Tagged “statutory rape”

“It means ‘statutory rape’ instead of ‘lewd and lascivious’”

And yet, instead of trumpeting my loyalty to this most reasonable cause, Brightbill drags me into the fray, pretending that I think that a parent-approved courtship in a situation like the one in the case she mentions mitigates anything. It mitigates nothing. ‘Mitigates’ would mean that Crime X becomes, as a result of this mitigation, crime x. Rather, my hostility to this kind of thinking meant that I thought that Crime X was actually Crime Y. It means ‘statutory rape’ instead of ‘lewd and lascivious.’
Douglas Wilson

“the kind of offense that you execute people for”

The fact that someone was convicted of a sex offense does not mean that all sex offenses are in the same category of offense. We do need to have the category of statutory rape, and it needs to policed with tough sanctions, but we also need to remember that it is a different kind of offense from the rape of a three-year-old. The latter is the kind of offense that you execute people for, and the former usually is not. It is important to distinguish, in terms of legal consequences, the creep show from the fornicator.
Douglas Wilson

“I believe that violent rape by a sexual predator should be answered by a tall tree and a short rope.”

Second, given what I said above, I believe that violent rape by a sexual predator should be answered by a tall tree and a short rope. But I don’t believe that the statutory rape of a seventeen-year-old girl by her nineteen-year-old boyfriend should be treated the same way. Sue me. In between those two extremes of rape are various other gradations of rape, and I am afraid to disappoint Ms. Moon, but I am not in favor of any of them. Who would have thought? I would want to punish them differently, but I would want to punish them all.
Douglas Wilson

“But when we are dealing with young children who are abused by adults . . . the penalty for those guilty of the crime should be death.”

Our civil law includes the category of statutory rape, which is certainly a biblical concept. If someone under the age of adult responsibility is forcibly taken away (whether for sexual purposes or not), the crime is a species of kidnapping, which in Scripture deserves the death penalty. Part of the reason why a society should have wise and godly men for judges is that they must determine in such cases whether the one raped is almost of age. But when we are dealing with young children who are abused by adults (pederasty, child porn, etc.) the penalty for those guilty of the crime should be death.
Douglas Wilson