.
My guess is that the best the prosecutor can hope for is a hung jury, but he will have proven himself tough on crime for the next elections.
IMO, this is a case where the punishment being sought is more criminal than the crime itself. For a state attorney general to characterize this as a case of pedophilia misses the point that a 13 year old is not really a child, if not yet fully adult. Obviously, this is a case of statuatory rape and the guy will be charged with that crime. But that won't negate the subsequent marriage or the fact that he is the father-to-be, and a court that truly seeks justice won't just toss the book at the guy just to satisfy the likes of Nancy Grace. I prefer my justice tempered with mercy, rather than vengence.
Sex with an underage person - statutory rape.
It does not matter that the crime was later made legal by a marriage. It's still a crime.
Plus I disagree with the notion that it would be "mercy" to fail to dispense justice here. So a girl gets knocked up by a 22 YO man, and her mother, instead of turning him in to the police, takes her daughter across state lines so that she (mom) can consent to a marriage to this 22 YO. Did the daughter consent? Was it legal to haul the daughter to another state for this marriage?
There's something grim and unseemly about this whole situation. I question whether a 13 YO can genuinely consent or if she was pushed into the situation by a mother who wanted to make everything look nice.
Yech. And I used to complain about Utah's marriage laws (used to be a girl could be married off at 14 with judicial consent, now that's been raised to 16 in large part due to issues with the polygamists "marrying" little girls).
I mean, come on, people, use some sense (not you, Steve). This is totally whack. The guy was a rapist before he was a "father-to-be". That's the crime.
Sounds like they're living under the Taliban there . . . rape the girl then marry her to make it all right . . ."the young man" should be prosecuted . . . and the family should be prosecuted for making her have the baby and forcing her to get married . . . the parents and the "young man" have fucked up her life.
100 years ago 12 was the legal age of consent.
100 years from now 30 will be the legal age.
What the law arbitrarily imposes is so seldom congruent with what nature and nuture combine to create.
In the 1860's the average age of the onset of menarche was approx 17, today it is approximately 12. And it appears that the huge amounts of growth hormones and other contaminants such as PBBs in milk and other food products is having the effect of pushing that age lower still.
You can google it yourselves
http://www.google.com/search?
sou...age+of+menarche
This is an absurd waste of taxpayers' money. The only thing more ridiculous is to charge a 13 year old as an adult when he/she commits a crime. You can't have it both ways.
Keep him out of jail and make him support his child(ren).
As long as we have a society where 13 year old girls are encouraged to look and act like Brittney Spears, we're going to have stuff like this happen. The 22 year old is probably just as immature as she is.
The only reason this made Atrios is that it happened in a red state. The ostensible reason is that he's keen on pointing out hypocrisy.
And if its lurid, hey, it promotes more blog hits and links.
But what's not clear to me is how documenting such behavior in states where 35-40% of the electorate vote for our folks really accomplishes anything but to make us look small.
When individual GOP'ers act badly, especially if they have a public record, hell, let's go at 'em. But to cherry-pick bad behavior and say its indicative of a million people's hypocrisy? Sounds more like its us trying to feel superior.
Look folks, 13 year olds have sex all the time. My wife has delivered the babies of lots of young teens of about this age. But that's not the point.
The point is this. 13 is just far far too young to get married. There's no conceivable way that any 13 year old is ready for marriage. And to allow an older man to marry her is simply criminal. The State of Kansas should be absolutely ashamed and horrified. It's one thing to accept the fact that young kids have sex and deal with it as best as we can as a society through eductation and support. It's an another thing entirely for society to legalize this sort of pedophilia by granting them a marriage license.
Being sexually mature at 13 doesn't make you mature enough to marry. Think about it this way. Would you allow two 13 year olds to marry? We're talking about what... 6th graders? 7th graders? who are still 3 years away from getting their driver's license? Does anyone honestly believe that two 13 year old kids are ready for marriage and ready to function in adult society?
