Closet Culture
 

An excellent article that broadens the context of Foleygate:

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njw...6/1005nj1.htm#

Gays in Congress remind me of the gays in professional sports; the closet can be a really safe place, despite how dark and confining it is.:neutral:

Is this the 4th or 5th thread about this?

Are you one of those George Soros operatives, paid to keep beating on the drum? :D

Drumming
 

No. But I do think it's fascinating how Foleygate has so quickly become the fulcrum on which BOTH the Democrats and Republicans have positioned their arguments. Iraq, while still there, is put on the side burner for now, which the Republicans probably like (since it's really f'd up now more than ever).

Why does anyone care who these people screw?

I only care if the person is underage or mentally incapable of giving consent.

I personally, being underage myself, dont see the issue with having sex with minors. I mean, under the age of 13 maybe, but I think teens should have the right to choose. I sure as hell know a few adults I wou... Er, ahem, nevermind.
Old people having sex with teens is creepy, but I really dont see the legal/moral problem with it, looking at it from this end.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with adults having consentual sex with teens as long as long as the teen is sexually and mentally mature enough. The only reason we view it as perverted is because of social norms.

At its root, it's because unbalanced relationships are unhealthy for one or both people, and at some point we draw a line and say it's too unhealthy to be allowable. Teens should (and do, in most places) have the right to choose to sleep with each other. Think about it this way: if a teen and an adult were dating, do you imagine that the teen would ever be the dominant one in the bedroom? I mean, maybe you'd throw [insert celebrity here] down on the bed and show her what's what, I dunno, :) but if it is a given that one partner has significant power over the other, that's likely to be a relationship society frowns on.

My IE crashed before I was done typing my rant, so you are all spared the full might of my wrath.

Reader's Digest version: If you are an adult, and you put your weener in kids, you should be set on fire.

:mad:

That said, intellectually, I can see the attraction of older teenagers. They don't have wrinkles or age spots. They don't have mileage. They have an energy and vitality that I can see people wanting to reconnect with, particularly if they haven't felt that way themselves for a few decades.

But if you can't wait for your sexual partners to turn 18, you have some serious issues. I mean, really. Just, ugh. The idea of having sex with anyone whose diaper I could've changed at some point is repulsive in itself.

I dunno, I just feel like, as a teenager, I should be able to choose who I fuck. I mean, yeah, I'm not actually going to (and dont reeeally want to) have sex with any of the ones that I would like to, but I just feel like I should be able to.

Hey, I felt the same way. I technically had an over-age boyfriend when I was 16, and I certainly saw nothing wrong with it at the time. :) On the other hand, I know a girl who slept with a teacher at my high school... and while at the time I thought she had every right to decide what she wanted, I now look back on it and think there was no way she was mature enough for that situation. And if you think just getting older changes your perspective, just wait till it's your 15-year-old kid who wants to choose who they fuck. :)

What is mature? Someone having enough experience to make good choices? Let the experiences begin. ;)

The problem is that teenagers mature at different ages. One may be mature enough for sex with an adult at age 12 while another may have to wait until 17. Common sense is all that is needed but that is very rare to come by these days.....

Very true. However, it's not about whether teenagers have the right to have sex with adults, it's about whether adults have the right to have sex with non-adults. And they don't. When you turn 18, you can screw up your life as you see fit, but until then, at least let us THINK we're protecting your naive ass. It makes us feel better.

When I think of some of the people I wanted to do at 16 today, I am eternally grateful that there were mechanisms in place to make it impractical. Ugh. They'd be all old and saggy now. :lol:

Yeah, and thats why I wanna move BEFORE theyre old and saggy!

In Texas you are legally allowed to have sex with any age (no more than 3 or 4yrs your junior) at the age of 17. I think you are allowed to have sex w/ parental consent between 13 to 16, and its illegal under 13.

Not quite. Your parents can consent to your marriage, and then you may have sex with (only) your spouse even if you are underage, but they cannot consent to an illegal act.

www.ageofconsent.com will tell you the exact law in every state and country.

Didn't something regarding this come up in the news recently? Something about how some parents wanted to press charges on a 19yo girl for having sex with their 15yo son or something along those lines. The state refused to press charges even though they pointed out that the act was illegal under the written law even if no one really calls people on it. The idea of 'the spirit of the law' is BS in my opinion. There is what the law says, and what it does not say, both of which can be determined from what is written in the book and nowhere else. None of this "well that's not what it says, but it's what it means" crap. Or "but it wasn't intended to cover cases like that", well guess someone should've written a claus in there huh? If the law doesn't actually say what it's supposed to do then we have some incompetant politicians/lawers who need their names published.

right on.

There's a thing called "legislative history" that goes along with a law. When there is room for interpretation in a law, you can go look up what was discussed about the law by the lawmakers as it was being passed. You get their intent from that. The court should look at the legislative history if there is ever any ambiguity about how a law should be applied. A good lawyer will use that too.

My point is that there isn't that room for interpretation involved. If the law says something then that's what you have to go by, if the law is poorly written and doesn't cover all the bases then you need to change the law on the books. None of this precident crap, if people think a law has become outdated or doesn't include circumstances that are relevant now then you need to rewrite the law. Otherwise you open the entire thing to corruption from 'interpretations' and 'extrapolations' that really arn't appropriate.

Sure, in theory that's a good idea, but in reality, it's very difficult to write a law so that it applies to all situations the way you want it to. That's why there is the concept of case law (precidential court decisions related to your situation) and legislative history when there are ambiguities in the actual law and case law.

Look at the RICO laws that were passed to fight the mafia. They are being stretched by aggressive prosecutors to cover things like the hiring practices of recruiting agencies.

The law is very messy.

The goal of a just society should not be to hurt people by imposing stiff definitions.

You don't seriously think that's the way the legal system works do you?:eyebrow:
Our courts have about as much to do with truth and justice as my choice in bagels this morning had to do with the congressional debates.

Mmmm...congressional bagels...

Notwithstanding this being the case, shouldn't we even try to do a good job?
A system is initially designed to do something, other than trudge ahead, mechanically.

It was designed to deliver justice according to the people it served. Now it serves a population that understands little to nothing about what goes on around them and cares about that deficiency even less. One of my favorite quotes is "Democracy ensures that people will be governed no better then they deserve", and it retains its meaning if you change it to "Our laws ensure that society will receive the justice it deserves". Only problem is that we have been taught that what we deserve is not dependent on our abilities.

Dude...okay that's great. Now, back to the topic: should laws be unreasonably inflexible, to the point of failing to apply to reality?

or, to put it another way, if the majority of the population do it and want it, should it be illegal?

No, if the majority really does want it then we should do it, that's what a democracy is. If we choose to legalize something though we should be clear about it, and I hope we would have a reason to justify the change more powerful than "well now we wanna do it". If it's legal it's legal, no if-ands-or-buts about it afterward, do you think people are going to be able to do that? I think there's enough ambiguity and chance for harm to keep the law as it is.

so..... mob rule rules?

how about 'let the people choose'. You are using the term 'mob rule' as a negative, but you are calling society a mob. It may or may not be, but either way it deserves the right to shape its own fate.

It does, and we have. What we were discussing (interpretable law) is the way things are done.

My point orginally was that laws should be flexible, but through the use of provisions, not precident alone.