Rape is a crime.
Can we all agree on that, at least?
I agree with you, completely. There is no grey here in my mind.
But the problem that keeps creeping in here is kinda like deciding weather to paint a room blue or green when no one agrees what blue and green are.
Yes it is terrible crime. It should carry serious consequences for anyone who commits it. It can’t be condoned or tolerated. Yes we agree on that. Thee are no rapists or rapid supporters here.
If it is a serious crime it is a serious thing to be accused of. To be falsely accused of committing rape, with all the resulting damage to life of the accused and his reputation, is a crime also. Can you agree with this?
" in the first case of the 19 year old and the 14 year old, both the girl and the mother of the girl stated the young man shouldn’t be punished. "
And they are law enforcement or judges? Seems to me that the two people are a teen who had very very bad judgement to lie about her age in a sexual situation, and a mother who raised her to make that kind of bad judgement. And a mother who left her alone so that she could invite strangers over to have sex.
Sounds the same as a wife not wanting her husband punished for beating her. Is it against the law to assault someone or not?
" The female lies and the male is punished for the crime he didn’t know he was committing. Justice in America."
Ah, so that’s the agenda. A 14 year old is a female so you don’t have to say “girl”. A 19 year old is a teen so you don’t have to say “man”. You a judge in Minnesota or something?
http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2013/08/light-sentence-for-rape-of-14-year-old-sparks-protest/
My brother broke my shoulder when we were teens. If I did tell the police, would it have been fine for my parents to say “no, don’t punish him”? My parents threatened me, they said that if I told the doctor my brother had broken my shoulder, that the police would take me away. What do you think I told the doctor? “I fell” is what I told the doctor.
This returns back to whether statutory rape should be a crime or not. Either it is or it isn’t. Men should protect themselves, and though you can argue that stupidity shouldn’t get you on a sex offender list, please remember that technically a child sexting an image of themselves will get them on the sex offender list.
(and I have to say that I do not believe in the sex offender list in general, because the law that created such registries was a response to someone not keeping tabs on their seven year old, so it can’t be the parents’ fault, it must be society not tracking people based on their past behavior. Sex offender registries have been shown to be ineffective:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/231989.pdf )
(and I also have to say that the 19 year old/14 year old case is proof that when your son turns 18, he has to have “the talk” about not having sex with someone he doesn’t know, because they could be a minor. And you also need to have a talk with your sons and daughters about having sex in college - if their partner is drunk and they are not, they could be charged with rape and thrown out of college, even if the case does not go to the police and courts.)
Underage kids to me are different than 2 adult college students who independently determine their alcohol consumption and I still believe adults get to define their experiences and make decisions about what they want to do if they feel they have been a victim of a what is defined as a crime. But there are also rules about false accusations so it cuts both ways for a alleged victim and an alleged perpetrator of a crime - hence the investigation. I also believe in second chances and redemption so I’m inclined to believe that “sex registries” and all kinds of these “registries” that have cropped up should come with a term limit, especially in the case of first time offenders. I’m also rather leery of rouge judges that seem to come up occasionally with absolutely bizarre rulings…but fortunately those rarely stand on appeal. Hopefully the 14 year old in the mentioned posts has some sort of imposed probation regarding her activities…she needs it.