Unless you think that two 13 year old kids who have a "crush" on each other should be allowed to marry and move in with each other you can't honestly believe that one 13 year old is ready to marry an older guy. What if he had been 32 instead of 22? How about 42?
The reason we have statutory rape laws is to protect young kids from this sort of predation. As a father of two young girls I absolutely support them. I know they'll have boyfriends in a few years and might well be sexually active in high school despite my wife and my attempts to get them to wait. But if some older guy comes sniffing around my daughter when she's 13 I'm going to want his ass locked up but good.
While I think statuatory rape laws should exist and be enforced, conflating that with pedophilia is the sort of thing I'd leave to the likes of Nancy Grace.
The clinical definition of pedophilia applies here:
"Sexual attraction to a child; clinically, a person sixteen years of age or older who is at least five years older than the child. Pedophiles will prefer males, females, or both. Generally considered to be an incurable mental disorder."
The age of consent in the US varies from state to state and is generally between 16 and 18. In Nebraska it is 17 meaning that this child is 5 years away from the age of consent.
You're right that statutory rape and pedophilia are not the same thing. But we're not talking about a precocious 16 year old high school freshman here. We're talking about a 6th grader.
Y'see, this is why us lefties constantly get our anuses handed to us with a bow on it.
WHY the FUCK are we even DEBATING if it's OK for parents to coerce a 13-year old child to carry a baby and marry someone almost twice her age, who raped her OR AT VERY LEAST exercised coercion of some sort over her? If this happened in Pakistan and made the news we'd be tagging up links for email petititions.
Im reminded of that girl in Animal House- the mayors daughter, who tells Pinto that she's really 13 right after they did it on the football field...
Of course she wasnt played by a 13 year old...
Not that this makes any of this right.. 13 years old- wow that is a low age of consent.
remember when these middle eastern guys got in trouble for marrying a child around this age, and the girls ran away...
I'm very married, so female sexuality is a closed book to me. But I've always wondered: Before the age of menses onset was unnaturally lowered to nearer twelve than twenty, did females enjoy a period of sexual response without the possibility of pregnancy? I'd ask my wife, but she laughs at me.
The reason I wonder this is actually not an interest in teenage girls. Carrying a pin and giving myself a good jab whenever I see an oversexed teenager has cured me of that, thank God.
Rather, I have always been amazed at the nonchalance with which a segment of my diverse aquaintances regard the sexual activity of their adolescent offspring. Not to mention their surprise at the eventual gravidity of their female issue. I add, with the fear of rational contradiction, that this sanguine rationalisation of teenage sexual activity is endemic to those whose roots are nestled in the soil of Dixie.
So what I'm asking is: did girls used to get a couple years of free passes to humpington before th consequences set in?
"Sexual attraction to a child; clinically, a person sixteen years of age or older who is at least five years older than the child. Pedophiles will prefer males, females, or both. Generally considered to be an incurable mental disorder."
It is interesting to me that when my future father took up with my future mother, he was 22 and she was 17. IMO, that particular "clinical definition" of pedophilia is too broad.
I agree that a thirteen-year old is no precocious 16 year old high schooler, and that 22-year old guy will have his day in court over the statuatory rape charge, but defining him as a pedophile and therefore mentally ill is the same kind of abusive psychology that once upon a not so long time ago called homosexuality a mental disorder.
If a 62 year old man has sex with an 18 year old woman, it may well be an unwise and even manipulative act, but that doesn't make it a mental disorder.
yeah, it's a pretty skeevy set of circumstances.
but if the marriage is legal in Kansas and there's no evidence either of coercion or buyer's remorse on the bride's part, i'd drop charges against the groom.
these people may be freaks, but they're content with their lot and aren't hurting anyone. i don't think they're going to spur other similar such pairings.
That's quite a bustier Brittany's almost wearing. Don't let Bob Dole see that pic.
"great balls of fire" redux
Mooser, funny post, well-written, led me to your blog. Why don't you keep it up?
