Apply the same standard regarding statutory rape for same sex couples as for mixed sex couples. Equality is equality.
If you don’t like the result then perhaps the issue is with the statutory rape law. The whole point of such laws is that the victim is not capable of providing legal consent.
CBSNews.com quotes a report from a local NBC affiliate that she has the option of a plea deal. From the sounds of it this deal would not leave the mark of sexual predator on her record.
WPTV reports that the younger female was 14 years old at the time the relationship began.
In order to help prevent this type of event from happening at the school where I teach, seniors are forbidden from dating freshman, and PGs are forbidden from dating freshman and sophomores. The students are also very clearly informed of the statutory rape laws in the state.
This is certainly how it should be everywhere, and it’s a shame that that isn’t the law in Florida.
The notion that two teens, both under 18, are having sex and it’s legal because neither is an adult, but the moment one of them turns 18, it’s a crime, would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so real.
And it shouldn’t matter if it’s two guys, two girls, an older guy and a younger girl, or a younger guy and an older girl.
I don’t see how they should treat it as any different than an opposite sex couple. (Although in the article I read, it was 18 and 14). While I wouldn’t say it’s rape, it’s probably a slap on the wrist/fine type thing.
Until they change the law, I don’t think they can make an exception because they were a same-sex couple. While I don’t doubt that homophobia played some role with the parents (and with the school for that matter), the law itself can’t look at it differently. Otherwise, it would be a case of separate but equal.
In the USA in the 1890’s many states held the age of consent at 10; Delaware in fact was age 7 until 1895.
At the same time, in Canada it went from 12 to 14, in a nationwide drive to grow the population.
We’re only hearing one side of the story. Much of her ‘defence’ seems to be that she’s a good student and pretty so she couldn’t possible be a predator as well.
Not sure what the solution is, but 3 years can either be very small or huge, depending on where each of the children are at developmentally. I don’t take it as a given that the relationship was consensual.
In my view this is one of those areas where any solution will work for some situations and not for others.
This is the only reason I chose option three - “not ideal, but probably okay.” The maturity gap between 15 and 18 can occasionally be a yawning chasm. While I think it is a little less likely of an issue with two girls, I’d feel a little more comfortable with the whole thing if the younger girl was 16 or 17. But barring more overtly predatory details emerging it’s still not worth a legal action and pretty shitty form by the prosecuting parents.
What the fuck??? I can understand not having a legal age of consent at all, but they actually went to the trouble to come up with one and SEVEN is what they came up with? I don’t care what year it was, that is insane. Ten isn’t much less insane. Especially when you consider that people were starting puberty later back then. What could these people possibly have been thinking?
As for this case, I think it’s very borderline. Teenagers mature at such different rates that it’s so hard to draw a bold line, but legally you pretty much have to and if you did decide on a case-by-case basis it would end up being at least as unfair. I chose option 3 because it probably isn’t great and as a parent I wouldn’t be too pleased, but it probably isn’t something I think should actually be illegal.
And one more thing, since the line we draw is arbitrary, I think we should make it very, *very *clear to teenagers what the laws are in their jurisdiction and what the consequences can be for breaking them. I don’t remember ever being taught that as a teenager.
Legal in my country. If a teen dating, hooking up or whatever with someone two-three years older was going to be a problem - the immense majority of my cohort’s pairings would have been national crises!
I’m 18 right now and I can’t imagine being in that sort of situation.
Granted, I’ve completed two years of college, but still. Fifteen-year-olds live in a totally different world than me.
(I’m sure most 21-year-olds feel that way about me.)
So I can’t imagine being in a relationship like that, but at the end of the day, who really cares?
The purpose of age of consent laws are to protect young people from having their innocence exploited.
I seriously don’t think anyone can argue that is going on here.
I think Romeo and Juliet laws are very important for any sane society to have in place. In my opinion, a relationship involving a minor and an adult shouldn’t be criminal if the minor is above 14 and there is less than a 4 year gap between them. That would protect a 14-year-old dating an 18-year-old which, while I find that insane, happens in high schools across the country all the time. It would also extend protection to a 17-year-old/21-year-old pairing and anything in between, which is reasonable in my opinion.
Then again, that is just my opinion, and it’s based on what I subjectively think makes sense in terms of development. I’m not sure what sort of other standard there could be.
I’m going with option 3 too. I know the law can’t be “Well, it depends on the kids” but maturiy varies like crazy at those ages.
The parents have the right, of course, of forbidding a legal adult from having a sexual relationship with their 15 year old. If the adult refuses, then what? I wonder if part of the reasoning behind the two year house arrest in the plea deal was to keep them seperated.
The law of course can, and should, be “it depends on the kids”. If consent is given, the age doesn’t matter. If consent isn’t, or cannot, be given, the age also doesn’t matter. The idea that a fifteen year old is unable to consent to sex is observably false - as this case demonstrates.