holmes writes me:
quote:
You had also made comments regarding how minor-sex must be defined... always abuse.
Yes,
as far as the law is concerned. I agree there might be scientific justification for viewing it differently, but until someone can come up with a better system for preventing harm to kids than the one we have now, I don't favor making any changes. I certainly don't believe that kids of 12 or 13 ought have to prove harm in court, which is what you implied when you said the law ought to be changed to require that harm be shown. I refer you to
this post, in which you said:
I would like to point out the obvious, if harm is caused then you have a law against causing harm (regardless if the adult can prove it was consensual). That would be all that is necessary. Making an assumption of harm, (just to be sure?) seems sort of superfluous and counterproductive.
But how, if you don't
assume harm, do you assess it without forcing the kid to prove he or she has
been harmed?
holmes, why in hell won't you just lay your case on the line? We've been going through thread after thread dealing with issues like this for months and you always hint at things you never get round to saying. It sometimes seems as though you're baiting me to say something I might regret. You've been going on about this since last summer and I still haven't seen a clear picture of how you would like to see our system changed.
I have some ideas of my own. They don't relate specifically to this issue but they do generally. Probably the most important change I'd like to see is in the area of legal aid to indigent defendants.
You see, that's what I think is probably the greatest need just now in our criminal justice system.
quote:
In addition you have downplayed any analogy between child-sex and homosexuality. There is a very well documented piece making that connection from a psychological, moral and legal standpoint given their history.
Then it might be something I've read before but didn't put much stock in. Fact is I was never abused and never had sex with an adult at all until I
was an adult, so from what I can see myself there is no meaningful connection.
Then again, I had a lover in the 80s who had been horribly abused at age 12 by a preacher. But even in his case there couldn't have been much of a connection because the guy said he'd already started playing around with other boys before the abuse happened. He had never had any interest in girls. The guy never lied to me about anything so I have no reason to doubt he was telling the truth.
quote:
The study was not addressing forensic issues. You could continue to use the current methods and I don't think they'd have a problem with that.
Then what was all of this stuff about changing the law? Are you talking about simply removing the age of consent? Somehow I don't think so because as I see it that would mean that even kids of 16 or 17 would have to do no more than prove that sex happened with an adult in order to convict that adult of child molestation. I don't see any fairness in that.
quote:
I have yet to actually discuss what laws should be in place...
You don't say!
quote:
as no one has ever yet made it through the evidence of harm stage.
What "evidence of harm" stage? Is that buried somewhere in the subsections of
Robert's Rules of Order?
Come on, holmes, get to the point.
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