The law is such to protect underage people who may be unable to make an appropriate decision about sex.
Quite honestly, I knew what the statuatory limits were on consent when I moved to Arizona at age 14. I also knew what they were in Illinois before then.
If you don't like it, vote in congresspeople who will lower the age.
And obviously this is a great example of how the law is poorly constructed and applied, even if it was made with good intentions. It is incredibly crucial for there to be discretionary power to interpret individual situations rather than only rigid adherence to what can be at the very best a general guideline.
First of all, the punishment does not fit the so-called "crime" in this
particular instance, and I think we can both acknowledge an overwhelming majority of the public would agree with this assessment; after all, the legal system is supposed to effectively represent the overall best interests of the public.
Secondly, he is not at all alone in what he did: there must be 1000s of teenagers in his state "guilty" of a similar "crime" who will
not be pursued in this system, because hardly anyone would take this sort of situation seriously. So not only is the public indifferent, the law is inconsistently applied, even if there is some good sense behind it (and there clearly is none).
The problem isn't with the legal age limit, and the solution isn't to tell the few people who are even aware of this story to change their votes as a result. The problem is the idea that fairness in this system is construed to mean a uniform interpretation of undoubtedly limited laws and regulations. The solution is to start fresh, after having sterilized those below a certain intelligence quotient, in the hope that such an unthoughtful, ineffective and inflexible system will not develop once again. In Canada the boy wouldn't have been found guilty of anything, as there is a 2 year age difference between him and the girl. In other states, this wouldn't have been heard in court. Is there such a large cultural difference between Canada and the US to account for this incredibly large difference in outcomes? Is there such a large cultural difference between the state this boy lives in and other states to account for such a drastic difference in outcomes? In this case it shouldn't matter exactly what's written down on paper. It should matter whether someone with a high functioning brain is making these life-changing
discretionary,
individual decisions.