"but if the marriage is legal in Kansas and there's no evidence either of coercion or buyer's remorse on the bride's part, i'd drop charges against the groom."
How do you know there's no coercion or buyer's remorse on the bride's part?
The point is that she's too young to even know if she's going to have buyer's remorse. What about three years from now at age 16 when she has two kids and no future? Is she allowed any buyer's remorse then?
That's the whole point about the age of consent.
Frankly I think the laws have it backwards. It's a crime to have sex when you're 13 but not a crime to get married? That makes no fucking sense. Which decision requires greater maturity?
By the way, last year a 12 year old kid was married in Alabama. How low are we willing to go?
Oh, and by the way folks, there's absolutely no dispute about whether a crime was committed here. Remember the circumstances, a 22 year old guy got a 13 year old kid pregnant in Nebraska. Unless those facts are in dispute, it absolutely was a crime.
Taking her across state lines to marry her doesn't negate the crime in any way shape or form.
Perhaps my perspective is warped because I have two daughters. But I frankly think those parents who consented ought to be locked up as well for endangering the welfare of a child.
Mr. notway, I stopped writing my blog when my conscience told me that I must make a firm stand in favor of intellectual cowardice and general cravenness.
At any rate, my distaff is going to set the mastiff on me, she happening by and reading my comment above, and drawinging the most untoward conclusions. She also is very keen to find out why I am continually advertising for baby-sitters, pointing out ( in what I can only consider an unladylike tone) that we have no children.
Anyway, I wish somebody could answer my question, or maybe even tell me what diddy-wha-diddy means, and point me toward kansas. Then I'll have something to blog about!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age.../
Age_of_consent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mar...arriageable_age
http://www.interpol.int/Public/C...e/NationalLaws/
http://www.google.com/search?
sou...=Age+of+consent
So it is sooooo figging muggy hot today that reading about the age of consent laws and the marriageable age laws in the world seemed like an interesting thing to do. Something to whittle away the hours until L&O SVU comes on.
So where's the AG of Kansas calling for this guy to be prosecuted? Oh, that's right, he only cares about 13-year-olds having sex when they get abortions.
Isn't this especially perverse considering that Kansas just ammended its constitution to prevent same sex adults from marrying?
Potted,
Maybe they'll let 13-year old boys and girls marry--you know, it's just a "phase" they'll "grow out of...."
*baaaaaaaaaarf*
Y'see, this is why us lefties constantly get our anuses handed to us with a bow on it.
WHY the FUCK are we even DEBATING if it's OK for parents to coerce a 13-year old child to carry a baby and marry someone almost twice her age, who raped her OR AT VERY LEAST exercised coercion of some sort over her?
Um, because that's what it means to be 'liberal'? Because we don't pick a platform and demand that everybody adhere to it? Because we encourage debate and independent thought?
If "the left" is losing ground to the conservatives because we don't have one position that we all rigidly adhere to, then we're losing because we're liberal. The only way to win would be to join them.
Also: I like how all these people on here automatically assume she was victimized and he was a "pedophile". You don't know anything about these people other than a snarky red-state blurb you read somewhere. Oh, but he raped her! It's just as likely that they both made a stupid mistake that they'll regret for the rest of their lives. I haven't read the background, but it's possible that they lived in a small town with a small dating pool, met somehow, were attracted to one another, maybe the guy even knew it was a mistake but couldn't resist anyways because he was desperate. Doesn't make him a pedophile. A pedophile seeks out children because children are the only people they are attracted to. This could be pedophilia, I don't know. It could have been he was just really horny and the opportunity was there. Or it could have been that they were fools in love. Maybe she looks 18. Maybe the guy has scrap metal bouncing around inside of his skull. People see the word "pedophilia" and get reactionary so fast.
My guess is that the best the prosecutor can hope for is a hung jury
Who's the prosecutor, Jeff Gannon?
