I cant believe anyone would argue that a 50year old molesting a 5 year old and a 17 year old having sex with his 15 yearold girlfriend have committed the same crime!!! Yet that is how the courts treat these 2 completly different actions.

I agree wiht the article in that its time this is given a 2nd look in the courts. A relative of mine did 5 years in prison for being the 17 year old in the above example, and he is now labeled a sex offender for life. It's just so wrong

Your relative broke the law and as such should pay the penality that is on the books........PERIOD...... You can't choose which laws you are going to obey and which you are not without paying the penality if you get caught....PERIOD

But society can take a 2nd look at laws and change them when they are considered to be unfair. PERIOD (to borrow your style). That's what the original post is asking for. Many laws are deemed unfair over time and as a result they get changed.

I agree that it's patently unfair to consider a 50 year old with a 15 year old and a 17 year old with a 15 year old as the exact same thing. The 50 year old isn't likely to be a junior in the same high school where the 15 year old is a freshman. He or she is more likely to be a teacher.

Teacher and freshman oral sex = very, very wrong.

Junior and freshman oral sex = is that the same thing?

Because come on - how can you claim to be protecting the "innocence" of a 15 year old when he or she is naturally ready to start exploring their sexuality?

Start teaching morality, decency and stop acting like 15 year olds are nothing more than dogs in the street.

TruettCollins:

Your relative broke the law and as such should pay the penality that is on the books........PERIOD...... You can't choose which laws you are going to obey and which you are not without paying the penality if you get caught....PERIOD

Nobody has suggested that one can choose which laws they are going to obey and which they are not.

Did you and I read the same post?

TruettCollins:

Start teaching morality, decency and stop acting like 15 year olds are nothing more than dogs in the street.

Once again...

Just whom are you addressing this to?

And do you and your neighbor or the cashier you just dealt with at the grocery store share the same morals?

Their "morality" is not going to be the same as yours.

Millions of Muslim men think it's perfectly normal to treat Women as far less than equal.

Are they wrong or are you?

What's immoral to me may not be to you.
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. . . akin to dogs in the street? What are they doing that adults aren't? Are you thinking that anyone who has sex prior to marriage is rutting like an animal? If so, many people would agree with you, but you still haven't explained why a 17 year old should be treated as a rapist for an act that would not be considered rape if the partner was 1 year older.

IT IS CALLED THE LAW.....

Everyone has at least one law that they don't necessarily agree 100% with. I have several. I cannot imagine mike, my boyfriend when I was 15, going to jail for our actions. That would have devastated ME! He did nothing wrong. At least nothing that I also didn't do. He was 17 at the time. That, law or not, is not only punishing the older CHILD, but setting the younger up for feelings of potentially incapacitating guilt and confusion. At least as far as future relationship health. It does more harm than good.

That being said, ACTUAL child molestors should be tortured for as many years as the number of children they hurt, by various methods then burnt to death. This should all be done in a public forum by death row inmates. Because they would just do a better job.

Your arguement appears to be it should be illegal because it's illegal. Very circular. Many people do not believe that it should be illegal for a 17 year old to have sex with a 15 year old. Do you have a reason for believing otherwise?

Exactly! And back in the late 1800s, black people shouldn't have ever tried using the same facilities as white people, because IT WAS THE (JIM CROW) LAW......

...AND LAW CAN BE CHANGED.

That's what legislations do, and that's what the article (and most commenters) is calling for.

So now we know that at 15 your nor your boyfriend had any morals....I wonder if you have matured any and gained any.

This attitude of today’s society that we need to make these changes just because they say teenagers are going to do it any way is simply another example of the degradation of our society. First of all 15-16 year olds are not ready to be parents and should not be having sex PERIOD, it is time to turn the downward spiral this society is in around and teaching decency, morality, and that we are not simply animals but have a will and are able to overcome animalistic behavior. Second of all if you use this argument then you might as well make murder, rape, robbery all legal after all people are going to do it anyway.

TruettCollins:

Second of all if you use this argument then you might as well make murder, rape, robbery all legal after all people are going to do it anyway.

Murder, rape and robbery victims do not give the perpetrators their consent so your comparison does not apply.