ATLANTA - The courtroom was packed with supporters and cameras Friday as Georgia's top justices heard arguments over whether a young man serving a 10-year prison term for consensual oral sex with a fellow teenager should be freed.The idea that they should imprison this young man for 10 years because they fucked up and are concerned about other child molesters is disgusting. Why does he get to be the one that has his life destroyed because of the bat-shit craziness of the assholes in Georgia?
The long punishment spurred angry protests and led the state to change the sentencing law. A state judge in June ordered the young man freed, but because of an appeal by the state attorney general, Genarlow Wilson remains behind bars.
The Supreme Court justices will decide whether the state judge's order freeing Wilson should stand.
Attorney General Thurbert Baker argues that the order to free Wilson, if upheld, could be used to help free some 1,300 child molesters from Georgia prison.
"We urge you to look beyond the confines of this case," Senior Assistant Attorney General Paula Smith told the court's seven justices Friday.
This whole debacle is simply maddening. He was convicted of "aggravated child molestation", a felony, for having consensual sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. I knew countless people who were doing the same thing when I was growing up, and the loons in Georgia would have put them all in prison for 10 years? Are you fucking kidding me?
But hey.. they're trying to "fix" the problem with the sentencing, because we know the loons are all about compassion and forgiveness, being good Christians and all;
The 1995 law Wilson violated was changed in 2006 to make oral sex between teens close in age a misdemeanor, similar to the law regarding teen sexual intercourse. But the Supreme Court later ruled the 2006 law could not be applied retroactively.So they changed it to a misdemeanor? Meaning - it's still illegal! Holy fuck!
This is human behavior we're talking about.. the biological imperative to procreate that has driven humanity for millions of years, and now the assholes are making it illegal? It's vile and disgusting that these right wing freaks would have any say in the matter what-so-ever. The issue of teenage consensual sexual activity is purely a matter for the families involved. But, because we know the Christian bastards have to stick their nose in everybody else's business, we now how have ruined lives.
And that's what conservatives do. They ruin people's lives.
Remember, we're talking about two people whose age difference is 2 years. We're not talking about a 30 year old with a 15 year old.
It's larger than this case, of course. There are countless people in prison for ridiculous reasons. The whole "war on drugs" is a huge disaster, littered with the ruined lives of drug addicts, and judges have no legal authority to make common sense decisions because of minimum sentencing rules pushed by the conservatives.
This is all about being "tough on crime", right? It's exactly why so many people support war. It's fear of the boogey man. For right wing loons, anything that makes life harder for other people is the right thing to do, because they are consumed by hatred and fear. That's the nature of religion - fear. That's it's basis. Throw in jealousy and self-loathing and you can see the seething anger that drives everything they do.
Why not raise the "age of consent" to 20? Why not make it 25? Why not pass legislation making it a felony to have sex outside of a marriage, and raise the minimum age to marry? A Republican Senator can have sex with prostitutes, which is illegal, and has the sympathy of the entire loon-o-sphere, but anybody else gets prison!
Why not simply execute an 18 year old that has sex with a 17 year old? After all, it's technically child molestation because one is an adult and the other is not. Remember, this is not rape. We're talking about consensual activity.
The really weird thing is that in many ways, the world becomes more liberal as time moves forward, but these repugnant ideas about sexuality we see advancing in the land of the loons is completely regressive. It used to be custom to marry at age 14 or younger, and the ages of what society considers "mature" keeps going up and up.
Think about your own youth. Did you know what you were doing when you were 16? I sure as hell did. I was responsible for myself and what I chose to do and not do. Why does society continually try and stigmatize what is really a beautiful thing?
I also find it highly absurd that a 17 year old could be imprisoned for 10 years for having sex with a 15 year old, when he could, at one more year of age, go fight and die in a war. In fact, the loons would encourage him to enlist and go fight the "terraists" and potentially have his brains sprayed all over a wall from an IED. But God forbid he have sex or even a god damn beer.
So.. what to do? Lower the age of consent to 16. That's the age used in many European countries, including England. In fact, the age of consent is determined by state law and not federal, and in my home state of Texas, it's 17 - not 18. Then, change laws regarding "child molestation" when it involves consensual acts between people of close ages, so that a 17 year old that has sex with a 15 year old is not committing an illegal act. Georgia just changed it from a felony to a misdemeanor, but that's not good enough. The entire law needs to be thrown out.
The way the laws are now, thousands and thousands of high school kids are committing crimes on a daily basis. Removing the law will not somehow "sanction" that activity. Making all these kids criminals is, well, criminal.
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