I can't help but contrast this case with the 30 something, married with four kids, female teacher here in washington that carried on with a 13 year old male student. Everybody was calling for her head, she got prosecuted for rape and went to jail.
But let's pause now and remember Pam Smart, a teacher who had an affair with her teenage (barely, IIRC) male student, and used her charms to convince the kid (and a couple of his playmates?) to kill her husband! "A good old-fashioned girl, with heart so true, she won't love nobody else but you", as the song says.
Wow, did I ever hose that comment with the stupid italics. Oh well.
This is completely repugnant, any way you look at it. The woman should have taken her daughter to the nearest abortion clinic instead of Kansas. IMO she should be charged as an accessory. The example of school teachers being sent to jail for screwing their students is exactly right. Marriage does not change that.
Oh, one more thing, if both participants were male, that 22 year old could look forward to being practically lynched. Yet, as long as it's male-female, the age difference doesn't matter. Remember, they got married AFTER she became pregnant.
Good 'ol Phil Kline, AG of Kansas, gave up his law license twice, and was still elected to state wide office, as the top lawyer no less. He's too busy looking at abortion files to worry about another hillbilly shotgun wedding. God, don't get me going on Kansas, where gravity is just a theory...
Can we get real for a minute? I used to be a Case Manager for teen mothers. One of my clients was 13 and the father in question was 22. Up close and personal, this was a situation beyond tragic.
The only reason this case is being prosecuted as a pedophilia one is because it's a real hot issue for people right now and it's easier for people to confront this rather than confront the real problem: that 13 year olds should not be sexually active. Everyone is clueless about how to deal with this. Liberal minded folks are nonchalant about it because they'd sacrifice a flock of vestal virgins rather than appear uncool with regard to sexuality. For some reason, people don't get that they can be sexually liberated and at the same time acknowledge that there should be parameters with regard to age. 13 is just too young to have a sex life. I don't care how hot and horny the adolescent is. That's what masturbation is for. Women who begin having sexual intercourse before the age of 16 have a higher incidence of uterine cancer, PID and a host of other very serious health concerns in later years. This is not a morality issue, it's a health one.
Then, there's the sociological ramifications. Children bearing children. I'm not even gonna take you there on that one. It's a whole other discussion.
If the clinical facts would just be presented to the society at-large, perhaps we could make some headway. There is just too much of this kind of thing going on today. And blaming it all on pedophilia is really confusing the issue. Pedophiles are predators. They are constantly hunting and stalking prey. They are not looking for any kind of commitment. A case like this only diffuses the seriousness of the problem. We are a society with far too many incurable maniacs on the loose, many of whom are serial killers. And prosecuting a case like this will not help the real problem.
I hate to sound medieval, but there was a reason girls were chaperoned in days of yore. And yes, there will always be those hot and horny vixens who will fall through the cracks, but for the most part, we have to turn this thing around.
Yes, it is VERY different when it's a 24 year-old-man having sex with an 11-year-old boy . . . they don't hesitate to call it RAPE:
www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/
2005/07/28/build/state/94-man-raping.inc
Mimi,
Yours is the most sensible comment on this thread. Thanks.
We are a society with far too many incurable maniacs on the loose, many of whom are serial killers. And prosecuting a case like this will not help the real problem.
Overestimating the actual risk as you do above is not helping the problem either.
This is a real problem and it's growing. The double standard that gets society all up in arms when a boy is the victim is proof of how very screwed up the situation is. There are a lot of predators out there. Go to your local state website and check out the lists.
Actually, the number of reported sex offenses has remained static or dropped in North America and Europe over the last 10 years.
mimi- Please don't try and palm off that old wives tail, that sex has something to do with pregnancy, here. We know better.
Sex and pregnancy are two different things and have nothing to do with each other.
Any 13-14 yr. old knows that.
I'm still waiting for you Pam. (I know she reads The News Blog in stir) I'll be waiting for as long as it takes. Why don't you answer my letters?
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