This Free Kate story is making me twitch a bit.
Its another of those where, to me, the issue isn't quite as clear cut as these parents might be trying to make it sound.
I'm trying to sort why I am feeling the way I am .
First off, I have a real problem when parents, trying to protect their kid, are wanting to challenge the protection of consent laws for children by turning it into an issue about homophobia and sexual experimentation.
They are also faulting the law for existing, the school for allowing mixed age mingling of students without some parameters of some sort, the school for telling the other parents, the other parents for reporting it to the police, and the district attorney who should spend taxpayers money prosecuting real criminals. Whoa.
We only have the alleged perpetrators parents side of the story. What's the other side?
Second, I don't always get the concept of "legal consent". Somehow on the morning of their 18th birthday, it seems we expect some wisdom and growth was wasn't there the night before.
Third, the parents are giving conflicting stories. The mother is saying her daughter always dated boys but had told her she was dating a girl now. The father says they had known about their daughters sexual preference for a long time. To me, this sets up a credibility issue.
Fourth, the mother indicates she made many assumptions about this. She assumed the other family knew. She assumed the other family accepted it. Why assume? Why not just ask your kid? Was she aware of the differences in their ages and the potential pitfalls?
Part of this is sounding like she wanted to be supportive of her child's developing sexuality but was reluctant or unsure of how to go about it.
Fifth, if these young women are both in the IB program, they are very bright kids, albeit still kids. Did anyone talk to these kids?
Sixth, if this was an 18 year old boy and a 15 year old girl, would I look at it differently?
Seventh, the Free Kate page is postulating the following:
"The law needs to change, not only to protect Kate, but to protect the millions of teenagers, boys and girls, straight and gay, whose lives are regularly ruined because parents disapprove of their children's sexual choices. We want justice for all 18-year-old high school seniors who have undergone criminal prosecution for exercising poor judgement in their dating life. Such students are not predators. They're just kids. Likewise, we believe the law should not be arbitrarily enforced based on a parent's anger. Parents should be empowered to protect their children, but not at the price of destroying another young person's life forever."
This is the same type of rationale I have seen used when male high school athletes have been accused of taking sexual advantage of intoxicated young classmates. Just poor judgment. Shouldn't destroy a young persons life or their potential future athletic career.
I don't know what to think.
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